Elle Canada published an interview with Sam Heughan that was done before the second half of season one of Outlander started and before season two filming began. Below are excerpts from the interview, but head over to Elle Canada for the rest. I found the part about finding the right shade of red hair interesting.
SL: What is your natural hair colour?
SH: It’s kind of this, dark blonde.
SL: So you’re not a redhead like Jamie? [The character Heughan plays in Outlander]
SH: No, although my beard seems to be a little ginger. A lot of my family are redheads, but I’m a dark blonde. So for the show it gets dyed on a monthly basis.
SL: What was it like seeing yourself as a redhead for the first time?
SH: It was kind of crazy. We went through a long, long process of getting it done. It got dyed seven times in the first two weeks trying to find the right colour red. It had a lot to do with the lenses we’re using and then the exposure and the grading of the film and it’s all very confusing but basically it means that they had to counteract the grading of the film to make it a certain colour but it was quite a long process. It was quite a special moment. And that is part of finding the character when you see yourself and you go ‘Oh, yes that’s what he looks like!’
SL: Did you behave differently as a redhead?
SH: I actually do think…. I didn’t behave differently but I think people react differently to you. Especially being a blonde…I recently had a beard or a lot of facial hair more than I normally have, and again people are very different to how you are.
SL: We were chatting about this in the office earlier, and one of the women said that when she dyed her hair red, the kind of guys who would approach her were very different than when she was a brunette. Did you experience that?
SH: Wow. No, no men really hit on me.
SL: I find that hard to believe.
SH: Well, maybe one or two. No…I can’t say. I don’t know. Certainly I like a redhead as much as I like a blonde or a brunette, in fact.
SL: I feel like Jamie, your character in Outlander, subscribes to a very specific kind of masculinity. Do you feel like you’re at all like him?
SH: I suppose he’s very much a man of the time isn’t he? But at the same time he’s quite forward thinking. He’s always changing his opinion, or at least he’s being forced to change by Claire and to see these things in a new way. I guess he’s a lot more masculine than I am. He certainly would never have make up on his face or get his hair done in the morning. [Ed” Heughan was in full hair and makeup for TV interviews] So maybe we are very different? But I think I am a man of my time and that’s the difference.
Source: Elle Canada
