Claire and Jamie captivate Manhattan
Outlander is drawing some of the biggest crowds at Comic Con
There are many Claires. There is Second World War Claire, bloody in her military nurse’s apron. There is Scottish Claire, back in 1743, snug in warm woollens and riding clothes. And then there’s the most photogenic one of all: French Claire, stylish in a Diorinspired bar suit and black platter hat, with basket panniers and pads underneath her silk skirt to give her that18th-century look.
Caitriona Balfe, who plays Claire on the Starz time-travel drama Outlander (which airs Sundays at 10 p.m. on W), can barely contain herself when she encounters this dress on Anna Sawyer, the New York Comic Con cosplayer wearing it. “Oh my goodness!” Balfe blurted as she reached to stroke Sawyer’s sleeves. “That is incredible. Amazing. Did you make the hat, too? I’m so blown away.”
We were standing in a back corner of the show floor, where at least 400 ardent fans were still lingering in an area meant to seat maybe 100 people. Tara Bennett, who was conducting interviews, said she warned her bosses to expect this huge turnout.
“The core four of Outlander are like the Beatles of New York Comic Con,” she said.
It seems like a hyperbolic comparison, until you spend an afternoon tagging along with Balfe and three castmates, Sam Heughan (Jamie), Sophie Skelton (Brianna) and Richard Rankin (Roger), on a rare trip to New York to promote Season 4 , which began last Sunday.
While shows like The Walking Dead, another Comic Con favourite, inspire large, passionate followings, Outlander devotees turn the festivities into a cross between Beatlemania and a family reunion. Diana Gabaldon, the author of the novels that inspired the show, is the exalted matriarch (referred to as “Herself”), but showrunner Ronald D. Moore and his wife, costume designer Terry Dresbach, are the mom and pop of Outlander world.
“I love your wife!” one excited fan shouted at Moore.
Outside, hundreds more fans had been waiting for hours in an intermittent drizzle for a chance to attend a cast autograph session. Only 100 would get in, so everyone had a decision to make: stay and hope for the best, or head over to try to claim a seat for the later cast panel at Madison Square Garden’s 5,600-capacity Hulu Theater? “Biggest room I’ve ever been in,” Moore said.
Why is Outlander now drawing some of the biggest crowds in its history? Scarcity, for one thing.
Seasons 3 and 4 were shot virtually back to back, leaving the cast sequestered in Scotland and then South Africa for the better part of two years. The fans were getting really … thirsty. “We don’t make it easy for them,” Heughan said.
The fan base has also been steadily growing and broadening, now drawing 5.8 million multiplatform viewers per episode, according to recent figures from Starz. Contrary to its reputation as being a romance show for women — it’s actually a mishmash of sci-fi, fantasy, adventure and historical fiction — Outlander has an audience that is now about 35 per cent male.
There was also plenty of anticipation for the new season, which turns another perception — that this is a quintessentially Scottish show — on its head: Jamie and Claire had arrived on American shores in 1767. This expands the show’s stranger-in-a-strange-land premise to explore what it means to be American immigrants, as the newcomers try to maintain roots in the old world and coexist with Indigenous neighbours.
The new focus requires wading into charged issues like slavery (which the couple also confronted last season in Jamaica) and the Native American genocide, as well as period racism and xenophobia.
Since Outlander is a non-SAG production, the show was prevented from casting Native Americans. So the producers flew a group of First Nation actors from Canada and also consulted with a Cherokee leader in North Carolina about the tribe’s culture and concerns about onscreen portrayals. As a woman caught out of time, Claire is the audience sur- rogate, and Moore tried to keep the audience viewpoint in mind during upsetting moments like “when Claire and Jamie arrive at the plantation,” he said.
At the same time, the characters have learned in previous seasons they can’t change history, no matter how outraged they (and we) might be about it.
“Claire knows what the basic history is,” Moore said. “And she knows it’s a pointless exercise to try to change something that was such a massive social question that it resulted in a civil war.”
Back in New York, one of the wartime Claires — a woman named Joan Perrin — managed to sidle up to Balfe and hand her an assortment of little gift bags tagged for each of the cast members.
Perrin “has given us bracelets quite a lot,” Rankin said. “And I actually usually wear them!”
Later Rankin spotted Perrin outside and delighted her by lifting his arm to show her that he was wearing the bracelet. “We have a lot of respect for the time and the effort the fans put in,” he said. “They make us these baked goods, or these beautifully bound books or dolls. Have you seen the fanmade cross-stitch of Claire’s red dress?”
He produces an image of the needlework on his phone. “I think it took (Beth Elahmar) nearly 6 1⁄ months and now 2 she’s raffling it off for charity.”
Elahmar said her pieces have raised nearly $39,000 (U.S.) for non-profits like World Child Cancer and Bloodwise, cancer treatment and research charities that Balfe and Heughan sponsor.
“It’s overwhelming and very humbling,” Balfe said. “The fans are so supportive and they get behind any initiative that we start.”