Outlander: Blood of My Blood Showrunner Matt Roberts and His Cast Highlight Their Favorite Moments in “Providence” and “S.W.A.K.”

Jamie Roy: I think it’s nice to have the two love stories at different points in their relationship. You have Julia and Henry, who have a very much established relationship. They know each other very well and have gone through so much together. And then you can pair that with Brian and Ellen, who are just meeting, so we’re seeing it right at the very, very start of their story. I think that’s a really nice juxtaposition because there’s something that you can take from both of them. 

Matt, you’ve directed many Outlander episodes, and some expected you to direct the Blood of My Blood openers. Why did you hand that duty over to frequent Outlander director, Jamie Payne?

Roberts: I would have loved to, but the problem with this particular season is that Outlander and Blood filming almost overlapped. So just to have five minutes in the day to myself was tough, let alone thinking about taking on a block to direct, which would have been really insane.

And Jamie and I, we’re very like-minded in a lot of ways. He can bring something to me, or I’ll suggest something, and he’ll run with it. And vice versa, I’ll bring something to him and he’ll run with it. When you have that language and that shorthand…we kind of stepped out of ourselves when we did, “Never My Love” in [Outlander] Season 5. I would say something, and he would jump all over it. He knew exactly the vision of that. Even when he read the script, he knew the vision of it, and we had to explain the script to a lot of people because it was so different. He understood what we needed [here]. He’s very visual. He has great ideas. 

“Providence”

Paste: As the first episode in the series, “Providence” opens in 18th-century Scotland, and we get to know the Frasers and MacKenzies of the time. Did Matt Roberts point you towards any books or even Outlander episodes to help you get up to speed with this era?

Roy: We did this boot camp for a couple of weeks before we started, and that was brilliant. We learned everything that you would need to know to survive in 18th-century Scotland. We got to ride horses. We got to shoot guns, fight with swords, and learn how to do a Scottish accent. And then we also got given this book as well, like a little manual. And it was so interesting, full of the things that you could do and you couldn’t do. For instance, you weren’t allowed to point. Pointing was totally forbidden, or, like, frowned upon and considered really rude. So, then you’re rehearsing something and you’re like, “Oh no, I shouldn’t do that. I should find other ways to gesture.” 

In terms of the story, Matt really wanted us to find these characters organically. He trusted us with that through his writing and the other writers’ words, which are so beautiful. You can learn so much just from the words on the page about these characters without having to ask other questions.

Harriet Slater: They said that they very much didn’t want any of the characters to be a replica of their older selves because we meet them 30 years before Outlander, and they’re different people in many ways. The things that have happened to them prior to Outlander haven’t happened to them yet and haven’t made them those people, so there was a level of freedom in that way to find these characters ourselves.

But I was definitely influenced by watching performances in Outlander by Brianna [Sophie Skelton], Jenny [Laura Donnelly], and Jamie, in a way, without mimicking any mannerisms or anything like that. I just sort of absorbed that energy and that inspired me. 

Paste: Harriet, the flashback sequences between Ellen and her father, Red Jacob MacKenzie, really contextualize how important their relationship was, and how bound she is to the time period’s rules against women. How was it getting to work with Peter Mullen in those two-handers?

Slater: Definitely, it was a dream for me to work with Peter Mullen. I’d been a huge fan of his prior to the show, so me and Seamus [Ross] were freaking out when we found out that he was going to play our dad. I think he’s such a phenomenal actor, and working with him was a complete joy from start to finish. He’s such a lovely guy, and I was really inspired by him. 

And like you said, those scenes we shot quite early on in Season 1, and that was really helpful in understanding who Ellen is, because her dad was her best friend in the world. She fully is her father’s daughter through and through. And even now, shooting Season 2, I’ll often think back to Peter Mullen’s performance, and use that to find a certain strength in Ellen. 

