Sam Heughan Teases ‘Outlander’ Prequel, Gives Season 7 Filming Update

In perhaps an inevitable move, an Outlander spinoff is in the works at Starz. But don’t expect to see Sam Heughan or Caitríona Balfe in the prequel series, because, well, it’s a prequel.

“All I can tell you is I’m not in it, as Jamie’s not in it!” Heughan told Esquire while on a break from filming Outlander Season 7. “I believe that it’s a prequel focusing on Jamie’s parents when they were younger, so I guess you might see a young version of him at some point. But I think I may be a little too old to play young Jamie now! I could play his dad maybe, or a flash forward? It is time travel, after all.”

Heughan also opened up about Season 7 filming, admitting, “It’s flying by.” He says it won’t be finished until 2023, but fans have suffered longer Droughtlanders.

“It feels like we started yesterday but already we’re on our sixth episode,” Heughan shared. “This season is going to take a while, it’s an 18-episode bumper mega season, so we probably won’t be finished until March or February of next year. It’s a big one this year as last year we had to reduce it by six episodes because of Covid and my co-star [Caitríona Balfe] was pregnant, so we moved it.”

While he and Balfe share co-star and producer duties on the Starz period drama, there’s one thing Heughan knows that Balfe doesn’t: How it all ends.

“Diana Gabaldon [the writer-creator] actually revealed to me how the whole thing’s going to end,” Heughan revealed. “She emailed me the last few pages of what will be the last book very early on, I think in the first few weeks of shooting and no one else has seen that I think, apart from one other exec producer. Even Caitríona’s not seen it and I’m sworn to secrecy.”

In February, Variety reported Outlander executive producer and showrunner Matthew B. Roberts will write and executive produce the prequel, which will center Jamie Fraser’s parents, Ellen MacKenzie and Brian Fraser. Author Diana Gabaldon also teased a prequel novel about the couple on Facebook earlier that month.

There have also been past murmurs about another spinoff series based on Gabaldon’s Lord John novels, but it seems the prequel is the only spinoff currently in the works.

Outlander, Seasons 1-6, Streaming Now, Starz, Seasons 1-5, Streaming Now, Netflix