It’s now the norm for major film and TV productions to hire intimacy coordinators — it wasn’t in 2014, when the first season of the historical fantasy series Outlander was filmed. The result: Jamie actor Sam Heughan had to film a very difficult rape scene unsupervised and also got into a fight with the series’ creative team.
The actor revealed this in his memoir “Waypoints: My Scottish Journey”, from which Insider published excerpts. Sam Heughan reviews the filming of the scene where his Black Jack Randall (Tobias Menzies) character James Fraser is tortured and brutally raped at Wentworth Prison. Sam Heughan was naked for large parts of the scene, which he also agreed to in his contract, however, a full frontal nude scene was also included, which Sam Heughan found totally unnecessary.
» Waypoints: My Scottish Journey on Amazon*
“I didn’t feel that nudity would add to the horror Jamie experiences in prison as a form of punishment, submission and humiliation,” Heughan writes. “I complained about this, arguing that nudity would sexualize the horrific experience for my characterand that led to quite a discussion.”
In the end, Heughan’s penis was not seen in the episode
While there was a lot of nudity throughout the scene, the actor and production team eventually agreed that the character would only be naked from the front after the rape. In the end, even all the shots in which Heughan was completely naked from the front were not used for the series. Still, Heughan has a bad memory of the experience: “The penis prick was not necessary and shook my faith in the creative team a bit.” Although those nude photos luckily ended up on the cutting floor floor, it was one “horrific, grueling experience” been.
Heughan had previously spoken out negatively about the filming of the controversial rape scene, which is central to Diana Gabaldon’s book. In an interview with Vulture in 2015, he spoke about the ten-day, very exhausting shooting of the scene. On the final day, he was told they would be re-shooting the scene, to which Heughan replied, “Oh god” – he thought he was done with the whole thing.
“It was horrible”
The actor was then assured that they would only shoot up to a certain point, “just before it happens”. “And then we got to this point and they didn’t say ‘Cut’, so we had to move on. I remember being scared and honestly my trust was a little bit broken because it was horrible‘, Heughan describes his experience. “It was great to play, but terrible.”
Sam Heughan jokingly added at the time that he believed this was done on purpose to get him “to this point” where his character Jamie is: “It was terrible for Jamie – he is beaten and tortured and completely broken .”
Meanwhile, “Outlander” has an Intimacy Coordinator
Meanwhile, Sam Heughan himself has made sure that nothing like this can happen again with “Outlander”. On the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Heughan, now one of Outlander’s producers himself, explained that he hired an intimacy coordinator for season 6 i.e. someone who prepares the actors for shooting intimate scenes and advises and guides them during the shoot. “It’s important that everyone is protected and we also think that maybe we can get more out of these scenes by being more involved,” explains Heughan. Today, the shooting of the rape scene from season 1 would be handled differently, Heughan also writes in his book.
» Outlander Season 6 on Amazon*
Seasons 1 to 5 of “Outlander” starring Sam Heughan as Jamie Fraser and Caitriona Balfe as Claire Fraser are available through a Netflix streaming subscription. You can buy “Outlander” Season 6 as VoD, for example from Amazon Prime Video. It will probably be a while before the season comes to Netflix. Season 7 of Outlander going into production in the summer of 2022 and will consist of 16 episodes as opposed to the short sixth season with only eight episodes.