McCardie, who passed away in spring 2024, will play Isaac Grant in the upcoming series.
Outlander: Blood of My Blood wants to honor the memory of late cast member Brian McCardie.
McCardie, who died unexpectedly in spring 2024, was in production on the Starz prequel series when he passed away.
The Scottish actor appeared on Outlander back in its first season in 2015 as Sir Marcus MacRannoch, but he was taking on the new role of Isaac Grant in Blood of My Blood. Though he hadn’t wrapped on his part for season 1, producers Matt Roberts and Maril Davis say they have no plans to recast the character.
“We lost Brian McCardie,” Roberts tells Entertainment Weekly. “He’s Isaac Grant and no one could ever be Isaac Grant other than him. We had planned story for him going forward. If there is going to be season 2, we would’ve planned story for him because he’s just such a powerful character.”
A character new to the world of Outlander, Isaac Grant is the head of Clan Grant and the father of Malcolm Grant (Jhon Lumsden), a potential suitor for Ellen Mackenzie (Harriet Slater), eventual mother to Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan).
“He’s the other side of the coin of Lord Lovat,” Roberts says of McCardie’s character and his relationship with the wily father of Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy), father of Jamie. “Every scene he was in, he just brought the level up and you just go, ‘Oh my god, I want to see more of him.'”
To that end, the creative team decided that they wanted to honor McCardie’s work as it stands, rather than doing reshoots with a new actor. “It was a tragedy,” continues Roberts. “But the one thing we wanted to do after we took a beat to grieve was decide that we want to preserve his work. We don’t want to recast and reshoot. We want to preserve that.”
Because McCardie’s scenes were not yet finished, the writers were sent back to the drawing board. “We had to figure out a way to go down the road that we wanted to go down, but it was going to be a parallel road,” says Roberts. “It wasn’t going to be the same road. So, we created a whole new character to take on some of that storyline. But it won’t be the same storyline that we were planning.”
Davis shared a statement on behalf of the cast and crew in the days following McCardie’s death. “On behalf of the Blood of My Blood and Outlander family, we are devastated by the news of Brian McCardie’s sudden passing,” she wrote. “Brian was beloved on our set for his warmth, kindness and wonderful sense of humor. He will be missed and our hearts go out to his family and everyone who knew him.”
Blood of My Blood premieres on Starz on Aug. 8, and Davis and Roberts promise a thrilling romance and escape for viewers.
“We are going to [show] not only one great love affair, but two great love affairs and how those parallel love stories intertwine and show us how we got to Jamie and Claire (Caitriona Balfe),” Davis previously told EW. “And along the way, we’re going to see the family dynamics of three different clans and see an amazing, rollicking adventure.”
“Fate and destiny are words we lean on in Outlander,” Davis added. “In Blood of My Blood, we have the ability to show that Jamie and Claire aren’t the only couple who are destined to be together.”