‘Outlander’ Stars Discuss Spanking Scene: ‘It Was A Difficult Thing To Film’

“You’re tearing my guts out,” Jamie Fraser told Claire not long after he rescued his wife from Fort William in Saturday’s “Outlander.”

But, before that (and after) Claire was still trying to make sense of why her husband and his fellow clansmen were so angry at her, following her rescue in “The Reckoning” episode.

“I think she doesn’t fully understand the repercussion of her actions and I also think that she feels like a very independent spirit so she doesn’t understand that what she does affects so many other people,” Caitriona Balfe told Access Hollywood of why Claire didn’t get it, at first. “She feels like she can sort of take on the repercussions of herself in a certain way, and it’s also that code of justice and morality that exists in the 1700s — it’s so archaic that she doesn’t sort of, I guess, fully get that it is the way they live.

WATCH: ‘Outlander’ Episode 109: Caitriona Balfe On Spanking Scene

“And she’s been in dangerous situations, she’s been in the second World War, she’s been around stuff like that, but it’s just a different kind of danger and a different kind of justice,” Caitriona added.

What came next was a scene people had been wondering about bringing to television for a long time – the one where Jamie Fraser, a man from 1743, took his belt and spanked his wife, his way of trying to get her to understand her actions had consequences in this old world.

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“I think there was quite a deep breath, you’re like, ‘Woah/okay, we’re really doing this,'” Caitriona said when Access asked about what it was like when she read the script. “We had a lot of conversations with the writer and we went back and forth and it was a difficult thing to film, but we had to remember that this was the justice meted out in this time and… as hard as it is to understand that with our modern mentality, that’s sort of — that was the case there.

“But it’s a very fine line, and it’s a hard thing to do, and you want to sort of honor the story, but you don’t want to sort of, I don’t know, glorify it or make it seem trivial,” the actress continued. “For her, this was a huge, huge injury — not just physically, but psychically as well — I mean, this man that she fell in love with and then to do something like that to her. So this is a big… gash in their relationship and it’s very hard for them to sort of fight their way back afterwards.”

Sam Heughan, who plays Jamie, said it was a hard scene to do.

“It didn’t sit particularly comfortable with us both because in a modern day setting, you know, it’s hard to get your head around, but at that time, Jamie’s doing what he thinks is correct, what he thinks has to be done and she has to learn a lesson. She put everyone in in danger and that’s his point of view,” the actor said.

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Filming the scene was intense for the actors, but it was plotted out.

“Yeah, it was very technical,” Caitriona said. “I mean, we choreographed it quite well, but… in the heat of the moment, you’ve sort of laid in in place these sort of movements and you’re kind of like, ‘Right, at this point we’re gonna do this and this,’ but once you get into it and the adrenaline’s going, it’s sort of hard to keep it as you sort of planned, perfectly, but it wasn’t a real leather belt. We got a very light one.”

“Outlander” continues Saturdays at 9 PM ET/PT on Starz.

— Jolie Lash