“Jamie and Claire aren’t the only couples who are destined to be together.”
Lately, have you been wishing Outlander was a little more, well, Scottish?
The series, though still filmed in Scotland, has spent more than half of its storytelling in the Americas. But creator Matt Roberts and executive producer Maril Davis have been missing their wee bits of tartan and kilty pleasure as much as audiences — and so, with prequel Outlander: Blood of My Blood, they’re aiming to bring things back to their bonny origins.
“There was a little saying we had that Scotland should be number one on the call sheet,” Roberts tells Entertainment Weekly. “We should always make sure she is in every scene and you feel her. We try to show the beauty, how it gets into your blood and is in the blood of the characters. There’s probably a few double entendres with Blood of My Blood. It’s not just the characters; it’s also what Scotland does to you.”
Davis echoes this, noting that they’re picking up on Outlander’s notions of fate, destiny, and a love that can defy time.
“We weren’t in Scotland as much as we’d like towards the end [of Outlander],” she says “Coming back to this, the darker stone of Castle Leoch, getting back to our origins and our roots is so exciting.”
“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 (Sam Heughan) and Claire (Caitriona Balfe),” she adds. “And along the way we’re going to see the family dynamics of three different clans and see an amazing rollicking adventure.”
When the show debuts on Starz on August 8, it won’t only tell the love story of Jamie’s parents, Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy) and Ellen Mackenzie (Harriet Slater), but also the epic romance of Claire’s parents, Henry Beauchamp (Jeremy Irvine) and Julia Moriston (Hermione Corfield).
“When I first thought about doing the prequel, my initial thought was just Jamie’s parents, Ellen and Brian, because there’s the thread in the book,” Roberts explains. “As I started to work it out, there wasn’t a lot of story there. I thought, ‘Well, we’ll need to tell both stories to give this legs for a series that could be ongoing.'”
It also opens up the world given that Outlander author Diana Gabaldon has written very little about Claire’s parents. “We’ve talked so long about how Outlander is the story of Jamie and Claire,” adds Davis. “It does feel like you’re missing a big piece of the puzzle if you’re not telling her parents’ story as well and showing both sides of the coin.”
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Indeed, both Davis and Roberts can’t wait for audiences to pick up on the small nods to the various personality traits and quirks that Jamie and Claire have picked up from their kin.
“You see, ‘Oh, Jamie got that from Ellen, and oh, Jamie got that from Brian,'” says Roberts. “‘And Claire got that from Julia and Claire got that from Henry.’ We tried to drop those things in throughout the season. The little nuggets where the fans of Outlander will go, ‘Oh, I remember that. That’s where Jamie heard that, or that’s where Claire heard that.'”
“Fate and destiny are words we lean on in Outlander,” Davis concludes. “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.”
A Highland Saga
Tartan is in again! With Blood of My Blood, dipping even further into the past than Outlander, audiences will be thrust into the world of the Scottish highlanders and the clans more intensely than ever before.
“One of the things we wanted to explore on Blood of My Blood is not only the family dynamics, but the clan dynamics,” says Roberts. “How the intrigue and the political backstabbing created the environment that creates Jamie Fraser and what he was born to.”
He continues, “What I really liked about when we started this process was seeing these people before who they become in Outlander. Most of us aren’t the same people we were when we were 18, 19, or 20 years old. Life has changed us as our environment around us changed.”
One person who hasn’t changed much, however, is Dougal Mackenzie (Sam Retford), who is bristling with as much anger and ambition as ever. It’s particularly evident in a shinty game, seen in a new exclusive image, which is meant to mirror a similar game in the first season of Outlander.
“The previous episode in Outlander and this episode in Blood of My Blood, he literally decks people with the shinty club for no reason,” says Davis, with a laugh. “The ball’s not even around. Dougal is this boy turning into a man, who has so much anger in him and wants to prove himself, and there’s such glee behind the eyes in the way that Sam plays this character.”
