Rory Alexander

Stepping into the world of the Frasers and the MacKenzies is something that Rory did with intentionality. He may have felt cautious about the idea of embodying a character for years at a time, but he also felt that “the level of detail and character development you can do is immense, and it's a gorgeous opportunity.” This gratitude helps him maintain a positive attitude through the peaks and valleys of filming in the Scottish Highlands and in navigating his own interpersonal relationships. Rory feels as though he and Murtagh equally wear their hearts on their sleeves, and in doing so, they allow themselves to be open in a way that others might shy away from.

Being open is a throughline in our conversation. Whether he’s talking about the traits that are most important to him (“honesty and lightness”) or he’s picking a song that best describes his personality (“Romeo and Juliet” by Dire Straits, “one of the most handsome and sexy songs in the world…”), Rory is always presenting the most authentic version of himself. Like Murtagh, he’s doing so without worrying about the potential ripple effect that may follow. And it’s ultimately this quality that allows him to find the perfection lying dormant in every day, rain or shine.

Outlander: Blood of My Blood releases weekly on STARZ.

How are you?
We had a heat wave last week, and we are out filming in the Scottish Highlands this week. Thank God it had broken because I was in triple tweed and we were doing sword fights. As soon as it stops being hot, the midges and rain come. You win for ten minutes at a time, but then you only lose for ten minutes at a time, so it's okay.

That’s a very optimistic view. You have to just look for those pockets of nice weather. We'll speak more of those into existence for you.
Are you a manifester?

I am. I think it's more than just speaking it into the universe, though. You have to take the necessary action steps to bring those things to fruition.
You mean sitting on the sofa thinking, I will win an Olympic gold doesn't work? What the hell?

[laughs] It would be lovely if it did. What about you?
A little bit. At the start of this week, a pigeon shat on my head, and supposedly that's lucky. It didn't feel that lucky at the time, though. I had to walk into Subway and ask for a napkin. They were like, “A napkin, but no sandwich, why?” And I said, “Well, I’ve just been shat on by a bird.” But then things went my way this week, so maybe there's some good karma out there.

You handling it as well as you did also brought in some good things.
Well, you didn't see how I dealt with the pigeon afterwards.

The poor pigeon.
That poor pigeon. Delicious pigeon. No, I'm joking. I don’t know how we managed to get here.

I like to go with the flow. And if you want to talk about eating pigeons, then we’ll talk about eating pigeons.
It was on my list, strangely enough, so I'm glad we've managed to get it in so early. Now it's a free-for-all. Ask away!

[laughs] Perfect! Unrelated to pigeons, if you could bring any dead actor from history back to life, who would you choose, and what movies would you show them?
Whoa, whoa. The two that spring to mind would be Philip Seymour Hoffman and Heath Ledger. They’re the actors that I think were the most incredible in my lifetime, and their deaths were so relevant and emotional. I would show Philip Seymour Hoffman the Minions movie, and I'd say, “You're okay. I think you're in the right place.” I think with the rage, frustration, and fear of watching a movie like that, we might get stuck in a loop. It’d be nice to know that he hasn’t missed out on much, having created some of the most gorgeous movies we have. So instead of him going, “God, I could have been in Despicable Me 3,” he’ll know it’s okay.

If you're starting with the Minions, you have several other Minion movies you can just roll right into afterwards.
There's a terrifyingly long list. I would leave the cinema and say, “Philip, would you like to see some more movies that are adjacent to this film?” I think he would politely decline and wander off into the ether.

“This is lovely, but I simply must leave.”
“I must return from whence I came.”

In talking about actors’ past work and legacy, when you're approaching a series like Outlander: Blood of my Blood, you're going into it with the idea that you're attaching yourself to it for years, and that you're going to become synonymous with this character who people are already familiar with. Did you have any reservations about that or feel a sense of security?
It's a perfect, quite confusing blend of both of those things. There is a wealth of stuff I can watch and read to inform my decisions, and the amount of time I get to sit with the character is amazing. When I’m not working for six weeks, the character just disappears from my head. But we've just started filming season two, and I got back into the costume and thought, Ah, I remember him. The level of detail and character development I can do is immense, and it's a gorgeous opportunity.

Being synonymous with a role is not as good; I'm not complaining in any way, because I'm very grateful, but if the world thinks, You are Murtagh Fitzgibbons Fraser, that's not very useful. The idea of actors being famous is unhelpful when the point is to play many different characters. But the project itself is great, so it's not like I’m stuck doing something average for a while. I’m developing the character, the scripts are good, and the episodes are fab, so it’s fulfilling.

