From The WSJ:
Warning: This article contains major spoilers from tonight’s episode of “Outlander,” “Faith.”
A typical episode of “Outlander” has never been for the faint of heart, and tonight’s was no different, as the Frasers faced one of the biggest tests of their relationship since Black Jack Randall demanded authority over Jamie’s body and soul last season.
Read more after the jump!
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Although they were forced to deal with the traumatizing loss of their unborn child, Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and Jamie (Sam Heughan) were also able to close out their sojourn in France with the tiniest bit of good news: Le Comte St. Germain, the Parisian aristocrat who made it his mission to destroy the expatriate couple from the moment he appeared onscreen, died a miserable death by poisoning at Claire’s feet.
While this can be seen as a giant relief to Claire and Jamie, it’s a bittersweet development for the show, because Le Comte was one of its quintessential love-to-hate-him villains. As portrayed by French actor Stanley Weber, Monsieur le Comte was embodied with a delicate balance of silent wickedness and calculating mischief, and it’s going to be tough for fans to say goodbye to such a delicious adversary.
Weber, who is as charming in real life as his character is evil in the fictional world of “Outlander,” called up Speakeasy while he was in Los Angeles recently to chat about Le Comte’s dramatic – but deserved – demise.
An edited transcript:
Whether you’re looking at Le Comte St. Germain from the point of view of Claire, Jamie or the audience, the guy is an indisputable villain. But is that how you approached the character?
Of course I was aware of how bad he could be, but, as far as I was concerned, when I was stepping into his shoes, I wasn’t going to be like, “Oh, yeah, I’m going to be so bad to everyone.” No, the interesting thing is to try to focus on the human side, because some humans are terrible human beings, and he’s probably one of them, but he’s just doing his thing and trying to achieve purpose. So, in my head, I was like, “No, I’m doing the right thing.” And the right thing to me was definitely to be really angry and really seeking revenge on Claire for messing with his business and making his boat burn.
So how do you find the human side in someone who would go so far as to poison Claire?
I guess, really simply, by just focusing on his anger. I was just trying to stay as simple as I could with the feeling of vengeance. I’ve been sailing a lot since I was young, so, the scene about watching my boat burn was really heartbreaking. And you always try to find some connection, some bridges between yourself and the character. Of course, trying to identify with a pure villain, like, trying to poison and kill such a beautiful woman is hard to connect to, because me as Stanley, I couldn’t hate [Claire/Balfe] – she’s an absolute angel. So I had to work really hard on hating her. But I would focus on this image of my boat burning and that would help a lot.
Read the entire interview at the source
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