EXCLUSIVE: Outlander star Sam Heughan will star because the murderous tyrant in Macbeth, marking his debut with the Royal Shakespeare Firm, and he tells Deadline that returning to the stage for the primary time in 12 years “is the drug I’m in search of.”
The actor, who has cropped his locks for the position, says it’s “thrilling” to be treading the boards once more now that filming is compete on the eighth and last season of the time-traveling drama Outlander, wherein he performs the the dashingly charming Jamie Fraser who finds real love with Claire, performed by Caitríona Balfe.
Throughout our dialog, Heughan recommended that Starz will present season 8 of Outlander “in direction of subsequent yr.” The prequel sequence Outlander: Blood of My Blood premieres on August 8, “so I really feel it’d most likely be out subsequent yr,” he reveals.
Caitríona Balfe and Sam Heughan in ‘Outlander’ (Starz)
Macbeth, to be directed by Daniel Raggett, will start performances at RCS’ The Different Place studio venue in Stratford-upon-Avon on October 9, working by way of December 6.
Lia Williams, the distinguished, classically skilled thespian, will play Girl Macbeth. She’s additionally a outstanding presence on TV, having appeared as Wallis Simpson in The Crown and as Isabel Kirby, the duplicitous MI6 British intelligence service deputy chief of employees in Peacock’s hit The Day of the Jackal.
“I used to be in search of one thing that might actually excite me. I’ve been doing Outlander for 11 years, and clearly it was good, however I needed one thing else,” says Heughan. “And I went to the RSC to see Edward II there, and I simply felt that buzz. I sat within the auditorium and I felt that pleasure, kind of the churn in my abdomen because the lights went down and I used to be like, ‘Yeah, that is the drug I’m in search of.’ And it’s terrifying. And I feel that’s an excellent factor to be scared once more.”
The final time Heughan was on stage was in Batman Dwell, the place he performed the Caped Crusader in uncomfortably cosy tights.
He says the present “was not fairly Shakespeare or the RSC, but it surely was a world tour going throughout from the entire of UK and Europe to the U.S. We did Las Vegas, we performed in Bueno Aires and the O2 in London hanging the other way up, sporting PVC.”
Merrily, he quips: “I dunno, perhaps there’ll be a little bit of that in Macbeth as properly. You by no means know.”
Finishing work on the Outlander sequence introduced the right alternative for the actor to return to his stage roots.
“I feel that’s it,” he agrees.
The actor skilled on the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, now referred to as the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. “I did a classical theater coaching, and I constructed my profession on theater. That’s what I did method earlier than I bought any kind of TV jobs and attempting to assist myself in Scottish theater after which in London as properly. And it’s clearly a dream. I keep in mind simply going full circle like, going again to the very first present I ever did in youth theater. I used to be an additional on the principle stage of the Royal Lyceum theatre in Edinburgh in a manufacturing of Macbeth. And for me it’s The Scottish Play [for superstitious reasons, thespians often refer to Macbeth by that title] clearly, but it surely’s a play that’s super-exciting. It’s certainly one of his shortest. It’s bloody. It’s bought some unimaginable writing and a few actually fascinating character on the heart of it. And I simply keep in mind being within the library as a drama pupil, studying books about varied well-known actors taking part in that position.”
Heughan remembers seeing Adrian Noble’s RSC manufacturing of the play touring Scotland with Derek Jacobi within the title position “and simply being in awe of them and dreaming that sooner or later I’d be there.”
The closest he bought was taking part in the roles of Malcolm, a soldier and a “assassin” as this system notice lists it, reverse Liam Brennan because the Thane who can be king, in a manufacturing that performed the Royal Lyceum and Nottingham Playhouse in 2008, directed by Lucy Pitman-Wallace.
Sam Heughan and Lia Williams in advertising paintings for ‘Macbeth’ (Sebastian Nevelson/RSC)
As a pupil, he watched the video model of Patrick Stewart essaying the as soon as loyal and valiant general-turned-treasonous killer of a king in director Rupert Goold’s celebrated manufacturing that performed the West Finish and Broadway.
Importantly, he watched the thrilling filmed adaptation of Macbeth starring Ian McKellen and Judi Dench. In 1976, Trevor Nunn had directed the play for the RSC at The Different Place,and it’s now thought to be one of many best productions of The Scottish Play ever staged.
“The final individuals to do [Macbeth] in that theatre wwere Ian McKellen and Judi Dench,” Heughan observes, “so we’re very fortunate.”
There can be ghosts in that home, I counsel.
Heughan laughs however says in all seriousness: ”There can be, and I hope we are able to draw upon their expertise and their experience.”
Judi Dench and Ian McKellen in Trevor Nunn’s 1976 RSC manufacturing of ‘Macbeth’(ay Cocks Studio Assortment/Shakespeare Birthplace Belief)
The tragedy of Macbeth is that, upon listening to the three witches’ prophecy that he would develop into King of Scotland, he turns into tyrannical and, together with his spouse’s assist, he murders the monarch who stands in his method. However is his missus responsible, or, I ask Heughan, am I being variety to Macbeth?
