Outlander's Sam Heughan: An 'Unnecessary' Full-Frontal Scene Shook My Faith in the Creative Team
Outlander‘s Jamie had a harrowing stay at Wentworth Prison in Season 1 of the Starz drama. Along those lines, series star Sam Heughan says that the show’s request that he film in the nude for a pivotal episode set at the jail “did betray my trust in the creative team a bit.”
In his new memoir Waypoints: My Scottish Journey, Heughan writes that he’d been contractually obligated to film nude scenes, including the one in which his character, Jamie Fraser, is raped by the sadistic Black Jack Randall (played by Tobias Menzies). But he recalls challenging the production team’s desire to have Jamie show full-frontal nudity during the tough scenes.
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The series, now entering its seventh season, “has never turned away from sexual violence. As a reflection of the era, the story can be unflinching. And with that comes a sense of responsibility,” he writes, acknowledging that the scene “had to be difficult to watch, and that made it all the more challenging to shoot.”
Still, “I pushed back, reasoning that nudity sexualized a horrific experience for my character, and it sparked quite a debate,” he recalls.
TVLine has reached out to Starz for comment. Insider first reported the story.
Eventually, per Heughan, the show’s behind-the-scenes team agreed that his penis would only be shown in the aftermath of the rape, and eventually the fully nude shots were cut from the final version of the episode.
“Times have changed,” writes Heughan, who was instrumental in bringing intimacy coordinator Vanessa Coffey onto the crew in Season 6. “The cock shot was unnecessary and did betray my trust in the creative team a bit. We don’t need to nsee the horror to imagine what the characters go through. Imagination is way more powerful.”
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