Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe have revealed if they’re willing to return for one last time as Jamie and Claire Fraser after the eighth and final season
Although the hit Starz adaptation of Diana Gabaldon’s bestselling novels will conclude with its eighth season, there are currently nine books on shelves with a final volume still in the works.
Claire and Jamie’s adventures on the page continued with Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone in 2021, but it’s currently unknown when the last chapter will be published.
In the meantime, fans have been loving the live-action version of the story, which has finally returned this week (November 22) with the second half of season seven.
Heughan and Balfe recently dropped by The One Show to preview the show’s return and were asked a tantalising question about the Outlander franchise’s future.
Host Anita Rani relayed a query from a hopeful fan: “If you were asked, let’s say, five years from now, to come back and do Outlander book 10 as a movie, would you do it?”
Balfe replied intriguingly: “Yeah, I mean never say never, right? I think if that was wanted we would always want to…”
And Heughan concurred: “If that’s what the fans want, how can we deny them? But yeah, we’ll see.”
“There you are!” presenter Jones replied. “It’s not over until it’s over.”
So far, there has been no word on whether the 10th book will be adapted, and producers Maril Davis and Matthew B Roberts have made it clear that season eight will bring Claire and Jamie’s story to a close.
Even so, this clearly hasn’t dissuaded fans from hoping the drama could continue in some form at some point down the line.
During their One Show chat, the co-stars also confirmed the exact length of their final scene together, which they promised will be “emotional”.
“A seven and a half minute scene,” Heughan confirmed. “Lots of dialogue. And the dialogue, as in Outlander, normally these scenes are, it was very dramatic.
“A lot of goodbyes in the scene but then it had this double meaning because we were also saying goodbye ourselves.”
Fans don’t need to worry too much about saying goodbye to the beloved series, however, as the saga will continue with the upcoming prequel spin-off, Outlander: Blood of My Blood.
This brand new historical drama will be set across two timelines and reveal the origins of both Claire and Jamie’s parents.
Could there also be more time-travelling twists involved? Tune in next year to find out.
Outlander season seven part two premieres on Friday, November 22, on MGM+ via Prime Video in the UK and on Starz in the US.