“What’s so nice about Shakespeare,” he says brightly, “is that it may be learn in many various methods and portrayed in several methods. And you may say, ‘Nicely, it’s all the time been in him and he’s an evil man and he needed to do that.’ Or you may say that he’s on this path that he’s been set on by some supernatural powers or it’s his ambition. Or in my case, I feel maybe it may be extra that he loves somebody a lot and he needs to meet her ambition as properly. Nevertheless it’s about making one choice after which the implications of that, and he simply can’t get out of it and takes it method too far. However yeah, I imply, clearly he begins down this slippery slope and may’t cease it and goes actually far with it, but it surely’s super-fascinating. I imply, we haven’t began rehearsals but, however we’ll be what’s it that drives him and all the superstition round it as properly.”
By way of wrongheaded, misguided polices, I point out, mischievously, if the White Home may be an acceptable location for the play to be set.
“Yeah, once more, I feel it’s the fantastic thing about Shakespeare is you may all the time draw parallels, and that’s why it’s nonetheless so well-liked now. You may have a look at any nation or something that’s occurring wherever and see that within the fallacious arms, energy corrupts. I imply, he actually does shut everybody down and begin to destroy anybody that may pose a risk to him. So yeah, I received’t be taking part in it with a ginger wig or in a go well with.”
Or an overlong blue tie, I add wickedly.
“Nicely, you by no means know. Perhaps I’ll,” he responds wryly.
Really, Heughan and Williams have had discussions with director Raggett about the place to set it.
“We’ve been speaking about a lot of other ways of portraying it and whether or not that’s, I really feel, been accomplished earlier than. However you may set it the battle in Ukraine or on the Russian border or no matter, or you may set it, as you recommended, in America proper now. It may very well be type of set wherever. So we haven’t totally determined, however I feel we all know which path we’re going.”
We chatted throughout a break from a desk learn of the textual content. Simply earlier than our assembly in London, he bought stopped by three Spanish vacationers “and so they have been excited. I’m stunned they acknowledged me,” he says, laughing, “as a result of I’ve shaved my head for the position.”
Explaining his rationale for the brand new look, Heughan says, “It’s additionally a few new pores and skin and a brand new me and new beginnings and shedding a little bit of Jamie Fraser, although he was a wig as properly. However I feel it’s an attention-grabbing look. Definitely I’m getting used to it.”
When he noticed Raggett’s manufacturing of Edward II starring Daniel Evans, who’s additionally the RSC’s co-artistic director with Tamara Harvey, he says that he felt “that pleasure and that worry that bought me into theater and made me an actor within the first place. And I feel that’s what I need to do with this play. I would like individuals to return to see Macbeth and be correctly scared.”
RSC co-artistic administrators Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey (Baz Bamigboye/Deadline)
Engaged on Outlander for 11years, he says, “dominated” his life. “It turns into your life one hundred percent. And in some ways in which’s implausible, and I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve clearly been capable of do some motion pictures and TV exhibits and issues, but it surely does outline you and it additionally dictates the place you reside and what time you could have and the place you might be on the planet bodily and the place your vitality goes. So that is actually cool. It’s an opportunity for me to kind of, I don’t know, discover out who I’m once more or the place I used to be and see what the subsequent step is. And it looks like residence already going into Stratford-upon-Avon. … It feels acquainted and strolling onto the stage and soaking that up. So it’s part of myself that I’ve maybe had forgotten about.”
Additionally, he provides that he feels proud as a local of Scotland to be taking part in a task that’s related to the nation of his start.
He’s thrilled that the solid is “predominantly all Scottish actors.” There’s an important pool of expertise in Scotland, he boasts, “and an important vibrancy and vitality,” including, “I’m so excited to have this little little bit of Scotland in Stratford-upon-Avon flying our flag.”
Heughan additionally has bulletins deliberate for his Sassenach Spirits model. Maybe he’ll reward wrap a couple of bottles as first-night items for his solid mates.
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There’s additionally disappointment with transferring on from Outlander. He had lunch with Balfe final week. “It was so pretty to see her. She’s clearly in London as properly, and so we’re all very, very shut nonetheless and we’re all the time sending one another messages and stuff. In order that’s, I assume, one of many nice components of our present. We actually have this pretty friendship now, and I’m positive that we’ll comply with one another in subsequent years.”
And he misses the crew too. “They’re not simply crew, they’re household, they’re buddies now.”
There’s discuss, he notes, of them doing Comedian-Con “to kind of have a good time the prequel present.”
And he’s not ruling out the potential of an Outlander one-off TV particular sooner or later. “Who is aware of?” he chuckles. “Who is aware of? I do know they did that with Downton Abbey and others. So that you by no means know. Perhaps the ginger wig continues to be round someplace.”
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The new 2025-26 season introduced by RSC co-artistic administrators Evans and Harvey additionally incudes a musical adaptation of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, based mostly on the memoir by William Kamkwamba written with Bryan Mealer and the 2019 movie directed by Chiwetel Ejiofor for Potboiler Productions.
Royal Shakespeare Firm poster for ‘The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind Musical’ (Nakano Okparaeke/RSC)
The present’s e-book and lyrics are by Richy Hughes and music and lyrics by Tim Sutton. The manufacturing is being directed by Lynette Linton, previously inventive director of the Bush Theatre in west London. It runs on the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon from February 10-March 28.
The manufacturing was commissioned by and is introduced in affiliation with Kenny Wax Restricted and Chuchu Nwagu Productions