He’s so inspiring. There are certain lines in the scenes that she has with him that have stuck with me, things like him saying, “You shine, not burn,” or “a Mackenzie you are, and Mackenzie will always be.” And he has this line to her where he says, “Your wit and tenacity are a blessing. There’s more of me in you than both your brothers combined. If only you had a cock.” That really hit hard because it’s true. She has everything required to be the next Laird, and he knows that and she knows it. And it’s devastating because she can’t because she’s a woman, and that was really heartbreaking.

Paste: Her older brothers are jockeying for the title of the new clan Laird. Does Ellen try to use that to her advantage in this season?

Slater: Definitely. I think we find her in a really vulnerable moment where she has lost a lot of power and a lot of protection because her father’s passed away, and her brothers are now in a position where they can use her as a pawn in their own game to forge and maintain alliances for themselves. She has lost a lot of power and a lot of protection, and she has to use her wits and her tenacity in order to preserve what little power she can and find her way out of these horrendous situations that she comes to find herself in. And her dad advises her to use how well she knows her brothers to influence them and almost rule through them, and that was really fun to play.

Paste: We see Ellen and Brian meet at a bridge and use that divider to keep their burgeoning feelings about one another as chaste as possible, with just a hand touch igniting the heat. Talk about creating a memorable moment with such restraint. 

Roy: In the bridge scene, specifically, those little things like hand touches back in the day, that was huge. That wasn’t a thing that you did, and especially for Brian to do that. He’s a man of honor and very proper and very religious, but he initiates that. He just goes out and touches her hand because he had to.

I think this is a new feeling for Brian because he’s never wanted anything in his life. He’s kind of given all that up and thinks his life is going to be totally just one way. And all of a sudden he meets someone who just changes his world, and he’s doing things like touching another woman’s hand without even asking. I think seeing the excitement between the two characters right at the start of the story is going to keep people wanting to see more and more and how that progresses, which it does.

“S.W.A.K. (Sealed with a Kiss)”

Paste: To tell the story of Henry and Julia, you put the audience right into both the World War I trenches and war-torn London via their letters and experiences. 

Roberts: We shot the WWI stuff first, and when we started seeing the dailies, it just looked like a movie. And Jonathan Neill, our visual effects supervisor, once he added all the elements into that…one of the biggest, amazing compliments that I got was from Jeremy [Irvine], who saw it and said how amazing and epic it looked. And this is the guy who comes from making a Steven Spielberg war movie [War Horse], so that compliment was off the charts.

When people see the beginning of the second episode, it’s completely a different show for a second. I want them to fall in love with Henry and Julia because I want them to follow that love story and be invested in it, so it was important to show each one of them going through the war differently and together through their letters.

Paste: Essentially, you both have to sell the audience on this sweeping romance in just the span of an episode. How did you the two of you, as actors, develop a rapport off-screen so that the relationship feels as authentic as it does?

Jeremy Irvine: I’ll tell you how committed I am as an actor, so it started over 10 years ago when I started building a friendship with Hermione, and we’ve been friends for 10 years. You could look back at that and say that’s a coincidence, but I say that was me just getting into character for this. [Laughs] 

Hermione Corfield: That sounds about right. 

Paste: Since you already had a friendship, did that help in the casting of either of you in these roles?

Irvine: I had no say in it, but I was messaging the director, going, “Please, please, please, please….”

Corfield: Yeah, after the chemistry read, it gives you a head start because it’s someone you know, and you immediately know that you can work together, and that there’s a comfortableness.

Irvine: And we hang out, and I know every cast always says this when they do press, but we hang out more off set than we do on set. We all do, the whole cast. We hang out every weekend. We’re going off on excursions…a lot of very drunk dinner parties and things like that, so we are genuinely good friends so it makes it easy. 

Corfield: I think we also, just in terms of our scenes, made sure we said that they have to have enough sort of passion and heat that you really feel the love, so that when they are apart, you understand why they want to get back to each other. That was very important.

Paste: The first time we see your characters in the latter half of “Providence,” they’re on their honeymoon. Where did that come in the production cycle?

Irvine: Well, I’m not joking, we shot most of that after we’d shot all 10 other episodes. The car stuff was way later. Our director, Jamie, came back for that and the love scene, that sexy picnic scene.