I try to use other projects as a real opportunity to do something in a different vein, where I’m not going to pick up a sword and wear a kilt. I have the freedom to do that because I have a solid base, whereas without it, it’s like you're running around a supermarket when you're hungry. You’re just grabbing everything and anything.

It peaks and troughs throughout filming as well. Yesterday, I was up on a hill in gorgeous weather with Sam [Retford] and Jamie [Roy]. We were rehearsing a big fight scene, and we were all wearing our sunglasses. I just looked around and thought, I'm at work. This has got to be a joke. This is everything I ever wanted. Then four hours later, we were standing in the pouring rain, I was learning the script for a play, and I thought, God, I wish I were doing the play right now. I'm as inconsistent as the answer that I've just given.

That’s very human. I don't know how you can learn and memorise lines for different projects simultaneously.
I'm doing my voice, then a Scottish voice, and then an Irish or an American voice, and it normally ends up being a mix of all of them. They’re like, “Okay…interesting. That sounded pretty culturally insensitive.”

You're like, “So sorry, I need to dial back in. It's part of the acting process.”
There was a guy who worked in the coffee shop near where I used to live in Peckham. I remember going there, and he had just seen a film that I had done, so we started talking about it. As I was talking, he said, “Oh, this is your voice.” I was like, “Yeah, why?” And he said, “Well, every time you come here, you order in a different accent.” I think he thought I had multiple personality disorder or something, and then he finally put two and two together.

You're not consciously doing it? Or are you intentionally practising the voices?
It's a bit of both. I once got quite drunk and got stuck doing a Northern Irish accent, and I literally couldn't stop. Also, when I was speaking, I thought it was someone else talking. I was like, This guy is very interesting. We should hear more of what he has to say. My friends were not interested and did not want to listen. [laughs] So, that was involuntary. But generally speaking, I have some control.

You just have to play it out in the moment and honour whatever it is you’re feeling.
Feeling. Is that a scary word? Feeling?

Sometimes, especially when you're involuntarily speaking in a Northern Irish accent.
The feeling would be fear and shame if I had a pint or two.

After you found out you got the part in Blood of My Blood, did you spend time rewatching Duncan Lacroix's performance in Outlander?
Fully the opposite, quite intentionally. I'm a bad mimic. I saw some of Duncan’s performance, and he was fab, but then I had to stop watching; otherwise, I would just try to copy him. And [the showrunners] were pretty clear that that's not the point. But there are certain non-negotiables about his backstory, so we're drinking from the same well with slightly different cups.

That's a nice way of saying it. That was very poetic.
It's a way of saying it. [laughs]

It’s accurate to life because how you were when you were younger is different from how you are as an adult, especially under such specific circumstances that Murtagh finds himself in.
Totally. It is slightly out of my control because I haven't read all the scripts that are coming, so I have to figure it out as much as possible and then let the scenario impact me in the moment. If I were spending my time trying to copy, then I wouldn’t be that susceptible to change, which is the most important thing when playing anyone. When he's older, he’s more jaded, and we know why to a degree, but we get to fill in the blanks now. It hasn't happened yet, so you have to go on that journey.

I never thought of it like that, how you have to divorce yourself from the existing knowledge.
You can't play tragedy, or you can't play loss. Those are things that happen and inform other things. Also, it's way nicer playing this “wide-eyed, full of hope and wonder, and hopefully everything's going to go my way” kind of character.

When we're introduced to Murtagh, he’s already caught in the middle of the Fraser and MacKenzie clans, and trying to figure out where his loyalties lie. What was most interesting to you as an actor about playing out that battle of conscience, while maintaining a sense of hope at the same time?
That's a great question. I think the idea of loyalty, then, is a different notion from what we have now. It's very much about allegiances and clans and families, and you pledge your oath, and that's a contract. Modern-day loyalty is doing the right thing, following your heart, and thinking, I owe you so much. I love you. I want to stand by you. It's nice that those two versions intersect, where I know that I’ve made my contract, but at the same time, I am following a very real contemporary emotional journey. There are times when he gets to stand up for his feelings, and times when he bows underneath the flag. That will always be a conflict. As soon as he bows, he thinks, I've compromised myself. And as soon as he follows his heart, he goes, I'm in trouble. He's quite impulsive. He's quite wide-eyed, and then there's just this flash of fear, like, Oh shit, carry on.

He’s got to keep going and keep moving through the motions to see what happens.
Just keep trucking! “Keep horse and carting.”

