Outlander star Caitríona Balfe on her final highland fling – and her role in the new Ed Hillary-Sherpa Tenzing movie

By the time it finishes – and even she doesn’t know how it all ends – Caitríona Balfe would have appeared as Claire Fraser Randall in 101 episodes of Outlander. The romantic fantasy show began seven seasons and 12 years ago with Claire’s World War II nurse travelling back
to 18th-century Scotland to meet the eventual love of her life, earthy highlander Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan). Since, it’s occasionally returned Claire to the 20th century, and her other, troubled, marriage. But mainly it’s followed the pair from the Highlands during the time of the Jacobite rebellion to more fighting against the English in the American Revolutionary War, with visits back to Scotland and stop-offs in France and the West Indies.

Part of Outlander’s appeal is the chemistry between show stars Caitríona Balfe and Sam Heughan. Photo / Supplied

Aye, that lassie has been through quite a bit in those 30 years. There’s more to come in the eighth and final season. Having wandered through a stone circle near Inverness allowing her a passage into the past in the very first episode, Claire has had her bodice ripped rather a lot, been accused of witchcraft for her medical knowledge and nearly burnt at the stake, fought pirates, been shipwrecked, become a mother and a grandmother, and been arrested for murder.

“I mean what have we missed?” says Balfe with a laugh from Los Angeles, where she’s on Zoom promotional duties for the season.

The show, which adapted US writer Diana Gabaldon’s book series, has never lacked for surprises – or candlelit sex scenes – since it started in 2014. But the performances of – and the chemistry between – Balfe and Heughan against all that history has helped give Outlander a faithful fan base (see More than romance, below) throughout.

“It’s straddled multiple genres and so it gives a lot of different people different things,” says Balfe on why the fans have stayed. “It’s also got this beautiful love story at the heart of it which is aspirational and comforting.”

Getting the role was Balfe’s big break after she moved on from the modelling career that took her as a teenager from her native Ireland to Paris. She was a struggling actress in Los Angeles with a few small parts to her name when, in one week, she got offered Outlander and a Christian Slater television show called Mind Games. It was a coin toss. The latter didn’t see out its first season before it was cancelled.

Nominated for best actress in a TV drama Golden Globes for the first four seasons, her Outlander profile has led to film roles, most notably playing Kenneth Branagh’s mother in his autobiographical Belfast.

Caitríona Balfe in the Kenneth Branagh movie Belfast. Supplied

But as the Outlander seasons went by, would she ever get a script and go, “Really?”

“In the early seasons, we’d follow the books to the letter. So you would finish a season and straight away you would pick up the next book, and you would start reading it in your hiatus. Then you would find out which parts of that book the writers were able to keep and which parts had to go – that was always the sort of funny thing, ‘What do you mean you’re not doing this bit?’ Or, ‘I’m so glad you’re doing that bit.’

“But as the later seasons went on, our show and the book deviated a lot more. This season, there was no idea of what the writers were going to do. Sam and I would normally get an overview of the season and this time we didn’t. ‘No, we’re not telling you anything, and you’re going to get it script by script.’ So it was, ‘Okay, I guess we’ll find out.’”

I was trying to pitch a bit more menopause or something for Claire, and [the producers] were like, ‘No,’ … but the privilege of getting to play a character over a 30-year span is amazing.

Caitríona Balfe

That also means she doesn’t really know how Outlander ends. There were alternative endings shot and scenes in the final episode she wasn’t involved in. Showrunner Matthew B Roberts, she says, has been playing his cards close to his chest.

The show was made for pay-TV channel Starz in the US, also home to sexed-up period shows such as Da Vinci’s Demons, Black Sails, the New Zealand-made Spartacus, and a run of spicy Tudor dramas. But it spread around the world, mostly via streaming platforms. It started here on Lightbox, Spark’s attempt at streaming that was eventually taken over by Sky.

Because of the strong terrestrial television culture in the UK, says Balfe, it took a while for the show to take off over there, coming after the early seasons were hits in the US.

“We were also part of a wave. If Game of Thrones hadn’t been so popular, would our show have been popular, because that had already paved the way for these fantasy elements? And there had been a couple of big shows with female leads that if they hadn’t done well before, would our show have done well? I think you sort of meet the moment and if you’re lucky, it’s beneficial for you.”

