The Starz series Outlander just had its Season 7 Part 2 finale, leaving the beloved characters on an optimistic note to hold fans over until the final season. After finding their kidnapped son in 1980, Brianna (Sophie Skelton) brought Jemmy and Mandy to 1739, so that they could all be reunited with Roger (Richard Rankin). Knowing that she can’t risk running into her own father when he comes home from university and not running to return to a time period that Rob Cameron inhabits, all that’s left for Brianna and Roger to decide is what time period they should take up residence and raise their family in. But you’ll have to stay tuned for Season 8 for that!
During this one-on-one interview with Collider, Skelton talked about Brianna’s growth over the seasons, letting her mama bear out, how lonely it was to shoot this block of episodes because the kids could only work limited hours, filming the reunion with Roger, why she’s super proud of this point in Bree and Roger’s relationship, that Brianna wants to keep her family together in one time period from now on, the “epic” final season, and what has most surprised her about the Outlander fandom. She also discussed being excited to take on new projects, why she’d like to film somewhere with sunshine, and being open to the possibility of another long-running TV series in the future.
Sophie Skelton Has Been Waiting To Play This Version of Brianna for Eight Years on ‘Outlander’
Collider: Every season is really difficult and emotionally challenging for these characters, but any time a child is in danger or under threat, that would be heightened even further. I really appreciate how active your character was in finding her son. Was it nice to see the growth that she’s had to get her to the place she was in, in this half of the season? What was it like to really let that mama bear come out?
SOPHIE SKELTON: It’s actually extremely refreshing to let what I think is Brianna, at her core, out. When we started the show, there was a lot I had to rein back in. She was a little less mature, and a little less evolved. She didn’t know herself as well, and didn’t quite know how to handle her emotions or her outlets. And so, there’s so much of Brianna that I had to just let unfold as the seasons went on, and I was so eager to get to this point. Actually, I think the most authentic Brianna is where she is just raw and emotionally open. She’s such an empathetic person and she is such a protective person. One thing for her is that she felt like she never really had anybody to protect her. And so, when it comes to the point that she really can be a parent, she’s gonna completely do that.
The hardest parts for her in this season were when she felt like she wasn’t in control, and she had to relinquish that and let Roger go and find Jemmy. A couple of episodes ago, when we find her in the kitchen, it just shows the helplessness and hopelessness of not being able to be in the driver’s seat of your own child’s well-being. And so, what I love about this episode, and the ones before it, is that she really can take the reins a bit more. I think that is when Brianna is in her element. So, yeah, it was a relief for me, as an actor, to be able to play this version of Brianna, who I’ve been waiting to play for eight years. For Brianna, it’s a relief because her family’s back together. She realizes that that’s all that matters to her right now and that’s all she needs. It doesn’t matter where it is or what’s going on. Everyone being able to be in her arms is a safety that she’s never known.
You described Brianna in an interview as being a bit of a hot mess this season, and I don’t really see it that way because she’s had one of her children taken and Roger’s in another time period, and that would push anyone to the limit. You can give her a little bit of a room on the hot mess of it all.
SKELTON: For sure. Look, I would never say “hot mess” with any judgment. One thing you can never do is judge your character. And I, as a person, am not a judgmental person. But one thing you should never do is judge your character because then obviously you can’t play it authentically. You have to be able to justify every decision your character makes and be on board with it, whether you agree or not. When I say “hot mess” it’s because it’s just a plethora of emotions and shit, quite frankly, that sometimes you just don’t know where to start. When Rob Cameron comes to the house and he is just not negotiating with her, it’s that helplessness again and that frustration. She has nothing at this point and has nothing to lose. That just puts you in a headspace that I would describe as a boiling pan. It’s unpredictable.
Were you at least a little impressed that she would pick up a gun and fire it to protect her family? Do you think she would have killed him if she had the chance?
SKELTON: Absolutely. Yeah, I think she would. She’s been through too much. She’s not as hotheaded as she used to be. I do think that she acts with a little bit more context and intelligence now. I’m not saying that she would do it from a place of naïveté and being like, “Yeah, okay, cool. I can kill people and get away with it.” But her son has been taken. The one thing that is great about this season is that question of what lengths would you go to? Not just the characters on screen, but it makes you, as a viewer, check in on that situation. What would you do? If this guy has your child, and your child could have gone to any time period and you might never find him, in the heat of the moment, what lengths would you go to? Brianna has just been through so much trauma and grown up in a time in the 18th century where that was unfortunately just a norm. That absolutely is where her muscle memory defaults to now.
Sophie Skelton Loves That Brianna Was the One To Take Care of Her ‘Outlander’ Family
I also love that she knows Roger well enough to know that he wouldn’t ever return home without their son, so she’s the one that had to go find him to reunite the family herself. Did it feel extra special to you that she was the one who actually got her family back together?
