Now I'm Crying
Caitríona Balfe “Couldn’t Keep It Together” For Last Outlander Scene With Sam Heughan
The actors have played Claire and Jamie for more than a decade.
Sing me a song of a lass show that is gone... well, almost. As the Outlander finale approaches, Caitríona Balfe is looking back on her decade-plus of playing Claire Fraser — and sharing that dreamy on-screen world with Sam Heughan.
In a recent interview with Elle, Balfe opened up about filming her final scene with Heughan. “The last scene that Sam and I filmed together in Jamie and Claire’s bedroom was a seven-page dialogue scene,” she said, “and the stuff that we were saying to each other as we were saying it had all of these double meanings for our lives and the whole experience, saying goodbye to Claire and the whole thing.”
If you’ve been feeling weepy approaching the end of Outlander (whose finale airs on May 15), you’re not alone. As Balfe continued of those last moments, “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, because I couldn’t keep it together. I was so emotional. It hit me like a train — what a massive journey it had been, and the enormity of saying goodbye.”
As the magazine notes, this scene was filmed last, but since TV frequently films out of order, it won’t actually be the final moment viewers get to see. And Balfe herself doesn’t know what that will be. In fact, she told Elle that multiple versions were shot for the show’s highly anticipated finale.
As Heughan recently told Extra, “We had different scenarios. There was something that I wanted to happen, and I pushed for it, and I know a few people did, and I know what we’ve shot, obviously — but I don’t know how it’s been edited, so I don’t really know how it ends.”
No matter how Jamie and Claire’s story draws to a close, their relationship will go down as one of the swooniest on-screen romances in TV history. “We were always in step with how we wanted to portray this couple,” Balfe recently shared with Bustle about crafting the couple’s intimacy with Heughan. “It was very important for us that it didn’t become gratuitous and that it wasn’t just about feeding an audience what they think they want, but more what’s going to move them.”
And this certainly isn’t the end of Outlander as a franchise. Prequel series Blood of My Blood, which explores the surprising intersection of Jamie and Claire’s parents and their respective relationships, added new twists to the show’s century-hopping lore — and a second season arrives this fall.
