Outlander’s leading man, Sam Heughan, has opened up about his decade-long portrayal of Jamie Fraser, confessing he’s a tad confused about his character’s accent these days.
The Scottish actor, who has been bringing Jamie Fraser to life for an impressive ten years, shared his uncertainties about his role in the iconic series.
When we first saw Jamie in season one, played by Heughan, he had a thick Highlander accent that left fans stunned when they heard Heughan’s real voice. The actor, originally from New Galloway, moved to Edinburgh when he was just 12.
In Outlander’s first series on Starz, Heughan grappled with plenty of Gaelic dialogue, seeing his accent evolve over the seasons. During a chat with Josh Horowitz, marking the show’s 10th anniversary, Sam reflected: “I had to speak pages of Gaelic in there. I guess there was a change of accent.”
Being honest, he admitted: “I don’t really know what Jamie’s accent is anymore… It’s Jamie accent! “. As we followed Jamie from Scotland to North Carolina, his accent subtly changed, but it remains more distinctive than Heughan’s real accent after seven successful seasons.
Caitriona Balfe, originally from Ireland, has significantly altered her accent for the massive TV series, adopting a Southern English sound for her character Claire. Sam Heughan recognised their hard work on accents, commenting: “But you were doing an accent as well,” before noting, “We definitely put in a lot of work in the beginning.”
He added, “And it’s cool now, after years of playing these characters, I’m not saying you don’t have to put any effort but it’s already there. You’ve done the work so it’s lovely just to be able to drop into the characters again.”
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Reflecting on their efforts, despite being largely successful, Caitriona wasn’t fully satisfied when revisiting an old episode clip, saying, “In listening to that I’m like, ‘Oh, there’s still a little hint sometimes of Irish there as Claire’…” Sam reassured her with a quip: “That’s not true! Maybe she’d been to Ireland on her holidays.”
The two actors face fresh trials in the upcoming episodes as Claire and Jamie, portrayed by Balfe and Heughan, find themselves back in Scotland.
Enthusiastic devotees await the return of season seven following more than a year’s pause, while production is ongoing for the eighth and conclusive season.