‘Outlander’s’ stars thrill to the writer’s presence on set

Written by admin on June 11 2016

Photoshoots & Portraits > 2016 – LA Times

LA TIMES – Diana Gabaldon, author of the popular time-traveling book series “Outlander,” has been racking up her credits on the popular Starz drama that is based on her novels.

Gabaldon is a consultant on the drama about a WWII combat nurse (Caitriona Balfe) who travels from 1945 to 1743, where she falls for and marries Scotsman Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan). But she’s also made a cameo appearance in Season 1 of the series. And coming up this season is an episode she wrote.

She penned Episode 211, “Vengeance Is Mine,” which airs June 18.

Heughan and Balfe said they were thrilled when they heard she would be writing a script for Season 2.

“When we all did the read-through, we were delighted,” said Heughan during his visit with Balfe to The Envelope’s video studio. “It read really well, there’s a great pace to it. It’s coming up soon.”

Gabaldon was simultaneously writing a new installment to the book series while writing the episode. A process that the actors found fascinating.

“To be playing Jamie while she’s writing Jamie is kind of a weird thing,” Heughan said.

“It was funny,” Balfe interjected. “You could see her. It’s almost like she goes off into this imaginary world where she’s sort of talking to herself and seeing it play out .. then you see her go back to the writing. It’s amazing to watch somebody go through that process.”

Heughan also noted that he recently heard from Gabaldon.

“She’s just read the first episode of next season,” Heughan said. “And she’s really happy and excited.”

Way to tease, Sam!

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‘Outlander’: Caitriona Balfe on Sex, Violence and Time Travel

Written by admin on June 10 2016

ROLLING STONE – At first glance, the premise behind Outlander — the hour-long series now in its second season on Starz — sounds kind of ridiculous. A married World War II nurse time travels back to mid-1700s Scotland, falls in love with a rugged, dashing Highland warrior and becomes involved with the Jacobite uprising against the British? Huh? Based on the popular Diana Gabaldon book series — the first of which was released 25 years ago (and is still going) – there’s far more to this fantastical time-traveling historical bodice ripper than kilts and corsets. Full of bold, erotic and unflinching storytelling, it’s easily one of the most substantive guilty pleasures on television.

And it hasn’t been without a little controversy. For starters, the violence easily rivals that of Game of Thrones – at one point, the show’s Scottish hero, Jamie Fraser, takes a whipping so brutal that his flesh peels away from his back. Plus there’s the sex, and lots of it; a first-season episode featured not one, not two, but three extensive hot-and-heavy scenes, the first of which featured its era-hopping heroine Claire Randall Fraser deflowering her hunky Highlander on their wedding night. Gird your loins, for they will be on fire.

At the center of it all is Irish actress Caitriona Balfe, who’s performance as Fraser is radiant, brave, beguiling, and more than deserving of her Golden Globe nomination. Now midway through Outlander’s second season (with at least two more confirmed seasons on the way), Rolling Stone chatted with the breakout star about the show’s success, its bold approach to sex and violence – including a particularly notorious, horrific rape scene — and whether trying to stop history from unfolding is such a great idea.

Were you a fan of the Diana Gabaldon series before you started working on the show?
When I first got the audition, I didn’t even know about the books. I had two scenes sent to me, and you don’t really get full context. But as soon as I found out that I was going to be testing, I went out to my local bookstore in L.A., Book Soup, and grabbed a copy of the first novel; the guy at the counter was like, “Oh, you know they’re going to make a TV show out of this.” And I was like “Oh really?” It was quite a lucky omen.

What did you think of Claire?
She’s one of those great female characters — she’s funny, she’s kind of stubborn, she’s hot-headed but she’s also very empathetic, very intelligent. She just felt like a very well-rounded, fully-formed character. It felt like it would be a really exciting experience to portray her.

The book series has been around for 25 years and has a pretty diehard fanbase.
I think if I had been aware of the magnitude of the fanbase and all of their expectations, I would have probably stumbled or been a little overwhelmed by it all. It was nice to go into it not knowing — then my Twitter account started exploding.

