Outlander season 3 at Emerald City Comic-Con — live updates
The Outlander season 3 at Emerald City Comic-Con panel event is happening today with stars Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan — with this article, we want to give you a taste of it. Note that we’re not at this particular panel (it’s a little far from our home base — hopefully they come closer to California next time), but the goal here is still to provide you some updates. Isn’t this the benefit of sources and social media?
The panel is starting at around 10:00 Pacific time, so be sure to refresh the piece as the event goes on for some further updates. We don’t have any specific expectation here other than that it’ll hopefully be a fun celebration of both the show and its stars.
The event opened with a conversation between moderator Clare Kramer and the two stars, and this was your introduction period to the show and the research that the two parties had done leading up to the role. Some of this you may have heard already, but it’s still interesting how little time Balfe had in particular between getting cast and starting to work on the show. Here are a few of the responses that they gave to some of her questions.
Sam on South Africa filming – “Season 3 is longer than we thought, anticipated … The production’s so vast. We’re off to South Africa tomorrow … The logistics … They just take time.”
Balfe on Claire’s state after returning from the stones – “Claire believes that Jamie has died. There aren’t many options, and she does what any mother would do [and] tries to survive.”
Balfe on some acting challenges – “I think the really great challenge about this season … is telling the story about a woman who’s lived twenty years and we’re only seeing these little vignettes … I obviously miss my partner-in-crime, but it’s not that long before [we see each other] again.”
Time for audience questions!
Who Sam and Cait would geek out over – For Sam, it is the cast of Stranger Things and Jeremy Renner. (He told a funny story about this at an Oscar party.) For Caitriona, it was Fay Dunaway one year ago, before the Oscar controversy happened.
Balfe on putting herself into Claire’s role – “…I can only feel the experiences that I’ve gone through when I’m reading something. My empathy comes through my experience. In that way, you do have a lot of yourself into the role. But I think it’s also important to keep things separate … I had never played a character for this long before … As much as there is a lot of me in Claire, she’s also given so much to me and helped me in my life.”
Heughan on being locked in to this role – “I know that we’re both actively seeking stuff. I have a project that will hopefully work during the break [between seasons]. Doing something else can be refreshing, but this job is so fun, and so all-consuming.”
Heughan on how Jamie changed without Claire – “If people have read the book Voyager … You will get to see Jamie’s journey without Claire. Jamie’s not himself, he’s being anything but Jamie Fraser. That’s all I can say.”
Presented without context – Sam used to play the trombone. We used to play saxophone. Jazz band, anyone?
Balfe on juggling living in different spots – “I have massive suitcases … It is one of the challenges of being an actor, but we know [that] going into this career … Somewhere in our hearts, that’s who we are … I think that’s kind of exciting about our lives. I love traveling and seeing different cities and cultures.”
Balfe on how the show impacts people – “It’s very humbling. We’re actors. We make believe for a living. If anything we do can give people an escape, it’s a huge bonus.”
These are obviously just some of the small moments that took place during the panel. They weren’t allowed to speak too extensively about season 3, but both Balfe and Heughan were in great spirits and had fun with the crowd in attendance. There were sweet moments, funny ones, and everyone seemed to have a good time.
For some other news related to Outlander, just be sure to head over to the link here.
As always, we also welcome some of your thoughts with a comment below. (Photo: Starz.)