- Outlander season 5, starring Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe, returns on February 16.
- Heughan says season 5 is about "defending family" and "torn relationships."
- In this exclusive interview from OprahMag.com's visit to the set in Scotland, Heughan says Jamie and Claire Fraser have a "different kind of fire" these days.
Sam Heughan is covered in blood. Fake blood, of course, and a gritty patina of dirt expertly applied by Outlander's makeup department with a technique called "sprackling." Jamie Fraser, Heughan's character on the show, has had one hell of a day—but Heughan himself is in a buoyant mood.
"Tomorrow is maggot day!" Heughan proclaims, as he rests on the couch in his trailer between takes. The gnarly creepy-crawlies are the real deal, set to appear in a sequence I've watched several members of the Outlander cast film on the day Starz invited me to visit. "They have their own trailer," the Scottish actor jokes. "They're very demanding."
Jamie Fraser has, as Heughan puts it, endured "a lot of injuries and a lot of trauma" over the course of the show's four seasons. "It's such a physical show," he says, citing season 1 as the most grueling. Season 5 finds Jamie preparing for battle yet again, but he's no longer the scrappy young Highlander we first met. He's a grandfather.
"I never thought I'd be playing a granddad just yet. I'm embracing it," Heughan says of his character, who is a decade-plus older than Heughan's own 39 years following a season 2 time jump. Jamie's embracing it, too.
"Jamie always wanted to be a father figure. He's always wanted to have an extended family, and up until season 4, he's not really had that opportunity," Heughan says. When Jamie, Claire, Fergus (Cesar Domboy), and Marsali (Lauren Lyle) literally washed up on America's shores at the end of season 3, "they're reborn, so to speak."
Finally meeting his daughter Brianna (Sophie Skelton) has completed the family he's longed for since the Lallybroch days. "Of course, now he has to fight for it—and not just fighting, you know, bears and locals, but also fighting history as well," Heughan says. "That always seems to be the thing that really comes back to bite them in the ass."
Claire's knowledge of the future will continue to inform both her and Jamie's choices in season 5. "There are episodes that are kind of individual, and they have other storylines, but the greater objective of the season is that they know this war is coming, and Jamie's on the wrong side," Heughan says. "He's doing it because he needs to provide for people. So he's really stuck between a rock and a historic hard place. I think that's going to probably culminate not this season, but in the next season."
It's at this point in our interview that things go hilariously awry for a second.
"In the first two seasons, Jamie certainly made more hot-headed, rash decisions when there was less riding on his shoulders," I tell Heughan. "Now, Roger and Bree are kind of the hotter couple." It should be noted that I mean more hot-tempered—at least in season 4.
"Yeah," Heughan nods, and then his head snaps up. "Wait, what did you say?"
"I meant...temperatures, running hotter!" I say, full-on stammering now as I try to explain.
"And you think they're hotter than us," Heughan mock-huffs. "I totally disagree. We may be grandparents, but we're still hot! Maybe even hotter than ever." They may be older now, he admits, but Jamie and Claire have "still got it. It's just as a different kind of fire."
Of Jamie's own evolution, Heughan says Jamie's new obligations as leader of Fraser's Ridge have made him more measured in his approach, "more like his (late) uncle Colum," who ruled the MacKenzie clan back in Scotland. The darkest of said obligations: North Carolina Governor Tryon's order to kill his godfather, Regulators leader Murtagh (Duncan LaCroix), in the biggest divergence from Diana Gabaldon's books.
"The one rock, the one constant his whole life has been Murtagh. He’s taken up a stance that Jamie probably agrees with, but can’t," Heughan says. "It's been amazing to play against Duncan."
Like the rest of the cast, being a part of Outlander has had a huge impact on the actor's life—and that's reflected in two of the projects Heughan is launching this year. The first is a line of Scotch whisky available stateside this March, called The Sassenach. It's an inspired marketing choice; as any fan of the show knows, the often-derisive term for an English person is Jamie's nickname for Claire. Heughan and Outlander seasons 1 and 2 alum Graham McTavish (a.k.a. Dougal MacKenzie) will also release Clan Lands, a video series that was first billed as a podcast.
Heughan, who'll also appear in Vin Diesel's Blood Shot in March, describes Clan Lands as "basically a road trip around Scotland with my co-star Graham McTavish, who's a character in himself. We'd been playing these Highland warriors for years now, faking it, and we thought, 'you know, it'd be nice to sort of find out a bit more about it.'"
"I've always been interested in Scotland's history, the clans, and the culture," he says. "We have such huge tourism from Outlander. We just wanted to sort of go on that adventure as well, and bring some of that to people, because it's part of the show that we don't get to explore anymore as the show has moved on."
If their first episodes are well-received—at the time of our interview, Heughan couldn't share which platform they'll release it on—he says they've "already got a season 2 plan."
Scotland just might see even more tourism if there's a chance fans will spot Heughan sipping a glass of whisky in the Highlands.
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Samantha Vincenty is the former senior staff writer at Oprah Daily.
