Sam Heughan has been cast as the lead in Outlander, Starz’s forthcoming historical drama.
The Scottish actor will play Jamie Fraser, a dashing eighteenth-century Highland warrior at the heart of Diana Gabaldon’s bestselling novels. Developed for television by Ronald D. Moore, the series follows Claire Randall, a nurse from 1945 who is mysteriously swept back in time to a Scotland on the brink of the Jacobite rising, where she is caught between the husband she left behind and the young Highlander she meets there.
Heughan’s casting is the first major piece of the puzzle, with the pivotal role of Claire still to be filled. The books have a devoted following, and Starz is planning the adaptation as a long-running, multi-season affair.