Outlander season 5: When could casting news first come out?
For one reason or another, the Starz drama possesses a unique ability to be able to take its time to announce some of its castings. A part of it is likely due to the fact that filming takes place either in a closed-off studio set in Scotland, or somewhere out on location, often inaccessible from much of the world. With each passing season it becomes harder to catch photos of the cast and crew at work, largely because the production team works ever harder in order to mask some of their secrets.
Beyond all of this, there is also the fact that Outlander tends to cast UK actors and names that don’t often make it over stateside during filming. They look for extremely talented people and while some of them (think in terms of Billy Boyd) are big names with large followings, others are relative newcomers. They cast based mostly on talent and the right fit for a given part; from there, they do a good job making sure that the castings don’t hit the press until Starz wants them to.
How Starz often announces casting news for Outlander
Over the past couple of seasons, we’ve seen them take a really cautious approach when it comes to news getting out. Rather than unleash an avalanche of individual updates throughout the season, they like to hold castings and announce several of them at once. For many castings last season, they waited until close to the end of the season to officially unveil them. There were a few exceptions (think along the lines of Maria Doyle Kennedy and Ed Speleers), but many of the other additions, including the aforementioned Boyd and Caitlin O’Ryan, were announced at once.
Do we believe that there have been some newcomers on set already? It’s hard to imagine otherwise, but there’s no real reason for Starz to hurry. If they follow the pattern from last season, they may wait until this fall before allowing some of the names to come out. It’s basically another way for them to build up story momentum and tension leading into the return of the show — the more news that they have closer to the series’ return, the better off it is. (For those wondering, Outlander season 5 is likely premiering in 2020 — we’re hoping within the first half of the year, but Starz is in full control of that.
Do you wish that Outlander would announce some of its new players for a given season individually? Then be sure to share in the comments below.
Photo: Starz