Filming has begun on Starz’s Outlander prequel Outlander: Blood of My Blood which dives into the lives of Jamie’s parents, Ellen and Brian, and Claire’s parents, Julia and Henry. The network’s start of production announcement confirmed Harriet Slater (Pennyworth) will star as Ellen and Jamie Roy (Condor’s Nest) is playing Brian. Hermione Corfield (The Road Dance) is on board as Julia and Jeremy Irvine (War Horse) stars as Henry.
“We’re thrilled to be telling the stories of these two couples. The origins of their relationships explore universal themes that transcend time periods, and we’re so excited for fans to discover and fall in love with these characters and their love stories the way they have with Claire and Jamie,” said Matthew B. Roberts, showrunner, executive producer, and writer on both series.
Season one will consist of 10 episodes and will be shot in Scotland.
“Outlander: Blood of My Blood will explore the lives and relationship of Jamie’s parents, Ellen MacKenzie (Slater) and Brian Fraser (Roy). STARZ confirmed today that the series will also explore the origin story of Claire’s parents, Julia Moriston (Corfield) and Henry Beauchamp (Irvine),” reads Starz’s announcement. “The series will center on these two parallel love stories set in two different time periods, with Jamie’s parents in the early 18th century Scottish Highlands and Claire’s parents in WWI England.”
Executive producers include Roberts, Ronald D. Moore, Maril Davis, and Story Mining & Supply Company. Author Diana Gabaldon is a consulting producer.
The original Outlander will return with the second half of season seven later this year. Filming is expected to begin on the eighth – and final – 10-episode season soon in Scotland.
Starz provided the following brief biographies on its newly announced Outlander: Blood of My Blood stars.
Harriet Slater was born in Leicester, England and caught the acting bug early, at 6 years of age, through involvement with the ‘Little Theatre,’ home of the hundred-year-old Leicester Drama Society, which counts Lord Richard Attenborough as one of its most famous members. Having performed in dozens of musicals and plays during her youth, the Society gave Slater the foundations and confidence to pursue acting as her career.
At the age of 19, she relocated to Guildford to attend drama school. Slater studied dramatic arts at Guildford School of Acting, before moving to London and signing with a prestigious talent agency. Slater’s first professional job was a three-person play at Theatre Royal in Plymouth. The play, about cycling, required the cast to peddle on static bikes for the full duration of the play! Off the back of her run at the Theatre Royal, she completed six months with the Royal Shakespeare Company in a play called Vice Versa.
She quickly followed that by landing her first TV role as Sandra Onslow, club singer and Alfred Pennyworth’s love interest in three seasons of the high-profile Pennyworth, a highly stylized deep dive into the life of the Wayne family butler of Batman fame.
On completing Pennyworth, Slater jumped straight into production on three feature films: a small role in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the most recent installment of the Indiana Jones franchise and a bucket-list job alongside Harrison Ford; as one of three leads in The Haunting in Wicker Park alongside Jamie Campbell-Bower and Erin Moriarty telling the story of the first-ever televised exorcism, broadcast on NBC News in 1971 with terrifying after effects for everyone involved; and another horror feature film called Horrorscope, which is set for a release in spring/summer 2024.
Most recently, Slater can be seen as the lead character of Clara Dunn in Julian Fellowes’ Belgravia: The Next Chapter.
Jamie Roy was born in Greenock and grew up in Glasgow, Scotland. He has lived in America for a number of years where he has developed his career. Roy’s credits include Condor’s Nest, Your Boyfriend is Mine, Squeaky Clean Mysteries: Hazardous Duty, Flowers and Honey, Burning Little Lies, and Picture Perfect Lies.
Roy is a keen and talented golfer and rugby player.
Hermione Corfield has had an extensive career on screen. Her film, The Road Dance, won the 2021 Audience Award at the Edinburgh Film Festival. Other film credits include Sea Fever, directed by Neasa Hardiman and premiered at the Toronto Film Festival; The Misfits, a heist crime drama alongside Pierce Brosnan, Jamie Chung and Tim Roth; Born a King, the extraordinary real life story of a 14-year old teenage Arab prince, also starring Kenneth Cranham and Ed Skrein; Rust Creek, directed by Jen McGowan; Slaughterhouse Rulez, alongside Michael Sheen, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost; King Arthur: Legend of the Sword with Charlie Hunnam, Annabelle Wallis, Jude Law and Aiden Gillen; xXx: Return of Xander Cage, alongside Vin Diesel, Samuel L. Jackson, Ruby Rose and Nina Dobrev; Lucasfilms’ Star Wars: The Last Jedi as Tallie Lintra; Fallen, based on the popular young adult novel series by Lauren Kate; Seth Grahame-Smith’s horror parody Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which starred Lily James, Sam Riley and Charles Dance; Mr. Holmes alongside Ian McKellen, Frances de la Tour and Hattie Morahan, and Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, the fifth instalment in the Mission Impossible franchise, with Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg and Jeremy Renner.
For television, she starred as Freddy in We Hunt Together, currently in its second season. She also previously starred in the period drama series The Halcyon, co-starring Olivia Williams, Jamie Blackley, and Kara Tointon.
Corfield has just wrapped production on the thriller Family Secrets.
Jeremy Irvine is an English stage and screen actor. He attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art before catching Hollywood’s eye starring in Steven Spielberg’s 2011 epic war film War Horse which went on to receive a Best Picture nomination for the 2012 Academy Awards and Golden Globes.
Irvine earned widespread critical acclaim for his role opposite Dakota Fanning in the independent film Now Is Good, leading critics to list him among Hollywood’s fastest-rising stars. In 2013, he dropped more than 25 pounds and performed his own torture scene stunts in the film adaptation of The Railway Man.
In 2018, Jeremy played the younger version of Pierce Brosnan’s character Sam in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again opposite Lily James and directed by Ol Parker.
His recent credits include Leopardi & Co, Return to Silent Hill, Baghead, This Is Christmas, Dalgliesh, Treadstone, and The Last Full Measure with Christopher Plummer and Samuel L. Jackson.
Other notable credits include Paradise Hills, Billionaire Boys Club, The Professor And The Madman, Fallen, The World Made Straight, Stonewall, The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death, and Beyond the Reach, in which he stars alongside Michael Douglas.