True, it should be period accurate.
Keep the wagon straight?

Put that on a t-shirt. Outlander is known for its passionate fan base. Do you feel pressure from that or more excitement?
More of the latter. There aren't many things that bring many people together, but this is one of them. Being in service of that is a real joy. Even before I did the show, people said to me, “I really like this show, it can be quite comforting.” I think about those things when we're making it, and I’m aware that this has an important function. There are downsides. I get sent weird nudes online, but I just ignore those random dick pics.

Welcome to the female experience.
Exactly. That is a small price to pay. By and large, people who love the show seem like lovely people. Jamie [Roy] can take most of the flak.

Focusing on the positive sides of the fan base, is there something you're most excited about at conventions? Some respectful, tasteful fan art?
I'd be very keen for it. The conventions will be fun - that really is the diehard contingent of the fan base, and it’s nice to be able to give things back in that way. I spent a lot of time hanging out at the back doors of theatres in London, trying to meet people and get 'em to sign my pencil case, so I know what that experience is like. I'm a big fan of any kind of musical remix. If anyone wants to put some strange house remix to some scenes, I'd love to see that. Maybe AI could have a crack at getting me flying around on a dragon. The opportunities of the internet are limitless. I’d love baked goods. As long as it's not full of arsenic, the idea of someone being like, “I baked a muffin for you,” is the highest act of service I could ever imagine.

Once this interview is published, people will be like, “Perfect. I already know what I'm bringing him.” Do you have any food allergies we should put in here?
I've got no food allergies. I'm a fan of all things baked. I should specify something incredibly complicated to see if anyone bites. I'm a big fan of dodo eggs. I’m a big fan of extinct mammals. If anyone can get hold of one of those, I'd be dead keen. Time travel is possible in the show. Come on. Are you a real fan or not?

At the Outlander and Blood of my Blood: The Gathering event, you were all speaking about your characters in this shared universe. Sam Heughan spoke about how strength and loyalty are particularly important to the Fraser clan. What are some important traits to you as Rory?
Wow. I think honesty is very hard to get away from. We're so unprogrammed for dishonesty. I think there is something evolutionarily confusing about lying, like if you walked out of a cave and asked someone, “Which way is it to the water?” you would assume someone would tell you the right answer. Lying kind of short-circuits the system. I think honesty really gets you a long way and opens everyone up to each other. I say this as an actor who pretends to be other people all the time, but honesty is the key to that. I think that there’s a way of keeping it light, which is not to say don't deep dive, but if you can draw lightness out of someone, then everything else gets so much easier. You see someone's eyes perk up, and you get 'em onto a topic they want to talk about, and suddenly they become way more themselves. Then you can be emotional and go deep. You can't just go in and be like, “Tell me about your mother.” It's not an easy thing to make people laugh, but if you do, everyone can unlock each other. Honesty and lightness. That sounds mythic.

I die on the hill of brutal honesty, because I think it's inherently easier to be honest. It’s worse to allow breathing room for a lie to grow and fester.
I am more honest now than I used to be. You forget that it's such a difficult thing to be dishonest, because you're being avoidant and have to overcompensate. Then, it does all come back around. It’s a huge waste of energy.

You have said that Murtagh wears his heart on his sleeve and smiles his way through difficult situations. Do you personally identify with that? And if so, do you find that to be more of a strength or a weakness?
Yes, I do. I am very much like that, and I do think that it’s a strength. I think lightness and insincerity are two very different things, and one can often be misconstrued for the other. You can smile or laugh your way through something and still take it very seriously. The danger of wearing your heart on your sleeve is that you get smacked around by the world, which makes you want to put some armour on. I’ve experienced that, without regret. It doesn't stop me from going back out and doing the same thing again. But you have to know who to be open with. There is a difference between being secretive and guarded versus knowing when making yourself vulnerable to someone is more of a kamikaze move. I am sometimes taken aback by people who overshare when you first meet. I feel like there needs to be a touch more self-preservation. Actually, I find that it makes it difficult to trust them. You're thinking, Whoa, I don't know what value you place on things because you've just given quite a lot freely. However, I do think it's a much nicer place to be than Scrooge in the box, just sort of kicking orphans down the road or whatever. Scrooge doesn't live in a box; it's not relevant. He lives…

He lives in an emotional box of his own creation.
He does. He lives in a dark and dank cage of his terrors, and that's not a fun place to be. It costs you nothing, and you get nothing. I would prefer to have my heart on my sleeve and maybe have a little cry and do it again, than be inside the dark, dank box.

