Back in October, as part of their appearance at New York Comic Con, several cast members participated in a virtual press day. For the first three season 7B episode reviews, I included my interviews with these cast members. But in addition, we got the opportunity to talk with Sam and Caitriona in groups – we had 6 bloggers in a “room” with the two stars, and each got to ask them a couple of questions. As you may not be familiar with all of the sites that participated, and may not have seen their coverage, I’ve included their questions and answers as well as my own. Enjoy!

Three If By Space –  Sam, this is real quick, and then I want to ask Caitriona, but Dave at Black Barn Winery (in New Zealand, someone Sam met in Men In Kilts) told me to say hello. They had a devastating fire after you left, but he really loved meeting you both. Well, Graham stays there all the time, but …
Sam – we drank every single varietal of wine they had there.

Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish with Dave from Black Barn Winery. Season 2 of Men In Kilts. Photo provided by Starz.

TIBS – My son lives 15 minutes away from there, so we stopped in. This is a question about the marriage being more important than the wedding. Claire had a couple of really terrible weddings, and one marriage that didn’t last very long, but if you were, as Claire, advising a young woman, what would you tell her about, if she has a disastrous wedding, about overlooking that to go for the marriage, not the wedding?
Caitriona – first of all, I think modern weddings have gone absolutely crazy. It shouldn’t cost a house to have a wedding.
S – Did you see Roger and Brianna’s wedding? I mean that was…
C – Well, she’s our daughter…. But really, but for our wedding, someone told me, don’t make your wedding about your past, make it about your future. I thought that was such a lovely thing, so it’s not like this… WHAT??
S – That’s so Outlander.
C – See, this is Sam. Any time we talk weddings, he’s like <hyperventilating>.
S – No, I just thought it was very Outlander-y.
C – See, it’s about your future.
S – no, it’s lovely. I really like it.
C – It should be a party, and it’s the beginning of the next stage in your life, it’s not kind of, it’s not the most important thing, the party. It’s not the whole thing.

Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe, Season 1 of Outlander. Photo provided by Starz.

TIBS – You’ve basically inhabited another person for over the last decade. What have Jamie and Claire taught you, Caitriona and Sam?
C – It’s hard to really know, but you’re right, we’ve been playing Jamie and Claire for 11 years, and for most of that 11 years, we’re in character. I think when I compare who I was at the very start of this show to who I am now, part of that is playing Claire, but part of that, you know, is the two of us leading this show and everything that comes with that. But I think Claire has definitely given me a lot of confidence. And she has inspired me ot use my voice, some would say maybe too much, who would say that?
S – (chuckles)
C – But yeah, I don’t think I’ll fully appreciate that for another little while, but it’s definitely been the role of a lifetime.
S – It’s hard to separate ourselves from the characters in some ways, we are going through that process now, and it sounds like we’re having this….
C – existential crisis?
S – you start to realize you’re saying goodbye to those characters you’ve lived with for so long, but I agree, I won’t know for many years what the character’s done for me. However, I certainly have learned confidence, and experience, and grown with Jamie. So I suppose yeah, he’s brought a lot to us. And given us a great relationship as well. One that I never thought I’d have.

And from other panelists:

What was it like revealing Claire’s big secret to Jamie’s family?
C – it was so lovely to go back. Lallybroch has been integral to our storytelling for so long, going back there to those sets where so much has happened for them. And telling her big secrets, anytime you have secrets between people it stops them fully connecting, and for Claire and Jenny especially, this was a real shift in the direction of their friendship and relationship that they can now be closer.
S – that’s one of our favorite locations to go to and I think the fans are going to love going back to Scotland. It’s a huge part of who Jamie is, he’s wanted to go back. And obviously, his home now is in America, he’s committed to that, but to go back and see his family, see Jenny and Ian, obviously things there are not what they’re expecting. It’s surprising to him. There are also a lot of other characters we meet again, and yeah! There are a lot of memories and relationships, situations that need to be tied up for Jamie to have peace and move forward. I think the fans are going to love returning to Lallybroch, the ancestral home.

