Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Outlander‘s Tobias Menzies is no stranger to popular period dramas. He first made a splash as Brutus on HBO’s criminally under-watched Rome and later appeared as Catelyn Stark’s hapless brother, Edmure Tully, on Game of Thrones. Now, he’s pulling double duty in two roles on Starz’s new binge-worthy drama, Outlander.
When we first meet Outlander‘s heroine, Claire Randall (Caitirona Balfe), she’s trying to reconnect with her sweet, scholarly husband after being separated during all of World War II. Later, when Claire gets sent back in time, the first person she meets is her husband’s nefarious ancestor, Captain Jack Randall. Both roles are played by Menzies.
“The first person Claire meets when she travels back in time is someone who looks so like her husband that she calls that person by her husband’s name. She sort of cries out, ‘Frank!'” Menzies explains, “So, I guess to make that moment believable, there has to be someone who looks enough like her husband for her to say that.”
Because he’s stepping into the shoes of “Black Jack” Randall, Menzies has to unleash his dark side and do some extremely horrifying things. Menzies doesn’t mind. “I think that in the playing of it, there has to be a certain amount of relish,” he said. “If it’s just relentlessly unpleasant, that’s probably not that interesting to watch.”
Claire and Frank Randall might be separated by two hundred years, but it’s still a better television marriage than Menzies’s last one on Game of Thrones. The infamous Red Wedding was Menzies’s character’s big day. We haven’t seen Edmure Tully since season three on Game of Thrones, but Menzies just learned he might come back.
“Funnily enough at Comic Con [for Outlander], I bumped into Dan Weiss, one of the creators of the show,” Menzies spilled. “He said they hadn’t forgotten the character. They sort of like him a lot and have had conversations about bringing him back. But you know, I think it’s probably unlikely because that show has so many characters that they have to keep spinning, but maybe there’ll be a little one-shot of him sitting in a cell.”
Tobias Menzies might have survived Game of Thrones, but does he like it more than The Simpsons? We put Menzies to the test in our Decider Questionnaire.
You can stream the first episode of Outlander on Starz.com or STARZ Play for free before the show premieres on Saturday, August 9 at 9PM.
Art by Jaclyn Kessel, Photos Courtesy of the Everett Collection