What have the reactions been like?
I think the initial reaction to my casting was like “Well, she’s too tall, and she’s too skinny, she doesn’t have brown eyes and her hair’s not curly!” The thing is, everyone has a subjective vision of what these characters are supposed to look like. When you’re casting anything, hopefully they’re looking for people who embody the character in an essence way rather than just the physical. But once the show aired, the fans have have really transferred their love over from the book series to our show, which is fantastic.
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Caitriona Balfe on Claire’s Devastating Grief

Written by admin on May 22 2016

VULTURE.COM – Spoilers ahead for the most recent episode of Outlander.

Claire had so much hope heading to France. She and Jamie were going to change the world! Prevent the Jacobite rebellion! Alter the course of history! But even with her knowledge of the future, Claire couldn’t stop certain events from happening. She couldn’t thwart everyone who supported Bonnie Prince Charlie. She couldn’t keep two mortal enemies from dueling each other. And she couldn’t save her unborn child. In one of the most devastating scenes this season, Claire’s daughter is stillborn, even as she herself is on the verge of dying from a postpartum infection. Actress Caitriona Balfe chatted with Vulture about Claire’s grief, and how she feels about both husbands now.

Even though she was pregnant during the first half of the season, do you think Claire had more agency?
It’s an interesting shift. Last season, I feel like Claire was very reactionary, and all of these events were sort of coming at her fast and swift. She didn’t really have time to absorb any of the events, really. She would get captured, and then they would be on their way somewhere, and then something else would happen. It was all very fight or flight. Survival.

But this season, she was experiencing a huge life change, being pregnant for the first time. And in French society, she almost had less freedom than she had in Scotland, because of the role that women are supposed to play. The first few episodes, she was relegated to drawing rooms and apartments, and you could feel her frustration building. It was quite a suffocating thing to do, even as an actress! But that was great for the internal journey of Claire, because she was dealing with a lot of things in private, and she knew she had to keep them to herself, because Jamie was still suffering so much from the events of the end of last season. And in a way, because she wasn’t quite the outsider in France the way she was in Scotland, she learned she had even more freedom and agency.

What was your reaction when you first found out what would happen to end the pregnancy?
When I first got the script Toni Graphia wrote, I was sobbing, reading it. I just felt very grateful to be given such a wonderful storyline, and wonderful material to work with. It’s a huge tragedy for Claire, and I’ve done quite a bit of reading about grief. I think there’s so many women who either have themselves or who know somebody who has been touched by the tragedy of miscarriage. It’s something that I really just wanted to hold a space for, Claire’s grief, Claire’s experience. It was pretty tough. We had about five days where the whole sequence happened, so you’re in that very emotional place for quite a long time.
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Caitriona Balfe for The Last Magazine

Written by admin on May 19 2016

Photoshoots & Portraits > 2016 – The Last Magazine

THE LAST MAGAZINE – For the 36-year-old, Dublin-born former model Caitriona Balfe, acting was a long time coming. “I’ve always wanted to act since I was a kid and it was something I did in local theater and school theater, all of those things,” she recalls over the phone from Los Angeles. “Then, when I left high school, I started a degree in theater studies in Dublin and it was when I was there that I got scouted and given this opportunity to go to Paris, and that opportunity at the age of eighteen seemed like a good idea.”

And who could blame her? Balfe moved to Paris and went on to model for almost a decade, walking for Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, and dozens of others, and starring in campaigns for the likes of Calvin Klein, Victoria’s Secret, Dolce & Gabbana, and more.

It was when she was later living in New York, almost ten years after leaving school to first work in France, that she started to reevaluate the course of her career. “I sort of got to the point where I had been very in fashion, I had some great years, and then it sort of felt like I wasn’t excited by it anymore and I wanted to do the thing that I had always felt was the thing I was supposed to be doing,” she says. Balfe signed up for acting classes in New York and, soon after, quit modeling and moved to Los Angeles.

At first, it was a slow move to the screen. “Well, it’s crazy. I mean, I was thirty,” explains Balfe. “To walk into that industry with no credits and start at the bottom—a lot of people were like, ‘Ah, you’re crazy.’ You definitely need a little delusion [to keep on going].”