SKELTON: Yeah. One thing that the show started out on was being very female-led, and we’re very proud of that. Obviously, it’s sometimes beautiful to throw in a sprinkle of damsel in distress in there. That’s realistic. It’s definitely great that the writers and producers have remembered our roots and where the show came from and circle back to that. So, yeah, Brianna being the one to save the day and the one to again take the reins and take the risk and go back and be the one who puts the food on the table and the one who takes care of the family, I think is a really cool message. That’s a really good message to send out to a lot of the younger fans that have grown up with Brianna. You can do it all and you don’t have to rely on somebody. It’s amazing when you can, and Brianna can rely on Roger, but also, she can do this.
Not only can this woman do it all, but she can do it all in a multitude of time periods.
SKELTON: I know. Even when I said the “hot mess” thing, she used to be very stoic and she used to come across like she had, again excuse my language, all her shit together. And actually, what I love about her now is that she’s far more vulnerable and transparent and raw in her emotions. Actually, she’s freaking out. She doesn’t know what to do. Life really is on top of her, and somehow she digs in and she finds a way. That is a beautiful thing I love about the show. It’s not all sunshine and daisies, and we don’t make impossible stuff look easy. It’s very much like, do you know what? Sometimes it’s okay to be at rock bottom. It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to feel lost and not know what to do. That’s why I love some of those scenes where Brianna is on her own, or she’s putting on a brave face for Mandy. There’s a little bit of realism sprinkled in there, which I think is really important for people to see.
How did you find the experience of filming a good chunk of the season apart from pretty much all the rest of your cast? Usually you at least have somebody with you. Did it feel like it kind of allowed extra room for her to grow, or did it just feel lonely and separated from everybody else?
SKELTON: Yeah, it felt lonely. It maybe, in a weird way, allowed her to connect with herself a bit more. I certainly felt that for those scenes where Brianna sat on her own, staring into space and feeling lost and there’s nothing she can do except wait. In that silence is often where you re-find yourself a little bit, which I know sounds really corny, but in those moments, Brianna’s life is so busy. She’s a full-time working mom. She’s got two kids. She’s renovating a house. There’s time travel, and all this stuff. In those moments where she’s just sitting on the couch and Mandy is asleep and she has nothing, that often is louder than when you’ve got all the noise going on. It’s in those moments that you can find the most strength because those moments are quite scary. I do think she maybe didn’t grow in those moments, but maybe just had a minute to sit with herself for a second, which I don’t ever think she gets the chance to do. But yeah, for me, it was a weird season. Caitriona [Balfe] came on set one day because I think she had a scene after me or she was directing. She just popped on and was like, “Wow, I didn’t really realize how isolated you’ve been all season.” It was just me, my broken hand, and two kids. That’s why they wrote the broken finger into the season as well. It was a lot to deal with. I was going through some stuff.
And then, there are the things that people don’t even think about who don’t know how sets are run or how things are really shot. I would imagine there were times when you were doing scenes with the kids where the kids weren’t even there because they can only work a certain amount of hours. So then, you’re even more alone than people realize because it doesn’t look that way in the scene.
SKELTON: Totally, and I love that you said that. Yeah, with the kids’ hours and the breaks they need to have and the amount of time, obviously we shoot very long days and the kids can only do certain hours. They have to have breaks every X amount of time, but we fit a lot in a day. We don’t have time to just stop shooting. It’s too big of a show. So, yeah, most of those scenes will just be me to a crew member on their knees, pretending to be Jemmy, which often is more distracting. I’m like, “Just put a mark on the wall for me, and I’ll find that and just do the scene with that.” So, yes, you’re right, most of the time, it’s just me acting with me, or a tennis ball. There’s no emotion coming back at you then. You’ve gotta imagine it.
What I really loved about the reunion is that it’s played out in two parts, with Roger seeing Jemmy first before he knew that Brianna and Mandy were also there. Was there a conversation about how that whole reunion should play out? Did you talk about or shoot any different versions of that moment? When you’re waiting for so long for a moment like that to happen, how do you even get it as perfect as you want it to be?
SKELTON: Actually, I think the writers pretty much had that in mind, that Jemmy emerged first. Obviously, a throughline of the season for them has been looking for him, so that was really fitting. But us coming through the smoke was the hardest thing. In Scotland, we’re always battling the weather and the wind and everything else, so the logistics of that scene was probably the hardest bit, and kids’ hours and trying to get the perfect lighting, which is always tricky when you’re on location. But in terms of the configuration of the order we all came through, that was actually pretty set. That was our one goal.
That was a double tear-jerker moment.
SKELTON: Yeah, exactly. For us, as well. I think that was the last shot together, which is always quite nice. You never know if, next season, the kids will be older and they won’t be in again, so you do actually get that authentic feel of saying goodbye. And to Lallybroch, as well.
