Full spoilers for Outlander's Season 2 episode "The Fox's Lair" continue below.
Outlander viewers finally met an important and infamous figure in Jamie Fraser's past: his grandfather Simon Fraser, the current Lord Lovat. There's a lot of dark history between the two that comes into play when Jamie tries to convince his grandfather to join Bonnie Prince Charlie's cause, and the interactions offer new depths to Sam Heughan's character.
Adding to the excitement about the introduction of Simon Fraser is the actor who played him: Clive Russell. Russell has starred in Ripper Street, Sherlock Holmes and The Wolfman, but is perhaps best known by fans as the Blackfish (Catelyn Stark's uncle Brynden Tully) on Game of Thrones. He got to sink his teeth into Lord Lovat, who not only is Jamie's grandfather in the fictional Outlander world but was a real-life Scottish figure, and rather infamous in actual history as well.
To discuss "The Fox's Lair," Russell got on the phone to talk about developing Simon Fraser's relationship with Jamie, opened up about his character's treatment of women and shared whether we'll be seeing Lord Lovat again any time soon.
Clive Russell as Lord Lovat on Outlander
IGN: What was key for you to get into the mind of Simon Fraser?
Clive Russell: I think probably his attitude to women, particularly to [Caitriona Balfe's] character , to get on that foot of a man who's just looking at women in a certain way. Certainly the history of the real character, he was a pretty horrible and brutal man. A reflection of his times, maybe, but very brutal with women. That was the key to the relationship with his grandson, anyway; his mistrust of this Sassenach woman who was getting above herself, as it were.
IGN: What's interesting is that even as he is a pretty terrible person, as you said, there is this certain charm and charisma to him.
Russell: He was a very extraordinary man. All his jumping about from one side to the other, of support of the English to the Scottish causes, was a result of a pretty smart brain, and a man who was able to convince people, "I'm on your side," and the next day he would be on somebody else's side. His charm was a great part of it. I don't think we saw a lot of that in these particular episodes, but certainly the real guy had all of that. You've got a considerable man: extraordinarily flawed, brutal, ruthless, but that's a good observation. He did have charm.
IGN: Was there any intent in your performance to bring some likability to him, or did you just want to play him straight?
Russell: Without going into the philosophy of acting, my presence -- despite being a very big man -- would be a benign presence. In repose, that kind of comes through in whatever part I'm playing. The thing I have to address is unlikeability, his capacity to be single-minded and ruthless and, in a modern sense, completely appalling to people who are beneath him in society and to women in particular. All of that. Whether or not I'm right in thinking my cuddliness, to some extent, came through, I think it's something I have to address and play. It's much more difficult for me to be an a--hole, to be nasty. That's what I had to address.
IGN: Outlander has been praised for its portrayal of women and gender politics, so I'm curious what conversations -- if any -- you had with Caitriona Balfe and Ron Moore and the writer and director to bring that element of this chauvinistic man to life?
Russell: I'm not sure that there were a fantastic amount of conversations. There were notes, perceptive notes, at certain times. But actually, it's well-written, and not easy to play, but you don't find yourself saying "this doesn't quite work here." It's playing what's going on. It's very clear what your task is, what you're required to do in terms of the arc of the story. I don't know if I got that right or not, but it certainly felt that in the scene by the fireplace, which ended with me being unnerved by the prospect of her being a witch, and the scene where she displayed her witch-like qualities were fantastically good fun to play from the point-of-view of a man who absolutely believes in the notion of witchcraft -- really, really believes in it, and is absolutely intrigued and terrified by it.
IGN: I know it's part of the acting process, but I'm always impressed when someone can come in for one episode and establish a long history and rapport with someone else that feels real and lived in. Is there anything specific that you and Sam Heughan did to try to build that Lord Lovat/Jamie relationship?
Russell: If I'm working with a younger actor, there's a kind of older man/younger man, dad/son thing that goes on. In this case, grandfather/grandson thing, which is in play anyway, and that's really what you rely on. In that particular situation, I think it worked out really well. That scene, the confrontation, was a very complicated scene and ostensibly quite difficult. It actually played very easily. We got on very well, very easily together. There was no stumbling going on. It was done later in the afternoon, I think it was the last scene in the afternoon, and it was just sublime to play it. Really, really good.
We'd previously seen him handle the public scene with everybody around the table, which I thought as an actor he handled extraordinarily well. He's really on top of it. I had a lot of respect for him. We actually worked very briefly together before about 10 years ago, when he was really quite young, in a documentary about Billy the Kid.
IGN: I did not know that!
Russell: No, you wouldn't. It was a BBC documentary series about various things, and we did that in Spain on the set that was used for one of the Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns.
IGN: Did you remember one another when it came time to work on this?
Russell: He remembered it. As soon as he reminded me, I thought, God, of course. He was a very young actor at that time, and now he's a major star of this huge series.
IGN: Were you familiar at all with Outlander beforehand? It's sort of a similar fan base to Game of Thrones.
Russell: No, I wasn't aware of it. Not in that way at all, although obviously it's a big thing in Scotland because it's done in Scotland and there are Scottish actors who have been involved and I know people who have been involved. It's an extremely well-run series. Certainly when I was around it seemed to work like clockwork. ... I was tremendously impressed with it. Really calm, measured, the producers were really supportive and constantly talking. It was quite fun to do.
IGN: So will we see Simon Fraser again? Would you like to see some more of what we hear about happen in the books on screen?
Russell: Oh, I would be delighted to do it. In a sense, there's an expression that the devil always gets the best tunes, so playing a malevolent character is really great fun, particularly for somebody who, by and large, has a benevolent image when I'm playing most stuff, I'd say. I think probably that's as much of that story as they're going to take, but obviously they may decide that it has more mileage and they can do what takes place offscreen onscreen in the series. That would be lovely to do that. I would be delighted, but who knows.
Outlander airs Saturdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO.
Terri Schwartz is Entertainment Editor on IGN. Talk to her on Twitter at @Terri_Schwartz.
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