Executive producer Maril Davis talks the perils of recreating the New World: “You’re never going to get the heat and humidity of North Carolina in Scotland.”
Ask someone who hasn’t seen a single episode of Outlander to explain the series, and they may still be able to tell you two details: 1) This is a story that takes place in Scotland, and 2) it’s a romance about two very attractive and charismatic people who are torn apart by the quirks of time travel. But as the beloved book adaptation heads into its fourth season on Starz next month, both of those main components are going out the window.
As the show returns, the attractive couple in question—Caitriona Balfe’s Claire and Sam Heughan’s Jamie—are together at last, and making a new life for themselves not on the Highlands, but in colonial America. Outlander is not done with Scotland for good, but it’s certainly trading in plaid kilts for buckskin trousers this season. In the new series of photos above [here, below] and an exclusive behind-the-scenes video below, we get a glimpse of what life will be like for Claire and Jamie as they build a home together in North Carolina.
The show’s executive producer, Maril Davis, also shed light on some of the challenges the show faced as Outlander reshaped its look while maintaining its identity. We’ll all get to see how they did when the new season premieres on Sunday, November 4th.
What was the biggest challenge of bringing Claire and Jamie to America?
The biggest challenge by far was trying to figure out how to film North Carolina in Scotland. In Scotland, everything is stone. We certainly debated moving [production] to North Carolina, because I’ve said all along that one of the amazing things about Outlander is that we were actually able to film where it took place. Usually it’s Los Angeles or Vancouver or Washington. But at the end of the day we realized we love our crew too much to leave Scotland, and we have such a fabulous art department.
So I’ve always said the only thing we could not replicate is the weather, because certainly you’re never going to get that heat and humidity of North Carolina in the summer in Scotland. So we just kind of decided from the get-go not to talk about the weather. We just wouldn’t try to play that at all.
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