Perhaps one of the biggest gaps between the character we meet in Outlander and the one depicted in Blood of My Blood is Murtagh Fitzgibbons Fraser (Rory Alexander), Jamie’s beloved cousin.
“Who they become isn’t who they are now,” says Roberts. “We know and love Murtaugh as being this constant companion, but he wasn’t born that way. He wasn’t born just to follow Jamie around. How did he get that way? Who was he prior to being this very stoic, closed-hearted man? because he is very, very closed off. But the Murtagh you meet in Blood of My Blood isn’t that way.”
Davis adds that this realization was crucial in their casting decisions.
“You automatically think, ‘Oh, you’re looking for a younger version of Duncan LaCroix?'” she says. “And we’re like, ‘Oh, no, no.’ The fun is seeing that trajectory. Rory is such a light. He’s so much fun to watch and it makes it all the more heartbreaking when you know where that character’s going to go.”
The Old Fox
One character audiences will get to know a lot better is Jamie’s grandfather, Simon Fraser, a.k.a. Lord Lovat (Tony Curran), whom we first saw back in Outlander season 2 as a much older man. In Blood of My Blood, he’s an even wilier manipulator, seeking to pull strings in his favor — a fact which may not benefit his son, Brian.
“Lord Lovat is going to be a fan favorite,” predicts Roberts. “What Tony Curran brings to Lord Lovat is this believability. You want to wrap your arms around him — you love him so much, and then as soon as your arms get away, you go, ‘God, I hate that guy!’
“I want the fans to leave the episode and go, ‘I hate myself for liking him,'” he continues. “And that’s what Tony brings to the character. He makes him so unbelievably lovable to hate. And every scene he jumps out like that. He doesn’t think he’s doing anything wrong ever, but he has to believe that. And Tony grounds that part of the character.”
The artist at work
Claire’s mother, Julia, is an artist, as is shown here in this new exclusive photo — and Davis says it’s a clear window into Claire’s ingenuity and inventiveness.
“Julia picks things up quite easily,” she explains. “That’s one of the reasons we did have her painting and drawing in her flat. If you look around her flat, she has so many things she can do. She tinkers with things. She’s able to fix things. She’s artistic. She’s got an almost a photographic memory. She’s adept at many things.”
“She’s an inveterate learner,” adds Roberts. “She just wants to consume knowledge, and it’s anything and everything. That’s what she brings to the table. So when something happens, she can call upon it. It’s not that she knows everything. She wants to know everything, and that’s who she is.”
He continues, “Part of what she gave to Claire is that curiosity, that intrinsic curiosity about the world and learning. Claire focused it on medicine, but if you think about it, Claire knows so much about herbs and she made penicillin for God’s sake.”
A love forged by war
The Scottish Highlands can be a brutal place between the actions of the English and strife between the clans. But Claire’s parents love also began in a world plunged into violence, as they form a bond during the first World War.
“It’s safe to say that World War I brought these two together,” says Davis. “Had this war not happened, would they have met? Maybe. Were they fated to meet? Potentially. But this war is literally what brought them together.”
Roberts adds, “World War I shapes all of Britain, and it still does. It’s the 80th anniversary this year of World War I. And if you go around any town, there’s a memorial to all that was lost in that war. So, it still speaks to the country to this day.”
It’s something even more present in the lives of Julia and Henry. Henry must contend with his memories and trauma from his time spent in the trenches. “I don’t think people who weren’t in those trenches can imagine being in those trenches,” says Roberts. “Jeremy dove headfirst into this and he did research. Throughout the season, what he went through in World War I in those trenches plays out. It’s not something that you just forget about and it leaves you. He will carry that baggage with him for a very long time.”
However, they also stress that it’s not only those who were in the field who sustain trauma during the war. “We wanted to show that the people back home were struggling,” Roberts notes. “Julia goes through things as well to support those troops.”
No matter which century they’re in, the lovers of Outlander: Blood of My Blood are about to face an uphill battle. “When two people are fated to be together, but everybody else doesn’t think you should be, there’s going to be problems,” teases Roberts.
And what would an Outlander story be without them?