New Caitriona Balfe Interview with Radio Times

Here’s an interview of Caitriona Balfe with Radio Times

So are you a fantasy fan?

To be honest it wouldn’t be my go-to genre but I think it gives you a good opportunity to examine relationships and human interactions. Outlander has that fantasy label but once you get down to it, it’s quite grounded.

Tell us a little bit about why you were excited to play Claire…

She’s such a fully formed woman. She’s not a victim, she’s a survivor. And she’s complicated. She’s feisty, in the positive sense, and maybe a little bit stubborn and mouthy in the negative sense as well. She has such a lust for life. She’s a little irreverent – I love that about her. As ballsy as she is, she’s also got this vulnerability.

Read more of the interview after the jump

Are there any similarities there…?

I like to think I have that same lust for life. My family would probably say that I’m quite stubborn! Playing her has shown me that I’m probably stronger than I thought I was.

Claire is strong, but she’s certainly a complicated character.

What I loved about Outlander was that it was so complicated. It’s nice to play in those grey areas because nothing with human emotion is ever black and white. I like that the writers really took time to let Claire come to the realisation of what those feelings for Jamie are.

Talking of Claire and Jamie’s relationship…

We really try and show how someone who has a lot of apprehension and guilt about the feelings that she has overcomes that and learns to let go of one life and start another one.

And, er, what about those sex scenes?

It isn’t just, ‘Oh, here are two people bonking!’ We’ve all seen that and it gets very boring after a while. This is about people trying to enhance their relationship, mend their relationship or bring their relationship forward.

How did you find filming those scenes?

I had never done sex scenes on TV or film before. In the very first episode you see scenes between Frank and Claire – it’s so important to show that there is love in that relationship. Tobias [Menzies, who plays Frank] and I did this really nice little thing in the beginning where we wrote letters to each other from Claire and Frank as if they were writing from the war. Tobias was very funny – he redacted most of his!

The intimate moments must still be tricky to film, though?

Definitely. It’s nerve-wracking. Especially the first one because it was in our first week. I’d barely met Tobias. I was like, ‘Well, hello. Nice to meet you. Let’s get our kit off and get into bed!’

It’s a closed set and a skeleton crew but there’s seven or eight people in the room – it’s still a lot of people! They are never fun but I am very lucky. I have two amazing costars. Sam [Heughan] and Tobias both are just so wonderful. We get along so well and we trust each other.