Starz released the first portraits for Outlander season eight, and everyone is included. Seen in the portraits are Jamie (Sam Heughan), Claire (Caitriona Balfe), Brianna (Sophie Skelton), Roger (Richard Rankin), Rachel (Izzy Meikle-Small), Ian (John Bell), Lord John Grey (David Berry), William (Charles Vandervaart), Marsali (Lauren Lyle), and Fergus (César Domboy). For those interested in details, this shoot occurred in August of 2024.
In the Vanity Fair interview that accompanied the portraits’ initial release, Matthew B. Roberts and Caitriona Balfe commented on the final season. Below are excerpts, but please head over to Vanity Fair to read the whole piece.
“You won’t have to wait long for a lot of them. We hit you with a pretty big wave of information right off the bat,” says Roberts, “and then that wave will hopefully carry you all the way to the end. There’s a lot of tension and turmoil, but there is a lot of resolution.” Not that he’s in the business of spoiling what that may entail. “I always had the ending in my head,” he adds, but “we also filmed a few [other] endings for security reasons.”
Balfe’s last day on set, a sprawling seven-page scene that Heughan performed in front of their longtime crew, “was so hard, but also one of the most beautiful moments in my time on Outlander,” she tells VF. “That it was Sam and I, sharing a loving Claire and Jamie moment where they reflected on their lives together, was so fitting, and I was so grateful to be there with Sam, my steadfast partner throughout this whole series.”
Even with succession plans for this hit TV universe firmly in place, one can’t help but wonder if Outlander will take a page out of the Downton Abbey playbook by launching a series of theatrically released films. “It’s certainly been talked about, but it’s all about where people are in their lives,” says Roberts, an air of possibility evident in his voice. “I’ve heard not only the producers, but the cast, say ‘never, say never.’”
Source: Starz, Vanity Fair