Corfield: Yeah, the first scene I shot was from Episode Three [“School of the Moon”].

Paste: Hermione, you are styled to look like you could be related to Caitriona’s Claire in Outlander. Were there other qualities you saw in Balfe’s performance that you wanted Julia to have, so there were some other subtle, familial connections?

Corfield: I think it’s nature and nurture, what we inherit from our parents. For Claire, obviously, she’s five when she loses her parents, but I think there are some inherent traits that her mother has. As you said, I didn’t want it to be too much of an impression or too much mimicry because that’s boring. And also, I need to respect Caitriona’s performance.

For me, it was about finding the core of Julia and the core of Claire, and working out where they align, and then also the differences. And then what Henry carries that he passes on to Claire. 

Paste: Henry’s experience in the war is life-changing. Did shooting that material first help in solidifying how you wanted to play the Henry who goes back in time?

Irvine: Yes, that was the first thing that I shot. You never know going on to a job what it’s going to be like, and that one, I walked on set the first day and was just blown away by the scale of this huge set. It was all real. There’s not much in the way of CGI in that. They turn this enormous quarry into the trenches of Passchendaele with hundreds and hundreds of supporting actors and explosions, machine gun fire, and all that sort of stuff. And so really, everything that you would have to do as an actor in a studio and a green screen is all sort of done for you. You’re just reacting off what’s around you, and it just makes your job so much easier. So, we’re thrown into that world and then could take all that going forward.

I was really keen to sort of, really run with the idea that he’s very traumatized and suffering from PTSD afterwards. It’s just such a golden ticket for an actor to be able to play someone with a bit of trauma. It freed me up to go and do some interesting stuff. 

Paste: One of the most poignant scenes in this episode is when Henry wakes up from a night terror, and Julia sees what he’s going through for the first time. What are your memories of shooting that scene?

Irvine: I’m gonna say from memory, the first take, I hadn’t really planned it, and I think it was quite a big reaction. I think the director, Emer Conroy, went, “Whoa, let’s just lower that and keep it a bit smaller.” Then she came and found me a few weeks later and went, “We used that take.”

We got to do that big stuff, which was nice. They’re quite reserved, these characters, when life’s going well. It’s the British thing, so it’s quite nice to be able to let it all out sometimes.

Corfield: Also, I was keen for Julia not to find it completely smooth sailing [when] dealing with Henry’s PTSD. I think what was so nice about the flashback scenes of them together is that it’s not fully through rose-tinted glasses. I think that makes the whole thing a lot more real. She’s not there going, “Don’t worry, darling, everything’s okay,” or not reacting at all. She doesn’t show him [a lot] because she doesn’t want to give him any more pain and stress. But secretly, when he’s not looking, she is tearing up. She is finding the whole thing of seeing the person you love the most in the world struggling like that, is going to be deeply harrowing.

Paste: Do you have a favorite moment in these episodes?

Roberts: I wouldn’t call it my favorite, but the moment that I wanted to happen was showing Julia in the war. I wanted to show that it also affected back home. I had this idea of her hearing this weird sound that she would never have heard before. She walks to the window, and she may have heard a plane go by, but never heard that many planes go by. Hermione plays it so great because she’s super curious about what that sound is. She sees these things falling from the sky, and then all of a sudden, this blast! The way it was done, the way Jamie filmed it…and with Jonathan Neill, I said I wanted the reflection to be on the window and for us to see it. They played it out perfectly. It’s exactly what was in my head, and it came out perfect. I love that scene. 

Outlander: Blood of My Blood streams new episodes Fridays on Starz.

Tara Bennett is a Los Angeles-based writer covering film, television and pop culture for publications such as SFX Magazine, NBC Insider, IGN and more. She’s also written official books on Sons of Anarchy, Outlander, Fringe, The Story of Marvel Studios, Avatar: The Way of Water and the latest, The Art of Ryan Meinerding. You can follow her on Twitter @TaraDBennett, Bluesky @tarabennett.bsky.social, or Instagram @TaraDBen.