When you think back to who Brianna was, the first day you walked onto the set, now that you’ve done the whole series and you can think about what it is, as a whole, does this particular moment feel like one of those important points in her story that will always be an important point in her story?
SKELTON: Yeah, it does. Brianna had two parents, then she had one, then she had none, then she had one, then two, then none. She probably has some abandonment issues. She’s very much been on her own. She doesn’t have siblings. She doesn’t have grandparents. She’s been quite a lonely kid, and she’s had nothing short of a lot to deal with in her life and a lot of loss. And so, for her to actually have her own family and for them to be back in a time when they can, together, maybe go find her parents again, maybe not, or set up life there. The concept of her kids having an uncle, or a great uncle, is wonderful to Brianna because she just never had family. So, yeah, that scene really did mean a lot because she’s been desperate for that, her whole life. It’s been taken away from her, time and time again. Now really feels like a time when she’s been to hell and back, and whatever happens now, we are dealing with it as a family. We’re not splitting up. That is such a fresh feeling for her. It’s such a character peak for her because I just think it’s a point of life that she’s never really had before. The concept of everyone being able to be together and the extended family is surreal to her.
‘Outlander’s Sophie Skelton Is Proud of How Far Brianna and Roger Have Come
At the same time that you’ve been exploring her arc, you’re also exploring the relationship arc with her and Roger. When you think of where their relationship got to by the end of this season, even by the end of the series as a whole, how does that journey feel to you? Do you feel satisfied now with the closure of their story?
SKELTON: Yeah, I’m super proud of them, as characters. They both had so much growing to do, individually and together. One thing that I’ve always loved about the show is that it shows very different types of relationships and not all ideas of romance have to be the same. We’ve been fed a lot with movies that this is what it should look like. What’s great about Brianna and Roger, but it’s also their downfall, is that it’s real. They make mistakes. They don’t communicate, which drives me crazy. They’ve not handled things fantastically in the past, yet they still work through it. I’m really proud of the people they are now and the couple they are now. They seem to communicate better and they seem to really be dealing with the external as a team, as opposed to letting the external come in and tear them apart. That is all you can really ask for. It’s come to a really cool pinnacle of their relationship, at this point.
By the end of the season, they make this decision to reunite with Claire and Jamie, even though we don’t get to see that family reunion yet.
It seems like they’ve made that decision. Whether they’ll stay in that time period or go to another time period, it seems like they want to be reunited. What will it mean to her to have that reunion again, after becoming this person that she is now? She’s put her family back together and it feels like she’s found a strength that she didn’t necessarily fully know she had. How different will that make her in Season 8, reuniting with them and getting through what she has to get through in the last season?
SKELTON: I think one thing that Brianna will always bet on is herself. She has had to be exceedingly strong before, which I think has actually been maybe a little bit damaging for her, but I don’t think she ever doubts that she will make it through something. And so, I don’t know that that necessarily would be a changing factor when she reunites with her parents, but I do think that sense of relief will be something that she’s never felt quite to that extent before. She and Claire have always had a very mother-daughter, best friendy relationship that’s switched around. At times, Brianna has been the mother to Claire, and vice versa. And so, I think she’s always had that strength and that mama bear element in her, so I don’t necessarily think that would be different around Jamie and Claire. It’s just that now, more than ever, she will really hold onto what she has when she has it.
After the loss of Jemmy, if they were to reunite again, I really think that will be the last time Brianna’s leaving. I don’t think she’s messing around with this time travel thing anymore. Now she knows that she can take any potential guilt away and that she’s not putting her kids in more or less danger by being in the past. It’s like, “You know what? We’ve tried to do the safest thing for them and go to the future, but everywhere’s fucked. We’re gonna stay here forever now, with mom and dad.” She will now just hold onto the entire extended family unit, as opposed to just her own, more than ever. It’s all the same priority now. So, I think that’s what will change, just that anchoring down.
‘Outlander’s Sophie Skelton Is Excited for Fans To See What’s in Store for the Final Season
With the finale done and Outlander fans setting a countdown clock for when the final season will finally air, what would you say to tease what you’re most excited about with the final season?
SKELTON: It’s really hard when you get to this point of a show. It can feel like you’re just circulating stories again, or it can feel like stuff’s getting diluted or a little bit recycled. But I, personally, from my stuff, am so excited for people to see Season 8. Like you said before, there is a change in Brianna. She is written like much more of a secure woman now, and I loved playing that. I really loved the dynamic with everyone in Season 8. And I also think everybody knowing for sure that it was the last one, that relationship and that magic just really comes out on screen. We’ve all known each other for ten years. It’s family, and so you really feel it. There’s just much more grit to Season 8, in my opinion, for Brianna at least. I know that with Season 4 we were like, “This is our favorite season.” But genuinely, Season 8, for me, is like Season 1 or Season 4, it’s just epic. I know Droughtlander is always long, and that must be so hard. I won’t say, “I promise,” but I think this one will be worth it. And it’s the final one, so let’s just hold onto it while we have it.