All that adventure and peril have given Claire some grey hair. On Zoom, Balfe remains a 46-year-old who looks a lot younger than that, with none. “I’m looking very good for 62 now, I think,” she says about her character’s supposed age in the new season.

Outlandish: Caitríona Balfe’s Claire Randall has survived many a hairy moment over seven seasons. Photo / Getty Images

“It’s funny. I was trying to pitch certain things at one point – maybe we should add in a bit more menopause or something for Claire, and [the producers] were like, ‘No,’ … but the privilege of getting to play a character over a 30-year span is amazing. Everything that she went through from being, not necessarily an ingénue, but she was like this young woman falling in love, to then being a grandmother and the matriarch of this extended family. It’s quite amazing to have been able to do that.”

Despite the story shifting to North Carolina, the show has continued to be shot in Scotland where it’s been a boon to the local screen production industry and an ongoing advertisement for the landscape.

No, the Scottish tourism board hasn’t sent a thank-you haggis. “I think we should get one. I feel like I should be made an honorary Scot at this point.”

But the Outlander universe is rolling on with one prequel so far, Outlander: Blood of My Blood. As for the legacy of the original show, Balfe hopes it will become “part of the furniture”. “There are things like Northern Exposure, or Dr Quinn: Medicine Woman and it would be lovely to think that Outlander has a place in TV history.”

Since wrapping on the show she’s already completed at least one movie – Tenzing, the Australian produced biographical drama of sherpa Tenzing Norgay, Sir Edmund Hillary’s co-conqueror of Everest. She plays Jill Henderson, an Englishwoman who was the secretary of the Himalayan Club and acted as a go-between between the Sherpas and the climbing teams. She was reportedly instrumental in persuading Norgay to join the successful 1953 climbing expedition after two failed attempts in 1952 with a Swiss team left him unwilling. While some of the film, which stars Tom Hiddleston as Sir Ed, was filmed in New Zealand last year, Balfe’s scenes were limited to the Nepalese section of the shoot.

“The whole thing is about celebrating Edmund Hillary but also giving the proper dues to Tenzing. I think it’s so beautiful the way that they’re telling the story.”

Claire (Caitríona Balfe) and Jamie (Sam Heughan) during their first meeting. Photo / Supplied

More than romance

What keeps fans watching Outlander? Dionne Christian offers an explanation.

I’m not immune to the considerable kilted charms of Outlander’s Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan). Who doesn’t want a partner who can rescue you from a witch trial, build you an Insta-worthy cottage in rural North Carolina and swear an oath to protect you with their body and soul, and actually mean it? But the “romance that is the beating heart of Outlander” is not what keeps me watching.

Decades ago, in the first year of an honours degree, a number of classes were devoted to historical fiction and how useful it is in telling – teaching – history. This continues to interest me, so I come for the history. The TV gets turned off – 1066 drama King & Conqueror, I’m looking at you – if I feel too many liberties have been taken with “reimagining” the past that’s central to a series or film.

Claire has far too many clothes, the wooden cottage is too picture-perfect and I tire of the number of times we hear that Claire’s a healer, but Outlander shows enough of the past’s nasty, brutish and short aspects to hint at what it might have been like. Would I want to time-travel back there? No, I prefer to experience it vicariously from the comfort of my living room, where I’m less likely to cut myself harvesting turnips and die of sepsis. Although if Claire were there, it wouldn’t be a problem, because she’s a (very well-dressed) healer.

I’d argue more of us have learnt about Scottish history from watching Outlander than reading a textbook. A lead character, in Outlander’s case a “strong woman”, who can bring a different perspective to one found so frequently in dry and dusty nonfiction, with their emphases on battles, dates, rulers and what men were doing, will have more emotional resonance for a bigger percentage of the population.

In another university class for another degree years later, a lecturer was talking about the push factors involved in migration to Aotearoa New Zealand, especially for many Scots. Despairing at the lack of knowledge demonstrated by the class, she turned to us and asked, “Don’t any of you even watch Outlander?”

The new season and previous seasons of Outlander are on Neon. The new season starts on Sky’s Vibe channel from Tuesday, March 17, 8.30pm.

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