Outlander Blood of my Blood stars reveal brutal reality behind the kilts: ‘Like a little sausage roll’

Outlander: Blood of My Blood makes life in 18th-century Scotland look pretty sexy.

There are kilts, corsets, castles, smouldering glances and sweeping romances that make you briefly forget there was no indoor plumbing.

The reality of filming it is a lot less sexy.

Think four layers of soaking wet wool, mud up to your knees, aching backs and grown men lying on the floor in their underwear while three people wrap them into a kilt.

And that’s before we get to the sex scenes, where the song playing while they filmed was pretty much the opposite of romantic.

The Nightly sat down with the four leads of the Outlander prequel, Jamie Roy, Harriet Slater, Jeremy Irvine and Hermione Corfield, during their Australian press tour ahead of season two.

For anyone who needs a quick refresher on the increasingly complicated Outlander family tree, Roy and Slater play Brian Fraser and Ellen MacKenzie — the future parents of Jamie Fraser — while Irvine and Corfield play Henry Beauchamp and Julia Moriston, Claire Fraser’s parents.

The first season followed both couples falling in love hundreds of years apart before time travel threw Henry and Julia into the same 18th-century world as Brian and Ellen.

Season two picks up with both couples once again fighting to stay together, this time against the growing political unrest surrounding the Jacobite Rising and, in Henry and Julia’s case, the minor complication of being separated across time.

But while their characters are dealing with war, dangerous clans and seemingly endless heartbreak, the actors have their own battle going on behind the scenes: the clothes.

The four leads have spent the past week looking considerably cleaner and more glamorous while promoting the series in Australia, so The Nightly asked them what part of filming in those elaborate period costumes looks incredible on screen but is actually completely ridiculous.

Jeremy Irvine (Henry Beauchamp) didn’t even have to think about it.

“F....ing all of it,” he said.

Hermione Corfield (Julia Moriston), however, believes the men may have drawn the shorter straw.

“I feel like the boys almost have it harder than us sometimes,” she said.

“We’ve got the corset life, but the corsets hold you up and they make you sit up straighter.

“So I quite like it because it helps you get into character. You immediately feel in the time.

“We don’t have such ridiculous things as the boys do. They have to get wrapped in their kilts like a burrito every morning.”

For Irvine, there is nothing romantic about the ritual.

“Every morning, in nothing but your underwear, being rolled up like a baby having a diaper put on him is truly, truly emasculating,” he said.

“Someone has to see me lying on the floor in my pants getting rolled up... it’s pathetic,” he joked.

Jamie Roy, who plays Jamie’s father, knows the feeling.

His transformation into Brian Fraser also begins on the floor, with a process that can require three people to complete.

“They have the kilt laid out on the floor, and then I lie there and they kind of wrap me up like a little sausage roll,” Roy said.

“It’s quite humbling when you’re first there in your underwear.”

Once the clothes are actually on, things do not get much easier.

Harriet Slater, who plays Ellen MacKenzie (Jamie’s mother) said the polished result viewers see on screen hides the reality of spending long days outside in Scotland’s unpredictable weather.

“It’s so nice to get to do these press tours and dress up and be clean and dry because half the time we’re filming on location, and the weather is extreme,” Slater said.

“You’re wearing four layers of wool a lot of the time, it’s already heavy, but as soon as it gets wet, it weighs like double.

“We spend so much time traipsing across fields, you know, to get to the loo, and there’s mud up to your knee.

Roy said the weight of those layers becomes a workout of its own.

He recalled filming the season one finale, when Brian arrives at Leoch to save Ellen while wearing not only his usual costume, but a Grant outfit over the top, along with a sash and sword.

“That thing weighs so much; it’s crazy,” he said.

“When you add on to that a sword and everything, the whole thing, at the end of the day you take that off and you’re like, ‘Oh, my back!’

“It really does weigh a lot, and it’s a workout holding that thing.

“But then you see it on screen and you’re like, ‘That’s pretty cool’.”

The sex scenes

Here’s what happens when the kilts and corsets start coming off.

The Outlander franchise has become famous for its intimate scenes, but the Blood of My Blood stars say what appears effortless on screen requires careful choreography, and a sense of humour.

Roy and Slater revealed that during one intimate scene, they experimented with playing music to make the situation less awkward.

The song choice? Shaggy’s It Wasn’t Me.

The pair eventually opted for something more romantic, with Slater admitting they “giggled quite a lot” while filming some of the season two scenes.

Corfield and Irvine had much the same idea while filming Henry and Julia’s intimate moments.

“We started putting music on during our sex scene,” Irvine said.

Irvine said the suggestion prompted the pair to start putting together a playlist and trying to find “the most outrageous song” they could play while filming.

Ginuwine’s Pony was nearly on it.

“Deep, moving sex scene, and we’re listening to stripper music,” Irvine said.

For all the laughter behind the scenes, the actors believe there is a reason those moments translate into something far more romantic on screen.

Irvine said the series focuses less on simply showing two people simulating sex and more on smaller details such as touch.

“I think if you’re just seeing a wide shot of two people simulating sex, you’ve kind of seen it.

“I think they try and tap into the emotional connection element.”

Corfield said the cinematography was also crucial to creating the romance, with the scenes carefully lit to make them look beautiful.

In real life, Corfield said getting out of all those layers can take around 20 minutes.

On screen, some creative editing is required.

“We do a lot of cutting, don’t we?” Irvine said.

“Because actually, in reality, getting out of all your kit takes about 20 minutes.”

And there is another distinctly unsexy detail television tends to skip.

“You’ll never see people taking shoes off before a sex scene because that’s just ridiculous,” Corfield said.

She learnt that lesson particularly well while filming one scene in which Henry’s kilt had to fall to the floor.

What viewers could not see was what remained underneath.

“I have to let the kilt drop, but then what I’ve got on are knee-high leather boots,” Irvine said.

“So then I’m just naked, just wearing knee-high leather boots, which luckily you can’t see in the shot.

“That was ridiculous.”

Once the cameras roll, the wet wool, muddy bathroom treks, Shaggy soundtracks and grown men being rolled into kilts on the floor disappear.

What is left is the sexy Outlander world viewers know.

What’s to come in season two?

Season one left both couples fighting to stay together after being pulled apart by family, war and time itself.

Brian and Ellen finally chose each other, fleeing together after refusing to let their families, clan loyalties and the expectations placed upon them dictate their future. But their hard-won happiness is set to be short-lived.

Season two pushes their story into the growing political turmoil surrounding the Jacobite Rising of 1715, as Brian is caught up in the unrest as questions of family and clan loyalty once again threaten to come between them.

Henry and Julia’s story was left on an even bigger cliffhanger. After finally being reunited in the 18th century, season one ended with the couple, their newborn son William, and Julia’s father attempting to travel through the standing stones at Craigh na Dun, without revealing whether they all made it through.

Season two will finally answer that question, with Henry separated from Julia and William after travelling through time. If he hasn’t been through enough already, his journey eventually sees the First World War veteran inside a psychiatric hospital, undergoing electric shock therapy, as he once again tries to find his way back to his family.

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon remains involved with the prequel as a consulting producer.

Outlander: Blood of My Blood season two premieres in Australia on Stan on September 17, with 10 episodes airing weekly.