Having closed the book on the series and the character, what really most surprised you about just the entire experience of having spent so many years telling a story and playing the same character? What couldn’t you have imagined before you’d actually done it and completed it?
SKELTON: That’s a good question. I think we’re very lucky with the show, in that I’ve gotten to play Brianna from age 16, with all the flashbacks with Frank, played by Tobias Menzies. I loved working with him. We managed to do age 16 to age 32 or 35, whatever Brianna ends up as. With the flashbacks, time periods, and so many different characters coming in and out, it just feels like we’ve done a lot of shows in one, in that sense. I’m lucky that, for me at least, each season has been quite fresh. We’ve had a different layer of Brianna that’s been peeled away, and now in Season 8, we’re getting to a version of her that I’m super proud of. Because of the books, I always knew that we were gonna have that, so that wasn’t necessarily a surprise element.
Honestly, the thing that’s the most surprising to me, out of all of it, is just the fandom. Obviously, I knew what I was getting myself into in Season 2. I’d seen the response to Season 1, and it was incredible. And the way the fans welcomed me was incredible, just the vulnerability of the fans, with Brianna having been through so much sexual trauma and death and so many things, and the letters and the people that reach out when you see them and the stories that they give you and the trust that they put in you. They end up telling me things that they’ve never told anyone before, and somehow either Brianna or me playing Brianna allows them to open up and helps them heal. That, to me, has been the most surprising and rewarding thing of all of it. It’s just so cool to see this new age of fandom coming in with the show, growing up with Roger and Brianna, and learning so much from Bree and becoming stronger for it and believing in themselves more has just been more powerful than I could ever imagined. It’s really cool.
It also feels pretty remarkable that they’ve stayed as strong or even been stronger from season to season. Fandom tends to wane a little bit, and it doesn’t feel like it ever did for the show.
SKELTON: Yeah, it snowballed. I was like, “Oh, there’s more of you. Droughtlander was very long. I thought you’d all be dropping off, but it’s building.” Yeah, that’s super rare. I’m really astounded and grateful. It’s very cool. One of the first things a lot of fans ask me is, “What are you doing next?” It’s nice that they’re not invested in just the character anymore. They’re invested in us because it’s been so long, and it’s lovely because they just want to see what you’re doing next and they want to follow you, as opposed to just the character. That’s really something, and I’m super touched by that.
Sophie Skelton Wants To Be a Chameleon in the Next Stage of Her Career
Does it feel really weird to try to find the next thing when you’ve played a character for so long? As an actor, you always want to play different characters, but it seems like after playing a character for 10 years, it would be even harder to try to figure out what to take on after that?
SKELTON: Honestly, I’m just quite excited to do something different. I’m quite lucky in that we had the wig, we had the costumes, we had the completely different time period, and my accent is different. So, for me, it was really easy to leave Brianna at the door, for many reasons, but that all helps. I’m quite excited to just be a bit of a chameleon and go completely into something else. I quite like people not being able to identify what I look like as Sophie. Even fans will come to a convention and think they’re seeing Brianna, and then they’re like, “Oh, you play Brianna.” I feel quite fortunate that I can morph into something else easily. With Season 8, I’ve left Brianna in a place that I feel a lot of closure on, so that makes it a lot easier to go into the next thing. There’s nothing more we can do with that character. She’s laid to rest. She may or may not be good, but she’s done her story. I think it’s really peaceful, actually, to leave her there.
Do you know what you’re going to do next? Do you want to take some time to figure out what you want to do next? Are you looking for a comedy with some nice weather?
SKELTON: A comedy would be great. And yes, when it comes to cold weather, I’ve done my stint for now. Filming somewhere with sunshine would be fantastic for a little while. No more pneumonia from night shoots in the cold.
Now that you’ve wrapped a series where you’ve played the same character for 10 years, is that something you’d ever consider doing again? Would you be interested in doing another long-running series, or would you prefer to know ahead of time that it would be something with a shorter run? How do you feel about taking something like that on again?
SKELTON: I think series are in a very different place now than they were eight years ago. It’s rare for something to go for as long as we did. Obviously, if it’s the right project and the right character, I just wanna do great stuff, so I would never say no to that. But for now, I’m just excited to do something different. What that looks like, I don’t know. In terms of sitting and figuring it out, I’m not very good at being unemployed, so I’m onto the next. If the right thing comes along, then the time on it doesn’t matter. If the quality stays good and the character is great, and the writing is great, and the team is great, then that’s really rare and really magical, so I wouldn’t put a stamp on a time limit.