Happy castiversary, Caitriona Balfe: The moment we fell in love with Outlander’s Claire

A look back at instantly falling in love with Caitriona Balfe as Claire on Outlander

On Sept. 11, 2013, Caitriona Balfe was announced as Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser on Outlander. There’s absolutely nobody we could imagine in the role now.

What point did we fall in love with Balfe as Claire? It was all about the moment with the vase.

We saw Claire look down at the vase with a small smile. The voice over read the passage from the book, thinking about how Claire had never owned a vase. Immediately, we got that sense of this woman who had never lived in one place long enough, and you could sense that in the look she gave the vase through the shop window.

The more we saw of Claire in the first episode made it clear she was the right woman for the job. We got to see her love for Frank. And I do genuinely believe there were looks of love throughout the opening. While she would roll her eyes at Frank’s love for history, she didn’t hate his need to use the second honeymoon in Scotland as a chance to do some genealogy research.

Despite them being separated because of the war, she knew her husband. And she had her own interests.

Confirmed when she met Jamie

However, it was one particular scene that stood out in the Outlander series premiere for me. After falling through time and tending to Jamie’s wounds, the two and the rest of the Highlanders headed out back to Castle Leoch. There was the ambush, with Claire using it as a chance to get back to the stones.

Jamie caught up to her. There’s a look the two give each other, Jamie not afraid to hoist Claire over his shoulder and Claire trying her hardest to get away so she could go back home.

There’s that instant chemistry between them. It’s clear why Caitriona Balfe landed the role.

When did you fall in love with Caitriona Balfe as Claire on Outlander? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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