Outlander casting director shares how Sam Heughan got casted as Jamie Fraser
15.10.2023 - 21:39
/ dailyrecord.co.uk
Sam Heughan has embodied Outlander's leading man Jamie Fraser for almost a decade, but prior to securing the role bosses feared the role would be hard to cast.
The Balmaclellan-born actor, 43, has become synonymous with the dashing Highland warrior from Diana Gabaldon's novels. While bosses originally thought that Jamie would be the hardest role to cast, Sam secured the role before Caitriona Balfe was cast.
Outlander's casting director Suzanne Smith shared insight into how Sam was cast in the role, and the process behind the scenes. Speaking to the Express, she said: “Well, with actors, you follow their careers, so I knew Sam from drama school and I brought him in for quite a few roles before, so I’d followed his career so I knew him."
She continued: “So there’s not many very tall Scots that are right for Jamie Fraser, so Sam came to mind straight away. We did audition other actors and the casting process is not just one audition, you do a couple, so it’s a process of each role that we do on the show.”
She went on to say: “He just embodied the role and also being a wonderful human being, which is so important. So, we did one audition and then we did a recall and then we did a final recall with our producers.”
Speaking about what bosses were looking for in the role, she said: “The thing is when you’re casting, you never know. Sometimes a role you think is the most difficult proves not to be and the role that you think is going to be the easiest is the hardest and that’s the enjoyable thing - sometimes frustrating thing - you never know.
“So I know that my producers thought that Jamie Fraser was going to be the difficult role and it proved not to be.”
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