OUTLANDER star Sam Heughan believes followers of the hit show are in for a few surprises when the second season hits the screens.
Season two of the time-travel drama, dubbed Scotland’s answer to Game Of Thrones, sees the action move initially from 18th century Scotland to 18th century Paris, with stars promising the new season will have a very different feel to the last.
Scots actor Heughan, who plays young warrior Jamie, said everyone involved in the project wants to make the new setting feel as authentic as possible.
Speaking during filming on set in Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire, Heughan said: “Playing Jamie has been terrific. In season one I felt I really knew him and by the end of the season he really had changed.
“In season two we move to France and it’s got a different feel.
It’s a different world, really, from what we’re used to in season one. It’s a very luxurious place and all the characters there are very exuberant, and there’s a lot more politics involved at the start of season two.
“My character is constantly changing and his story is as well. It’s lovely to have elements of the character we know in season one but he’s evolving, he’s growing up.”
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Based on Diana Gabaldon’s popular Outlander books, the first season followed the story of Claire Randall, played by Caitriona Balfe, a married English combat nurse from 1945.
While on a second honeymoon in Inverness, she was swept back in time to the 18th-century Scottish Highlands where she met Jamie, with whom she became romantically linked.
Filming for the second series saw the crew given some respite from the Scottish weather, with shoots on location in England and Prague, before the action returns to Scotland at the time of the Jacobite rebellion.
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And Heughan reckons the next series will offer even more time travel twists and plenty of high-intensity battle scenes.
“We try to stay as authentic as possible,” he said. “That’s what excites me about season two – that we’re doing an as-close-as -you-can reproduction of that period in Scotland or France.”
Read more: Outlander author Diana Gabaldon: on a third series, the end of the saga, and a prequel
Dumfries-born Heughan, who studied at Glasgow’s then Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, believes Scotland “really shines” in the show.
Outlander season two will be available for unlimited streaming and download exclusively on Amazon Prime Video from Sunday, April 10.
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