Movies

Sam Heughan of ‘Outlander’ calls nudity in rape scene ‘unnecessary’ – Deadline

October 27, 2022

In his recently published memoirs, Waypoints: My trip to Scotland, Foreign Star Sam Heughan talks about a brutal scene he shot in Starz Season 1 and how it negatively affected him, a topic he’s never discussed in depth before.

The moment in question is when his character, Jamie Fraser, is tortured and brutally raped by his nemesis Black Jack Randall, played by Tobias Menzies of game of thrones celebrity. The shoot included a face shot of her character after the rape. Heughan details in his memoir that he agreed to nudity in his contract, but he did not think this level of nudity was appropriate for the stage.

“It was not a time when I felt being naked would add to the horror of what Jamie is going through in this castle dungeon as a form of punishment, subjugation and humiliation,” he wrote. in the book.

“I pushed back, thinking nudity was sexualizing [sic.] a horrible experience for my character, and it sparked quite a debate.

Foreign is based on Diana Gabaldon’s best-selling novel series, and the rape originates in the source material. Deadline has contacted Starz and will add any feedback received.

“We’re not playing here,” said showrunner Ron D. Moore Vulture from the stage in 2015. “That’s the story. There’s a book we’re following, and it’s part of the story that’s absolutely necessary for this book. There really is no way not to. It’s a horrible situation, so it should be horrible.

Heughan admitted Vulture that he felt tricked into re-enacting the grueling scene once more at some point during filming.

“They said, ‘We’d love another wide shot, the whole thing. And I was like… [groans], ‘Oh my God.’ I thought I had eliminated everything. And they said, ‘We’ll only do it so far, just before it happens.’ “

But, Heughan said, the director never called it “cut,” and the actors once again acted out the rape.

“It got to this point, and they didn’t call ‘cut’, so we had to keep going,” he explained. “I remember being so scared and kind of feeling like my confidence was kind of shattered because it was awful. Great to play, but awful.

The actor then spoke with the production team and they agreed that his character would be seen naked, but without the piece that the actor thought was gratuitous.

“We don’t need to see the horror to imagine what the characters are going through. Imagination is far more powerful,” he writes in Waypoints. “Although thankfully the nude photos ended up on the floor of the editing room. It was a heartbreaking and exhausting experience. »

As a result, Heughan revealed on the Happy Sad Confused podcast earlier this year that Foreignin season six, now has an intimacy coordinator.

“It’s important that everyone is protected, but we also find a way to explore these scenes and maybe get something more out of it,” Heughan said, saying he felt “just thrown in. le grand bain” at the beginning of the series. .

“Times have changed,” he writes in the book. “The c**k shot was unnecessary and kinda betrayed my trust in the creative team.”