Sam Heughan on His Final Day Shooting âOutlanderâ After 12 Years as Jamie Fraser
When we sat down with Sam Heughan, he still hadnât watched the finale of âOutlander,â the Starz series heâs starred on as Jamie Fraser for eight seasons across 12 years. Mostly, thatâs because heâs already experienced the series âendingâ again and again. âThe whole [eighth] season was basically a goodbye,â he tells us on the latest episode of In the Envelope: The Actorâs Podcast. âYouâd be like: Oh, todayâs the last time weâre going to be here or with this person. So it was kind of quite traumatic, because youâre constantly in the state of saying goodbye and then treating it like itâs just another day at work.â
That included his final day sharing a scene with CaitrĂona Balfe, who has been Jamieâs time-traveling love interest Claire Beauchamp since the very first chemistry reads.
âThe last main day of shooting on main camera was myself and CaitrĂona. We had this very, very long dialogue scene, and we were both extremely emotional, trying to suppress it,â Heughan says. âCaitrĂonaâs eyebrow during her close-up was just shaking the whole time; you could see she was trying to hold it back. And I too was just pushing down all my emotion to try and remain calm and stable for the scene. Of course, once wrap was called, it was an outpouring of emotion.â
Then, as is always the case for the working actor, life went on. You just take the most meaningful experiences with you into the next gig. âI donât think Iâm ever going to say goodbye,â Heughan says. âThe character is always going to be there. The show will always be part of us. People will always recognize us for thatâŠ. Itâs so nice to be working on other stuff, but I think when youâre on these other jobs, it makes you realize how lucky we were to be in that moment on âOutlander.â â
In this episode, Heughan takes us on the entire journey from his training at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and booking âOutlanderâ to evolving as an actor over 101 episodes and where heâs headed next.
