Well, in the spirit of reminiscing about all things Outlander, star Sam Heughan—who plays hot Scot Jamie Fraser on the series—recently divulged all the details on Good Morning America about he reacted when he first heard he got the part that catapulted him to fame.
Sam Heughan’s reaction to being cast in Outlander
“That was a long time ago now… almost eight years,” Heughan recalled in a Dec. 28 GMA virtual Q&A when asked about the moment he learned he’d landed the gig. “When I first found out, I was in a grocery store in London and I had a whole bag of groceries. My agent called me and I finally got the job and I dropped all the groceries and I was screaming at the top of my voice and I think I probably swore a lot as well.” But wait, there’s more! Heughan added that his loud moment at the market was just the beginning of his bacchanalia. “Being a good Scotsman, I went and met all my friends and we went and celebrated for a couple of days, I think,” he said. “It was a lot of fun.”
What was Sam Heughan in before Outlander?
Although Heughan skyrocketed to major fame soon after Outlander’s debut in August 2014, the now-41-year-old had weathered up-and-down success as a working actor before the Starz hit (and his band of fans known as “Heughligans”) came along, mostly in other TV projects in the UK. Stateside, though, he was probably best known (if he was known at all) as Prince Ashton of Castlebury in the 2011 Hallmark Channel holiday movie A Princess for Christmas. In a 2020 sitdown with fellow UK actor Noel Clarke, Heughan looked back on his pre-Outlander career and revealed, “I’d been in America, I had some relative success and then failure, and came back having spent all my money. I was 34 years old. I didn’t have any money—living in a bedroom shared apartment [with] no real prospect of being able to support myself.” As luck would have it, that’s when Heughan “got this audition for this little-known show, Outlander. I didn’t know it was a series of books. I went out, bought a book, read it. The rest is kind of history. It changed my life. It’s given me so much opportunity I’ve learned a lot. Here I am now, I couldn’t be more thankful.” Next, Sneak Peek! Outlander Author Diana Gabaldon Reveals Her Favorite Scenes From Season 6! Want more of Jamie Fraser? Sam Heughan Wants to Sip His Award-Winning Whisky With You! Find Out How