Outlander_709_Unfinished Business_Left to Right: Sam Heughan (“Jamie Fraser”), John Bell (“Young Ian”), Caitríona Balfe (“Claire Fraser”), and Kristin Atherton (“Jenny Fraser”)

How would you describe the growth of the relationship between J&C from season one to now?
C –  this is a couple who have been through so many different trials and tribulations. They have learned so much about each other, what provokes each other, how to calm the other down, that I think with any couple, there are these core personality traits that if your buttons get pushed, they come out. Those harder edges of them have softened a little over the years, and their understanding of each other, so when they see each other in 7b, with the separation that happens, they’re more capable of getting on with life without each other, but of course we know that nothing good ever happens when they’re really separated. But when they reunite there’s a lot of friction, shall we say. I think sometimes we act from a core place, old wounds, really, right?
S – I think Jamie and Claire in the past were really fiery, and their arguments were always quit4e intense, kind of will they/won’t they. They’ve gone beyond that now. They can still argue, but it doesn’t mean the relationship is going to end, and the relationship has gotten deeper. Not giving away a spoiler here, but when they are finally separated, and Jamie returns, this is a really dramatic moment for them, something that they really do have to work out. Till that point, though, I think their relationship has really deepened, they’ve grown up.
C – Matured.
S – Mature couple.

Outlander_709_Unfinished Business_Left to Right: Caitríona Balfe (“Claire Fraser”) and Sam Heughan (“Jamie Fraser”)

If you were a time traveler, would you want to visit your descendants or ancestors, and why?
S – I would like to, but I don’t know if I want to meet them or see them, but yeah, I think I would like to. I think I would, because I know very little about some of my ancestors but I would love to ask some questions and see how similar they are to me, because oh my God, I’m just a product of genetics.
C – it’s funny, my uncle did a whole family tree and we have some photographs, especially on my dad’s side, but everyone was poor and everyone lived in these little crofts with thatched roofs, so I would love to go visit, but I don’t think I’d like to hang out for too long, because that looked like a tough life.
S – Just to visit would be great, do like a day.
C – yeah, just a day, get everyone together, have a big powwow, get back…
S – back to air conditioning….
C – and soap, and heating.

I’m a show only fan, I’ve watched the first three episodes (of 7B), and there’s a moment between Claire and someone close to Jamie, and it gets messy and complicated, I was yelling at the screen. What were your reactions when you found out that that was where the story was going?
C – Probably not that dissimilar to yours. We had a couple of … the first version in the scripts, I was like we can’t, we can’t, it felt… you know, I felt very defensive of Claire, I was like we can’t have that. We worked very closely with the writers, and finally got to a great place where this was the best version of telling this beautiful storyline from the books. But it’s a hard one to wrap our heads around.
S – it’s also like these characters, it’s hard to wrap your head around surprises sometimes. Jamie’s reaction is surprising, I wasn’t expecting him to be quite so violent, really. I thought he’d be more understanding in some ways. But that’s what’s kind of interesting, when you’re faced with a situation where a character does something and you have to work out why that is. And as much as I think he’s forward-thinking and intelligent, ultimately he’s a human being and he has flaws, and that’s kind of interesting, I think, that he has this darkness inside of him, and pride. But I think the fans are going to be shocked.

Outlander_711_A Hundredweight of Stones_Left to Right: David Berry (“Lord John Grey”) and Caitríona Balfe (“Claire Fraser”)

If you were to go back, how do you think you would fare? How would you handle not having our modern conveniences? If you did go back what would you miss the most?
C – I think it depends where. I definitely don’t function without the proper equipment – to be cold and damp is not a fun time.
S – I think the exact same thing. By going to Lallybroch, in that time, no matter how pretty it looks, candles and everything, it would have been freezing cold, probablya little bit smelly. I could do a night, maybe not a night, there might be stuff in the bed <shivering>.
C – If it were a good climate, and nice weather, I could probably handle it for quite a while, but…
S – then the mosquitoes would get me, I wouldn’t fare very well in America. In the South, oh my god no, I love it, but…
C – we’re a little too bougie…
S – namby pamby actors. We like to pretend.

