Outlander's Caitriona Balfe opens up on how she almost lost the role of Claire

dailyrecord.co.uk:

It's hard for most Outlander fans to imagine anyone else in the roles of leads Jamie and Claire Fraser – but star Caitriona Balfe has revealed how she almost missed out on the career-launching casting.

The star, 42, who has just been nominated for a Bafta for the film Belfast, was speaking to The Hollywood Reporter’s podcast Awards Chatter, when she revealed how she thought she'd messed up the audition but was given a surprising second chance.

Back in the days when showrunner Ronald D Moore was looking to get his latest project Outlander off the ground, he opened up casting for the roles of leads Sam Fraser and Claire Randall.A young Caitriona who was hoping to make the move from her "miserable' career in modelling to acting at the time, revealed she auditioned for the role in 2013, but wasn't given nearly enough information on the character she would eventually come to embody."My manager had sent me this two or three-line logline and was like, ‘Here, tape this audition,’" the Belfast star explained. “It was such a thinly drawn description of the role, of the character.”She added that she had no idea it was attached to such a hugely popular book franchise or that it even involved time travel.“It was basically ‘a nurse.’ There was no personality description.

I think it was, ‘a nurse, 1940s.’ It was literally two lines."Pointing out that's how new she was to the scene at that point, she sent off the tape and hoped for the best but unsurprisingly, given the lack of detail, didn't hear back.However, much like the little bit of magic that the show is now famous for, a chance meeting revived her chances of getting the part.Caitriona said that while she was in Europe filming on an indie project, her manager put her in touch