Jeremy Irvine thought he’d missed his chance to star in Outlander: Blood of My Blood, the new prequel to the hugely successful romantic fantasy TV series, Outlander. The 35-year-old was filming in Italy when he was invited to a meeting with Outlander’s showrunner Matthew Roberts. Having been a working actor for 16 years, and starred in the likes of Steven Spielberg’s War Horse, Great Expectations, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, and the TV series Treadstone, Irvine tells Luxury London, “I just thought, ‘Well, that’s the end of that’.”

Irvine isn’t really sure what happened next. He does know that he quickly forgot about the meeting and focused on production, but when he finally returned to London, the chance to discuss Outlander: Blood of My Blood and the opportunity to portray Henry Beauchamp was still there. Within a few days, not only had Irvine met up with Roberts and the rest of the producers, but he’d been cast as Henry and was suddenly in Scotland ready to start filming. “It all happened pretty quickly,” he admits.

Outlander: Blood of My Blood initially unfolds across two timelines. In 18th-century Scotland, Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy) and Ellen MacKenzie (Harriet Slater) fall in love in the Highlands, but have to keep their romance hidden from their warring families. Meanwhile, in the height of World War I, Henry is sending letters to Julia Moriston (Hermione Corfield) that culminate in them falling in love and starting a family. While on holiday in Scotland, Julia time-travels back to 18th-century Scotland. Henry quickly follows to reunite with her and the pair must attempt to survive in the harsher past.

Outlander fans will undoubtedly be aware that Ellen and Brian go on to become the parents of Jamie Fraser, the original series’ protagonist. Clare Fraser, the World War II nurse who time-travels from 1945 to 1743 in Outlander, is the daughter of Henry and Julia. Irvine wasn’t that familiar with Outlander when he read the script, but even though he knew it was a prequel, he could see that the story “would stand up on its own”.

“The show clearly captured a mood,” explains Irvine. “Outlander was a combination of the world that it created, the amazing set designs, scenery, the music it used was incredible, the performances, writing, and the characters. It’s very rare that all those things click to create such a completely immersive world that you can get lost in.”

However, while Irvine quickly became aware why the original Outlander struck such a chord with viewers, he actively avoided watching entire episodes after being cast because Henry is “supposed to be a fish out of water”. “I didn’t want to be in a scene as Henry and know something about a character or a bit of dialogue as Jeremy that might impact my performance.”

Irvine actually has his wife to thank for convincing him to take part in Outlander: Blood of My Blood. “When I got sent the first two episodes, I read them but thought, ‘I’m probably not the target audience for this.’ The fantasy time travel world is not something that I’ve ever done before. But what I’ve learned is to not just go for things that are aimed at me.” Luckily, Irvine’s wife is a huge fan of romance novels. “I started running it past her. She was like, ‘This is good! You should go for this sort of thing.’”

Despite his initial reservations about the genre, Irvine could immediately see the appeal and depth of Henry and his journey. “He is this fundamentally very brave and heroic man, but he’s also very damaged mentally and struggling with PTSD. While he has this tough exterior, he’s very romantic and vulnerable. I just saw that there was so much I could stick my teeth into and so many different ways I could go with him.”

Being able to find new depths in the character was particularly important for Irvine, because he was well aware that — if he did sign up for Outlander: Blood Of My Blood — he could be portraying Henry for years (the original series is now 11 years old and will begin its eighth season in 2026). “You want to keep having ideas for the character that are exciting so that you can keep building him.”

While Irvine avoided watching Outlander ahead of filming, his research did involve going back through as much material as he could on World War I. Irvine did have a head start on his revision, though, having previously starred in the World War I drama War Horse and played Ivor Novello in Benediction, the biopic about war poet Siegfried Sassoon. “I was quite lucky this time because I’ve done a few World War I pieces. I'd already done my historical research.” When asked why he has played so many characters from this period, he can’t help but laugh and wonder. “Obviously I look tortured. I must look like I’ve been in the trenches. Clearly I have a constant 1,000-yard stare.”

Despite immersing himself in World War I research, with the work of war poet Robert Graves proving particularly helpful, Irvine admits that when it comes to filming, “99 per cent of it is absolutely useless and doesn’t stick.” Instead, Irvine says that a character usually clicks into place in his mind courtesy of something completely random. “You’ll be walking down the street and you’ll see someone walking in a certain way or do something funny. Then you think, ‘Oh, that’d be great for this scene.’ You take little pieces from everywhere.”

When Irvine walked onto set to shoot the show’s World War I trench sequences, he was hit with a huge dose of nostalgia because of how reminiscent they were of War Horse. This was also the first time that Irvine realised just how epic the size of the production would be. “It was such an enormous set. They’d turned this entire quarry into the First World War trenches. We had hundreds of extras, explosions going off everywhere. The size of the set was like being on a huge movie production. That was when I understood the scope of the show.”

The humongous scale of Outlander: Blood of My Blood, combined with its romantic plots and themes, means Irvine is hopeful it has the ingredients to be a worthy successor to its hugely popular origin story. “I hope audiences can leave their cynicism at the door and get lost in this amazing, magical world. It’s amazing escapism. That’s what we all want at the end of the day. After dealing with real-world problems, we want to lose ourselves in a world like this. Sure, it can feel far-fetched sometimes, but in this world, the love and how the characters feel is real. I think that’s quite lovely.”

Outlander: Blood of my Blood is streaming on MGM+ and Prime Video now.

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