Outlander star 'gutted' after losing out on major role

Sophie Skelton, known for her role as Brianna Fraser in the smash-hit series Outlander, confessed she was "gutted" when there was radio silence after her audition. It wasn't until a year later that she learned she had secured the part of Jamie and Claire Fraser's daughter.

Brianna, a pivotal character in the Starz series, didn't make her screen debut until the show's second season in 2016. Despite this, Skelton, now 30, had thrown her hat into the ring for the fiery role before the series even premiered.

In a candid chat with Harper's Bazaar for its On The Rise feature, Skelton shared: "My very first audition for Brianna was actually in, I think, 2014. I always do a lot of research when I'm auditioning for a role, so this TV series wasn't out yet so I just had the script to go from."

She continued, revealing her dedication to understanding Brianna: "But I called this local bookstore where I was staying and asked if they had the books and if they could sort of ship them overnight. And I went and picked up the books and then read as much about Brianna as I could."

Skelton expressed her immediate connection with the character: "I just sort of fell in love with her, I don't know, she's just one of those characters that you feel quite protective over all of a sudden and I think she's funny. A lot of people don't like Brianna but I thought her humour was great in the books," reports the Express.

Reflecting on the long wait and uncertainty, she added: "Obviously, she has a temper and everything else but [I still like her]. And I didn't hear anything for a year, so I just thought someone else had got the role.

"You do so many auditions that you can't really think about it, but there are some that actually really sting. And with Brianna, I was really quite gutted that I didn't get the role."

However, Skelton's journey with Outlander wasn't over as a year later, she received an email from her agent inviting her to audition for Brianna again.

"I was like: 'I did audition for this about a year ago' and then I just found out that they never actually brought her into the series like they were going to. And yeah, that was that, and I got the role. I was really excited, obviously slightly nervous, because everything after that was really fast.

"So I think my recall with Caitriona [Balfe] was on January 4 if I remember correctly, and then we had to go straight to Scotland almost the next week and start doing fittings and everything else. It was a bit of a whirlwind. It was kind of hard to process."

In the final episode of Outlander season seven, part one, Brianna and Roger MacKenzie (Roger Rankin) found themselves in the 1980s, but their young son Jemmy had disappeared.

Convinced that Rob Cameron had taken him through the stones, the couple decided to split up, with Roger returning to the late 18th Century to search for him.

Fans will discover how this affects Bri and her family when part two premieres sometime in November 2024.