Sam Heughan: the Outlander season 7 shoot is “flying by”

Sam Heughan shot to fame after he landed the role of Jamie Fraser on Outlander, which has been running on Starz for six seasons. Heughan and company are currently at work on season 7, which according to Heughan will be a doozy.

“We’re shooting season seven and it’s flying by,” Heughan told Esquire. “It feels like we started yesterday but already we’re on our sixth episode. This season is going to take a while, it’s an 18-episode bumper mega season, so we probably won’t be finished until March or February of next year. It’s a big one this year as last year we had to reduce it by six episodes because of Covid and my co-star [Caitríona Balfe] was pregnant, so we moved it.”

It’s true that season 6 had a reduced episode count, but they’re making up for it now. That will surely please the legions of Outlander fans out there, whom Heughan never expected to amass in such numbers. “I didn’t know anything of the books when I first started and I remember my first day with my driver and we were driving into work, and he was like ‘How long do you think this will go for?’ and I said: ‘Probably a year, maybe two?’”

"Next year it’ll be a decade. So it has been quite a journey, but it’s been incredible, it’s changed my life. It’s been hard graft, but really rewarding."

Sam Heughan knows how Outlander ends

Indeed, being at the center of a huge TV show like Outlander is no easy feat, but perhaps knowing the ending removes a bit of the pressure. Because Heughan does know the ending. “Diana Gabaldon [the writer-creator] actually revealed to me how the whole thing’s going to end,” he said. “She emailed me the last few pages of what will be the last book very early on, I think in the first few weeks of shooting and no one else has seen that I think, apart from one other exec producer. Even Caitríona’s not seen it and I’m sworn to secrecy.”

Heughan is also clued in about an upcoming Outlander spinoff, although he’s not technically a part of it. “All I can tell you is I’m not in it, as Jamie’s not in it!” he said. “I believe that it’s a prequel focusing on Jamie’s parents when they were younger, so I guess you might see a young version of him at some point. But I think I may be a little too old to play young Jamie now! I could play his dad maybe, or a flash forward? It is time travel, after all.

Sam Heughan still wants a shot at playing James Bond

Beyond Outlander, Heughan is keeping very busy. He plays a crooked cop in the upcoming Channel 4 drama Suspect. He’s also holding out hope that he could play James Bond, a part he auditioned for back in the day before they gave the role to Daniel Craig. “I was taken upstairs and I met Barbara Broccoli and Martin Campbell, the director at the time,” he remembered. “There was a golden gun on the table – I guess from The Man With The Golden Gun? – and we sat around a very large wooden table and talked a bit about Bond. It was strange, as they didn’t want to talk about Bond, but they talked about Bond. It’s all very secret service.”

"I think the role’s fantastic and I’d love to throw my oversized hat into the ring again if they are [considering people they’ve already looked at]! It’d be nice to see a Scottish Bond again."

Considering Heughan’s upward mobility, I wouldn’t be shocked if he landed the role. And it’s been a minute since Daniel Craig made his final appearance as Bond; surely an announcement can’t be that far off?

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