It goes without saying that the new Starz Original Outlander: Blood of My Blood is directly linked to the period drama Outlander. The latter stars Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe as Jamie and Claire, a couple who fall in love after Claire accidentally travels back in time while on her honeymoon during World War II.
Outlander: Blood of My Blood follows a similar structure, but because it’s a prequel series, with their parents, with each couple also transported to the past of 18th century Scotland. Annoyingly, though, we still don’t know how directly intertwined both shows are, with it logically possibly Claire could have met her parents without knowing.
When I think about Outlander: Blood of My Blood filming, I imagine two separate casts getting together to share stories, swap worldbuilding tips and meticulously comb over the lifetime craft that is acting. But when I ask stars Jeremy Irvine (Henry) and Hermione Corfield (Julia) what the best advice they got from the Outlander cast was, nothing could have prepared me for the answer. In short, my thespian visions couldn’t be further from the truth.
Balfe confirmed that she has indeed spoken to them both, but almost none of their immediate conversations were actually about acting. While I’m anxiously waiting to see how Outlander: Blood of My Blood unfolds, I do have a much clearer idea of what happens on location, including exactly how good the catering is.
Outlander: Blood of My Blood didn’t want any acting advice, but did want to know about on-set catering
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“It’s so funny because you meet other actors, and you think that we would all talk about characters and stuff. We don’t. We just wonder if catering is good,” Irvine tells me. “How often do you run over each day? So mostly, when I saw Caitriona I was like, ‘what’s the food like?’ That’s the sort of thing that you go and check up on. You don’t really give each other advice., I mean, we could probably learn a lot from them. Maybe I should have done. I’m regretting it!”
That’s not to say discussions were around food and food only (although if they were, I’d hardly blame them). Playing the same characters through multiple timelines isn’t the easiest thing to master, meaning the pair had to decide how to approach Outlander: Blood of My Blood in its entirety (which is also streaming on MGM+ for those in the UK and Stan in Australia).
“It’s hard to play someone that time travels, because they constantly come out with challenges in the time period they find themselves in, and they have to have a level of agency, so they have to kind of know what they’re doing,” Corfield explains. “But also, if you were actually transported back in time, you’d be completely terrified. Probably curl up in a ball and die, obviously we can’t.”
Irvine adds: “We did talk about [the time traveling part of the show] a lot. The main thing is they’ve just got to survive minute by minute. You know, it’s not really thinking about the bigger picture. You don’t have time. You’re just going, ‘right, how do I get through the next five minutes and survive to give me the best chance of getting back to that person that I’ve just lost?’ Really, it’s more thinking like that, rather than having the time to have this big existential crisis.”
However these two arrived at this conclusion, the outcome is working. Outlander: Blood of My Blood is already making magic, and in the words of RuPaul, I can’t wait to see how this turns out.
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