It took Balfe three and a half years of auditioning, with the occasional bit part coming eventually, before she landed her breakthrough role—the sharp, strategically driven, sexually empowered Claire, the lead character in Ronald Moore’s historical fantasy Outlander on Starz. In the series, Claire jumps from her life as a nurse in post-World War II, 1945 England to eighteenth-century, violent, and pre-parliamentary Scotland.
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Caitriona Balfe Talks “Money Monster” at the Cannes Film Festival

Written by admin on May 12 2016

W MAGAZINE – Caitriona Balfe went from runway modeling to starring in Outlander to walking the Cannes red carpet alongside George Clooney and Julia Roberts for Money Monster. Here, the actress talks her starry rise.

Premiering tonight at the Grand Palais in Cannes, Money Monster follows Lee Gates, a wealthy financial talk show host (George Clooney), who is held hostage on his live TV show by a man (Jack O’Connell) who lost his entire life’s savings after falling victim to a corporate financial scheme that Clooney promoted on his show. 36 year-old Caitriona Balfe plays Diane, the financial company’s communications director who has a moral awakening halfway through the film, when she realizes the extent of her boss’s deceit and her role as a cog in the American money wheel. Here, the leggy starlet talks about being dressed by Louis Vuitton, and what it’s like to work with the stars in the Jodie Foster-directed film.

What was your “I made it!” moment?
Last year when the show [Outlander] came out and one of those buses drove by, it was such a Carrie [Bradshaw] moment. I was like, “holy shit I’m on the side of a bus.”

Before your acting career took off, you were a successful model in your own right, walking at international fashion weeks…
Yes, I walked for Chanel, Michael Kors, Dior, Balenciaga, everyone. But my girlfriends and I would always laugh because we were the blue collar models. We did a lot of shows and we did well, but I was never known, which helped when I made the switch to acting because I think being a model comes with such a stigma.

What prompted the transition from modeling to acting?
My modeling career was trickling down…I hit that point where I was like “ok, I’m not happy, this was never my passion.” I was taking acting classes in New York, and I wanted to make sure I had the passion and talent for it. So I moved to L.A. to try it seriously. I had read an article where Amy Adams talked about her acting coach. So I enrolled in that teacher’s class and started from scratch. I was 29 about to turn 30. People say I shouldn’t talk about my age, but if you focus on the work, it shouldn’t matter what age you are.

And how did you get cast in Outlander?
I was living in L.A., working on bits and pieces of films. My manager sent me to the audition. I didn’t hear anything for three weeks, then I got a call that they wanted to see me again. It was a whirlwind. They casted me on Tuesday, and asked me to be there on Wednesday. I had a cat, an apartment, I had to figure out all this shit. Five days later I was on location in Glasgow shooting. I don’t think any of us expected the show to get the response that it did. Then during my hiatus between seasons one and two I shot Money Monster.
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Caitriona Interview with Otago Daily Times

Written by admin on April 26 2016

OTAGO DAILY TIMES – Matt Suddain sits down with Caitriona Balfe, star of epic swords and man-skirts drama Outlander.

This show has a simple concept, really: a married former World War 2 battlefield nurse, Claire Randall, discovers an ancient stone circle and accidentally travels through time, where she becomes embroiled in the Jacobean wars and meets her love-match: a kilted young warrior called Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan).

OK, so the concept doesn’t sound that simple. But the idea is simple.

To transport the audience – mostly women – out of their everyday lives and into an alternate world of fantasy, adventure and generous amounts of sex.

When I met Caitriona Balfe, who plays Claire, in a posh hotel in central London, I asked her if she had any idea why these fantasies about escaping to another time are so popular, and why time travel is such a go-to idea for film and TV.

‘‘Well, I suppose because we have so little control over events in our life. I think people love to fantasise about the ability to go back and do things differently. I’m more of the theory that no matter what has happened, everything brings you to the place you are right now, and so you’ve learned something, or you’ve grown from it.”

I can’t help pointing out that every time travel show or movie has things turning out incredibly badly.

‘‘Exactly! Because things turn out the way they’re supposed to.”
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