'Outlander' Postmortem: A Look at Bringing Lallybroch to Life
Apparently, you can go home again.
This week’s installment of Outlander saw a Highlander homecoming as Jamie and Claire galloped into their final destination — the oft longed for and much discussed Lallybroch.
First and foremost, we’re guessing the couple was happy to have put some major miles between them and the fiery stake that had Claire’s name on it, and they likely were thrilled to finally get off that horse. But Jamie’s ancestral home symbolizes far more in this romantic, revolutionary, time-traveling journey than four walls and a place to lay their heads.
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For Sam Heughan’s Jamie, it was about returning to a beloved abode he had to flee (thanks to that ill-fated first meeting with Black Jack) to take his rightful place as laird, reunite with his beloved sister Jenny, and commence normal life with Claire as the lady of the house. Obviously his connections to his castle run deep. After all, he used the key to Lallybroch to make Claire’s wedding ring. (We know, we know, in the TV series. Not the novels.) But as happy as Jamie was to make his way back to his childhood crib, Heughan tells Yahoo TV that it also meant he had to face a few demons. “Lallybroch is where we begin to see a lot more of what and who made Jamie the man he is, like his close relationship with his father. You see a lot more of the chinks in his armor. His relationship to his sister is challenged by his guilt over what happened with Black Jack and just by his returning when she has been essentially doing his job for years. He has come to terms with his father’s death and his new responsibilities as a new husband, the man of the house, the laird. There’s a lot of pressure.”
The pressure is not his alone to bear. Although Caitriona Balfe’s Claire is riding high from coming clean about her past (no, future, um, future past?), choosing to stay, and making strides toward clearing Jamie’s name, everyday life at Lallybroch fills the stringently independent nurse with trepidation. “She’s in love. She’s chosen to stay and make this marriage work, and he has made it perfectly clear that Lallybroch is an integral part of his plan for the future,” Balfe says. “But it isn’t that simple. I love that she has such complicated ideas about going back, because for her that is not the life she envisioned — just being someone’s wife, just being the lady of the house. We see that play out more. Jamie goes back, and we see him get comfortable and revert to what he knew as a child and becoming the laird that he was always supposed to be. It is very hard for Claire because she’s a career woman. That work ethic, that desire to be self-sufficient and to fulfill her needs in another way, never goes away. But she also hasn’t had a permanent home since she was very young, and there is appeal in that, too. She starts to settle and allows herself to start thinking about the long term there. Of course, it all goes to hell again very quickly.”
Given the importance Lallybroch plays in the plot and character development — and that executive producer Ronald D. Moore is a “stickler” for an era-appropriate look — production designer Jon Gary Steele was not immune to pressure either when the Outlander team began the search in June 2013 for a 1700s structure in Scotland that could stand in for it.
“And don’t forget about the fans that have read the book 20,000 times [who have] their own opinions in their minds about what it should look like,” Steele tells Yahoo TV. “We wanted to find something that was period correct and that would be reminiscent [of what was in the books]. As soon as they saw it, they would go, ‘Oh, that’s it.’ It was not an easy task. First, there aren’t that many buildings left that aren’t on the National Historic Register. Those are the most well-preserved, but they are also really, really strict about what you can and can’t do during filming. Like you can’t have real flames, which I understand, but it makes shooting more difficult. The hardest part is finding something that was 18th century or older but not covered with modern details like additions or paved driveways. We’d see great places, but they were right next to something that’s horrible like a road. Also, a lot of buildings in that period are white-washed, and I didn’t like that look for the screen.”
They eventually found and settled on Midhope Castle, a property close to Edinburgh built in the 15th century. “We wanted a place that looks like a nice home, not a castle. It’s big, not huge. Compared to Castle Doune, which is our Leoch exterior, it’s much smaller in proportion. The main house is on an estate with several other buildings and a thousand acres. It had a nice archway of trees, a big enough courtyard to put blacksmiths, tanners, and animals — as it is basically a working farm. I saw it in the distance and went, ‘That’s it. This is awesome.’ Luckily, Ron loved it.”
As it had fallen into disrepair, there was a lot of work to be done to make it ready for its close-up. “We came in with construction, paint and plaster people, and greensmen to clean it up and make it look more like a working home of that era,” Steele explains. “We replaced all the doors and windows. Anything we didn’t see on camera, we didn’t waste money on fixing it. We brought in cobbles of our own, [uncovered] cobbles underneath, and swept back tons of dirt. Then we brought in tons of greens and animals. There’s always chickens roaming around.”
The interiors of the privately-owned property (and therefore not available to tour or trespass around) were “bombed out “ beyond repair. “It had been damaged by fire some 70 years ago and the interiors were unusable. We probably would have built it on stages anyway so we’d need less time on location,” Steele says. “Quite a few generations have lived at Lallybroch, so its interiors needed to feel less utilitarian than Leoch and a lot warmer, more comfortable. Leoch is about Colum’s power, and it is filled with people who live and work there. All the tables were wooden with no pads on the benches deliberately. At Lallybroch, everything’s upholstered. We had couches, chairs, and beds built. It’s inviting. Jamie is trying to get back here since he was introduced, so it needed to make the audience go, ‘Oh, that’s why he wanted to come home. He wants to hang out by the fire, have a glass of port, and talk.”
The fireplaces are just one of his favorite elements. “One big room where you could sit at one fireplace and see all the way to the other end’s fireplace when the double doors were open was the concept I pitched to Ron,” Steele says. “Like a giant parlor. Made it intimate, homey.”
When pressed to pick his favorite design detail, he admits, without hesitation, it’s the wraparound staircase. ”I spent a lot of money on the staircase wrapped around an open, four-sided fireplace. The construction coordinator hated me for that,” he says. “We’re always arguing. Why do I want them to be able to shoot from any angle and still see flames and people going up? I was trying to give as much depth to the space and give the director something to shoot through. You’re always arguing with the construction, like, 'Why do you always have a second story? Why do we have to have columns?’ But who wants to just shoot in a square room?”
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Working with live fire continues to be an issue on the set. “The Lallybroch kitchen had one long, vaulted ceiling, and even though I put vents everywhere, the extraction stopped working. The fire was on, the heat wasn’t leaving, and people started calling it a pizza oven. It looked good, and they fixed it eventually, but it was a pain.”
Not painful was coming up with knickknacks to fill the library. “It’s like a cabinet of curiosities. Jamie is very educated and well traveled, and this was a period of enlightenment,” Steele says. “Everything was fascinating to them, so there are all kinds of books, astronomy tools to look up in the sky, shells, and bird skeletons.”
Surely, he slipped in a trinket that didn’t belong, was an inside joke, or even better, a clue for what’s to come? “No, nothing at Lollybroch, although there’s something in Geillis’s place that is a nod, a hint, to the future. If someone’s watching closely enough, they might figure something out down the road. I can’t say too much, or I’ll get yelled at.”
Happy hunting, Outfanders!
Outlander airs Saturdays at 9 p.m. on Starz.
