The Outlander universe is expanding with Outlander: Blood of My Blood (on Crave in Canada), with an ensemble cast that includes Hermione Corfield, Jeremy Irvine, Jamie Roy and Harriet Slater. The prequel to the famed Outlander series takes us across time, from the First World War to the 18th century Scottish Highlands, as two couples try to stay together, while being forced apart.

One couple is Julia Moriston (Corfield) and Henry Beauchamp (Irvine), parents of Outlander character Claire (played by Caitríona Balfe). While Outlander established that Claire’s parents died in a car crash, we quickly find out what really happened in Blood of my Blood, and it involves a connection to Claire’s time travel.

“I just love the idea … of including Claire’s parents in the first place. I think it opens up the world in such an amazing way, and it makes sense,” executive producer Maril Davis told Yahoo Canada. “All we know is they died in a car crash, and the fact that they didn’t die in a car crash, and they’ve actually gone through time, is such great connective tissue to the mothership, in terms of Claire’s abilities to travel.”

“I love seeing Claire’s mother. She’s very Claire, obviously, but she’s her own person. … Claire was, in some ways, very medical focused. Julia is kind of a master of many trades. We see she’s artistic. She can put herbs together. She’s got an incredible memory for detail.”

“She’s also very mechanical. She can build things,” showrunner and executive producer Matthew B. Roberts added. “You want to see that when you’re watching Julia you go, oh maybe Claire got that from her. And then when you see Henry you go, oh maybe she got that from Henry. And I think that’s the way we want to build it out. That you’re not seeing facsimiles of Claire, or Caitríona’s Claire, …that Hermione is actually bringing her own thing to Julia.”

Corfield described playing Julia as a “huge honour,” but also felt a responsibility in being that connection to a beloved character from Outlander.

“I was always keen for her to have elements of Claire, but to be her own character,” Corfield said. “No one wants an impression of another performance, so I kind of looked at the core elements of Claire and then tried to find a similarity in the core of Julia, and worked from there. But yes, they’re both strong women that deal with a lot of adversity.”

When it comes to Henry, his story isn’t just about finding Julia, but he’s also dealing with PTSD from his time in the war, adding another layer and more dimension to the character.

“It’s obviously very sad that Henry has to deal with that, but for me it’s great because … it just opens up so many ideas,” Irvine said. “Then you can just start to play and sort of go, well how far can we take this?”

“As an actor, it’s a gift. You’ve just got the all clear to go and hopefully do something really fun and different, and hopefully interesting to watch.”

‘He’s like the 18th century Superman’

The second couple we follow in Blood of my Blood is Ellen MacKenzie (Slater) and Brian Fraser (Roy), parents to Jamie (played by Sam Heughan in Outlander). A core element of the series is allowing the audience to see how integral Jamie and Claire’s parents are in them ending up together.

But one of the most beautiful scenes in all of Blood of my Blood is a moment when Ellen and Brian, after their first brief meeting, reconnect alone by a bridge in the beautiful Scotland landscape.

“It was a really important scene for us as well. We’d lived with it for a long time. It was our audition scenes, both of us, and then we eventually read it together at the chemistry read as well. So we were kind of anticipating it with a lot of excitement, and it didn’t disappoint,” Slater said. “It was quite a dramatic day because the weather was not on our side. I think we were delayed for quite a long time at the beginning of it, and then when we eventually got around to shooting it, we couldn’t hear each other because the water was so loud. We had earpieces, but they were cutting out.”

For Roy, something he really brings forward for Jamie is this appealing heart and compassion that the character has.

“He learns that from both his mother and his father in different ways,” he said. “So from his mother, Davina, he’s learned to love and respect and to take care of people. And from his father, he’s learned how to not be a man. So everything that Lord Lovat does he wants to do the opposite of.”

“I think that’s the combination, … as well as him being kind of stoic in the sense of [controlling] what he can control, and accepting everything that he can’t, which he learned how to do because he’s a bastard son, so he doesn’t have the same opportunities, the same access to things as other people. And I think it’s a combination of that, which has really allowed him to put other people first, who deserve it. At his heart, at his core, he’s just a good person, and he’s always trying to do the right thing. So anytime that he sees an opportunity to help somebody, to save someone, he’s more than willing to sacrifice whatever it takes to protect the ones that he loves. Actually Matt Roberts said to me right from the start of filming, he’s like the 18th century Superman. And I was like, got you, say no more.”

Can you watch ‘Blood of my Blood’ without watching ‘Outlander’

In terms of how Outlander and Blood of my Blood differ, emotional love stories are still central, including the steamy intimate scenes fans talk about season after season for Outlander, but Blood of my Blood is able to really dive into the political landscape, the politics between clans, much more than we’ve seen before.

“Outlander moves away from that very quickly, … there’s a couple episodes where we really dive into it … and now we know we can go seasons with it, because of this family dynamic, and it adds a new dimension to the storytelling,” Roberts said. “Whereas in Outlander, the threat usually comes from without, and the family sticks together to fight it off, whereas in Blood, it’s both within and without. So your rivals could be out there or within your own family. And it just adds a whole new layer of storytelling.”

If you never got into Outlander and you’re wondering if you need to go back and watch all seven season, with its eighth season coming in 2026, that’s not necessarily required. You’ll certainly get a lot more out of Blood of my Blood if you do, but it is a story that, in a lot of way, can stand on its own.

“A generation has gone by. When we started Outlander one of our writers, her child was in our writer’s room with colouring books, and now he’s in college,” Roberts said.

“The cast is all very young and very dynamic, but the stories are quite different, in a way, than Outlander. It’s just one love story and we root for that couple, but all the stories had to go through Jamie and Claire, rightfully so. And on Blood we can hit the tributaries, and we can go and explore different characters, and that’s really where the freedom comes from.”

“Also, I love the fact that you can come into this never having watched Outlander, but you can also come in having watched Outlander, be a fan, and there’s extra stuff for you,” Davis added. There’s Easter eggs, in there, things and connections that you’ll get that a new watcher might not. so I love that there is opportunities for both.”