As an aspiring young actor, Jamie Roy spent nearly five years making it work in Los Angeles before moving back home to Scotland — not for lack of prospects, but for a huge opportunity: starring on Blood of My Blood (Outlander’s prequel series) as Brian Fraser, dad to the original lead character, Jamie Fraser.
It’s been a treat for the born-and-bred Scot to settle back into Glasgow. Granted, there are some wee changes that come with his newfound spotlight.
“I literally bumped into an Outlander tour group when I was out drinking at a pub,” Roy tells Bustle over Zoom. “I was like, Oh, you’ve caught me at my most vulnerable.” But even in his downtime, the 33-year-old actor was more than game to meet the fans and share in a serendipitous group photo. “It was lovely to catch them all at once.”
While Blood of My Blood, which premieres its second season on Sept. 18, might mark Roy’s first exposure to that level of personal fandom, he’s no stranger to the way tales can bring people together. His first professional stage job was playing Frozen’s Kristoff at Walt Disney World. (Endearingly, nearly a decade later, he still uses the theme-park lingo: “We say ‘friends with’ at Disney because there’s only one character, so you can’t say you are the character.”)
Roy would go on to star in several TV movies, like the 2021 Lifetime film Burning Little Lies, but ultimately decided to pause acting until he found a project that let him tell important and “really human” stories on a larger scale. Of course, he adds, “I had survival jobs. I was doing corporate team-building stuff. So I was jetting around the States, giving motivational talks, doing team-building games — all these weird, wonderful things that actors do to fill their time.”
Then came Blood of My Blood. And while Roy says he believes some things are meant to be (like, say, playing the future dad of a character who shares your name… and looks like actual family), he had a hard time believing it when he was asked to audition. “The first thing I said to my agent was like, ‘Are you sure they’ve got the right person? Because this is, like, a series lead… do they know?!’” They knew — they asked for him specifically, in fact, after Roy previously went out for a smaller role on the original Outlander series.
The prequel series shares its predecessor’s penchant for swoony, life-and-death romance — and the stakes can only get higher in Season 2, which will see Brian and Ellen (Harriet Slater) separated by the looming violence of the Jacobite Rising of 1715.
Learn more about Roy in his Bustle Booth questionnaire below.
In The Bustle Booth
What’s your coffee order?
Black cold brew, always.
What are the saved weather locations on your phone?
Glasgow, Edinburgh, London, New York, Los Angeles, Orlando, Positano.
What’s your sign?
Taurus, through and through.
Favorite overused movie quote?
“Nobody makes me bleed my own blood.” — White Goodman, Dodgeball.
What was your favorite cartoon as a kid?
Dragon Ball Z.
What’s one movie or TV show you’re currently obsessed with?
House of the Dragon. This newest season has been the best so far.
Who is your celeb idol?
Tom Welling. I always seemed to look up to him as a kid from the Smallville days.
If you had to be on a reality TV show, what would it be?
I would love to be on The Traitors, though I’d be a terrible Traitor.
Go-to karaoke song?
“Hero” — Enrique Iglesias.
What’s something that’s inspiring you lately?
My friends.
What is something you would want people to say about you?
That I was kind and gave them a giggle or two.
Source: Compiled from various sources.
