SOUTHERN CROSS
Why the new season of ‘Outlander’ set in North Carolina was filmed in Scotland
‘OUTLANDER” is most famous for being “That Scotland show,” brimming with brogues and kilts.
So it’s a huge departure that the fourth season of the Starz series is relocating to America ... to North Carolina, in fact. Well, sort of. The big location change isn’t exactly what it seems, says executive producer Maril Davis — since the show was actually still completely filmed in Scotland.
“North Carolina forest and Scotland forest look very similar,” Davis says. “And I know everyone says, ‘Oh, the crew is like my family,’ but we really do feel that way. We have had about a 97 percent retention rate over the years. The thought of leaving them [in Scotland] and starting someplace new was not something we wanted to consider.
“All these factors combined to realize we
could [still] shoot in Scotland.”
Season 4 of the historical time-travel drama (8 p.m. Sunday on Starz) sees central couple Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire (Caitriona Balfe) making a new life in 1760s North Carolina. (After a shipwreck at the end of Season 3 conveniently brought them to Georgia just in time for the birth of the American Revolution, natch).
The show is based on a book series, so it couldn’t nix the plot that moves the characters to America. But it could put its foot down about moving the Scotland-based production to the US, so the “Georgia” and “North Carolina” locations seen in the series are actually Scotland in disguise.
“Our art department did such an amazing job capturing North Carolina in Scotland,” says Davis. The biggest challenge, she says, was the fact that, “Everything in Scotland is stone, and everything in the New World is wood.”
To work around this, they built an entire
18th century Colonial town set. (Seen as Wilmington, NC, in the season premiere). Since the show has already been renewed for a fifth and sixth season, Davis says they’re keeping the set and “talking about ways that can be used for other places” in the future. Another reason for the production’s reluctance to relocate? It was a point of pride for the first three seasons. “We’ve always been blessed — it’s so unusual to shoot in the actual location the show takes place,” she says. “It’s usually like, Vancouver [standing in] for Seattle. [Back in Season 1], when we found out we could shoot the show in Scotland, we were thrilled it was going to be so authentic.”
Oddly enough, however, as proud as “Outlander” is of its locations, Davis won’t say where exactly the Scotland scenes were shot. She’s not being coy — it’s because of the country’s unusual laws.
“There is a right-to-roam law in Scotland, where you can pretty much go anywhere you
want,” she says. “Because of that, we like to try to protect some of these people [who live near shooting locations] so they don’t have too many people visiting their properties.”
But since the country was integral to “Outlander’s” identity in its first three seasons, will the new setting change the show?
“I feel like Scotland will never leave us,” Davis says. “Certainly this show is our ode to Scotland, our love letter. I brought this show into our company [Tall Ship Productions]. I love it more than any other — which I don’t often admit, because you’re not supposed to have favorites. But this one is just really near and dear to my heart Sometimes, five years in, it’s still hard for me to take my fan hat off. And because there were so many Scottish immigrants that came to the Colonies ... we make a big deal of bringing Scotland with us,” she says. “And obviously the Scottish connection is so big in Jamie and so much a part of who he is as a man.
“That will never leave us.”