It’s early July when Jamie Roy—Outlander’s soon-to-be newest heartthrob—hops on a Zoom from his native Scotland, where his dog is napping behind him. He’s already a week into filming the second season of Starz’s highly anticipated prequel Outlander: Blood of My Blood, and at this point has yet to experience San Diego Comic-Con, the show’s world premiere, or even the launch of the series (which, for the record, is Friday, August 8, on Starz).
Even so, Roy is ready to welcome whatever comes his way, while staying grounded in the face of so much excitement. “We were all just so ecstatic when we got the news about season two,” Roy says. “We loved what we did so much in season one, so getting to do it all over again is so lucky, so fortunate.”
Viewers will finally get to see “what we did” when Outlander: Blood of My Blood, the prequel to the epic love story of Jamie and Claire Fraser, premieres in less than 24 hours. In the series, based on characters created by best-selling author Diana Gabaldon, the love connection between Jamie’s parents, Brian Fraser (Roy) and Ellen MacKenzie (Harriet Slater), which takes place 20 years prior to the start of Outlander, will be explored.
“I think it’s really important to know where Brian comes from,” Roy says. “He’s living with his father, who’s very abusive. He’s been shunned by most of his clan because of his misdeeds, so they kind of lived in isolation. And this is all Brian’s really known growing up.”
But when viewers get their first glimpse of Roy’s Brian, he’s content with his situation and at peace with the fact that this is his life. “He is the bastard son of this horrible man, and nothing’s going to change that,” he says. “He can either wallow in that, knowing that he doesn’t have all the opportunities that a firstborn son would normally have, or he could just be like, Okay, cool, this is my life, and now I have to get on with it.”
That is, until he meets Ellen MacKenzie and everything changes. “Obviously, that’s when he realizes, This is actually something that I want. But to get this thing I want, I have to go through this massive journey of rival plans.… So, he takes on this whole new challenge. When we first see him in episode one, that’s the only time that we’ll see him when he’s still a little boy, I would say. And then, he goes into this journey of really becoming a man.”
Roy’s own journey to Outlander fandom is just as fascinating. From Scotland to Miami to Los Angeles, Roy can’t believe where his career has taken him. “This whole experience from when I first started acting to now, living just 10 minutes away from where I grew up.… It’s crazy how life works out like that,” he says.
So, who is Jamie Roy, and what is his particular path to the Outlander universe? From hair stories to Disney World, nothing is off-limits as he opens up about his resemblance to Sam Heughan, previous Outlander auditions, and why his costars call him Daddy. Read on.