This also reminded me of something Trixie Mattel said once. She said she never understood the concept of having your guard up because you get hurt either way, so you might as well leave your guard down and be vulnerable.
I like that a lot. Energy can't be created or destroyed; it just changes shape. If you’re guarded, that’s still going to go somewhere. You're just going to deflect it onto someone else. I've definitely been in that situation. I'd like to think that affecting the world and being affected by the world is probably the most important thing. Feeling like you’re not part of things and hiding away for a bit can be fine at times, and can be necessary, but as a general state, I don’t think it’s enough.

That's also a gift of the job - it’s fully expected that you go and get angry, or you fall in love. The whole point is that you go through this range of emotions, it's sanctioned, and then you can come back to your life and be like, Well, I don't particularly need to be all of those things. I know what they are, and I get to experience them in a safer environment than most people do. I can go and argue on screen, which probably lets out a lot that people only let out in a real argument.

That’s so interesting to look at it from the perspective that your job allows you to move through different emotions safely.
I was not in the best place at one point, and part of it was that I didn’t feel like I had any room to express myself. I couldn’t figure out a way of doing it. There are certain friendships or jobs where you're like, This is that thing where I’m allowed to let rip in all the ways I need to. That's so important and healthy. It's like Italians - I don't want to live my life shaking my hands around, but at the same time, I respect it. You’ve got to give it the full beans, you know? Then you can come home and be like, I shall watch television quietly. I've had my argument for the day.

[laughs] If you could show Murtagh one modern invention, what would you choose?
That's a really good question. I think he would be a big fan of a slushy. The idea of sweet frozen ice, where he could try all the different flavours, would be a constant source of excitement. He'd be offering it around to everyone. There'd be warring clans, and he’d go over and be like, “This is peach syrup, and I've mixed it with the raspberry. It's like a Tango, I don't know how they did it.” The end of the straw being slightly wider would blow his mind. I think he'd also be pretty good at using it as a bit of a prop, like awkwardly sucking on the ice as Brian [Fraser] makes yet another massive gaff. Murtagh decides he's probably got to fix it, but just before he does, he gets terrible brain freeze. And once again, he's back at the bottom of the pile. But I think a slushy would do Murtagh some good.

That reminds me of something I saw on Twitter that was basically like, “One Dorito contains more flavour than a 16th-century peasant would have in their entire life.”
It would blow your mind. We always eat either porridge or oat cakes, and for some reason, Murtagh keeps cooking squirrels. He’s done it three times in the series. I think they should have cut at least two, but he's always cooking a squirrel.

Back to you briefly…if you had to pick one song to represent your personality, which would you choose and why?
Me, me?

Yeah, you, you.
“Romeo and Juliet” by Dire Straits. Let me justify this answer. It's fundamentally Romeo and Juliet, so there's a bit of romance, a bit of classical, but then it also turns everything on its head, and it's like, “Oh, now we're looking at her with the lamppost.” It's talking about Romeo and Juliet, but it's doing it with fifteen degrees of irony, which works pretty well. But at the end of the day, it's still just one of the most handsome and sexy songs in the world…[both laugh]

I’m leaving that in.
It's pretty timeless. Not that I'm timeless. I will soon be fat and old.

My favourite line has always been, "Oh, Romeo, yeah, you know I used to have a scene with him.”
So good. Also, “I can't do anything except be in love with you.” I love the timing and simplicity of it. I actually feel ashamed that I've said it. I've bigged myself up too much.

You know what? You chose what felt natural.
When I was at school, I was in a band called the Sultans of Swing, which we thought was very funny and cool. Obviously, we were just a bad cover band.

Do you still play music?
I do every now and again. I used to do a lot more before the acting kicked off, but now I just go to gigs.

In the past, you've done audiobook and video game narration. If you could pick one person to narrate your life for a day, who would you choose?
Oh, that’s really good. Maybe someone incongruous. If Matthew McConaughey were narrating my life while I walked around Glasgow buying tomatoes, that would be perfect. I would also love for Keith Richards to narrate a day in my life. It would make me feel like a rock star, even though I would be rearranging my recycling.

Tomatoes, recycling…incredibly rock and roll. It's very rock and roll to be kind.
Kindness is supposed to be the new rock and roll, but we're now in a post-kindness phase of music. There was a point where everyone thought it was cool to be kind. I think we're now past that, unfortunately. I'm not an expert on it, but there was the Ed Sheeran-ification of music, and everyone was so palatable on chat shows. Everyone's less like that now. But kindness is pretty cool.