How does Roger jumping into the wrong time line impact things? Particularly interacting with Jamie’s father?
S – Jamie’s oblivious to it, but I think it’s a real cool moment the way that they’ve added it, the way he’s knocking on Lallybroch’s door expecting Jamie to open the door and actually there’s his father instead, and I think that’s really cool to see that moment, and for Roger to be lost in the situation and in the moment be “where is Jamie at this point, and there’s Jenny,” and so he really has to think on his feet. But it’s an intriguing one, why did he get sent to that time period, and where is everyone else? I think Jamie’s in France at this point.
C – I think usually the time travel element is a small part of our seasons usually, but this time it really plays a large part in our story, and it’s really interesting because it brings up all those questions about what did you change, and does the impact of somebody going, what are the ripple effects of that?
S – Now we talk about spoilers, but seeing Geillis at the door and Roger’s reactions, I think the fans are really going to love that, all those moments.

Outlander_709_Unfinished Business_Left to Right: Richard Rankin (“Roger MacKenzie”) and Dairmaid Murtagh (“Buck Mackenzie”)

Are there any points where you explore aspects of the characters beyond the books?
S – There are moments we’ve left out or things we’ve left out, but ultimately we’ve always had to tell our story, and at times, that has been separate from the books, but I think in these last seasons they’ve tried to stick closely to the books, but I think it’s been impossible to include everything. I know sometimes I wish that we’d done more, or that we had left the books a little bit, but for TV and for storytelling, it’s really difficult to fit everything into a 45 minute or hour long episode. It’s near impossible. We probably could have done more than 8 seasons, we probably could have done 20, but that’s the challenge of doing a TV show based on a book series. And I guess it will be interesting to see when they do that new show, because they don’t have any books to follow. It’s kind of exciting to see.

Do you think, I mean with great power comes great responsibility, but do you think there’s an undue burden on her (Claire) that like, “Oh, you’re from the future. Can’t you cure every disease? Why don’t you have all the medicines to cure all these?” Do you think there’s a little too much pressure and too much expectations put on Claire because she can time travel?
S – I don’t think she’s done enough. I mean, seriously. And my daughter, there’s another one. She could have done a lot more.
C – well it’s funny. It comes down to how much do you know, I mean, she comes back with these amazing skills, but even a doctor of our time, they constantly have books that they reference, they have the internet, they’re still looking things up, they don’t have an encyclopedic memory of every single thing. But I will say, I think it’s a burden on her. I think she really does feel like she should be able to do more. And the frustrations of, when it’s not involving medicine, obviously there’s the frustrations there of, if I had this instrument or if I had this medicine, I could do more, but it’s also  if I had this knowledge. She wishes she knew more about the history and the details, and I think that’s always a fun thing we play with in the show of, she kind of knows, there’s this battle, but she’s not sure what happens, and you’re like, God, Claire, if you’d only listened a little more, you know?
S – Her knowledge of history is pretty impressive –
C – for someone who’s not a historian.

Outlander_710_Brotherly Love_Left to Right: Caitríona Balfe (“Claire Fraser”) and Harry Jarvis (“Henry Grey”)

Are Claire and Jamie going to be roped back into war and battle, or are they done? Have they paid their dues when it comes to that?
S – I would say, it’s Outlander, but they’ve tried to avoid history or change history, over multiple seasons, and they’ve realized they can’t do that, and history has a way of always finding Jamie and Claire, and this season is no exception. It’s running concurrently this season, this historical side, with the dramatic side of their relationships. It’s pretty big actually, the war of independence is fast approaching, and well, spoiler, but of course, they’re going to get sucked right back into the heart of it, and it’s pretty dramatic.

Thanks to Caitriona, Sam and the team at Starz for this opportunity!

Look for my review of episode 712, Carnal Knowledge, earlier in the day on Friday! (Starz is allowing us to post reviews earlier because of the episode showing at midnight the night before!)

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