‘Outlander’: Diana Gabaldon Dishes On Acting In The Starz Series

Author Diana Gabaldon makes her acting debut this Saturday in Starz’s “Outlander.”

On the show’s Scotland set back in February, as she wrapped filming for the day, Diana spoke about making her cameo in the show, which is based on her novel series.

“It was deeply interesting, mind you I have two lines, so this was not a big part, not requiring a lot of direction,” Diana explained. “Basically, I said, ‘Which direction do you want me to face?’ And they told me, so I did that.”

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The author said she got coaching in Scottish pronunciations from Carol Ann Crawford, a dialect coach on the “Outlander” set.

“She spent half an hour with me earlier [in the day] going over the Scots accent and delivery and all that and so she would pop up every two or three takes and say, ‘Well now this particular word… it’s all marvelous, you’re doing a great job, this particular word though, you should put more of [an] ‘ee’ on it, or pronounce it ‘din’ rather than ‘tin.'” Diana explained after Starz flew AccessHollywood.com to the show’s set, where they made us their guests.

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“She’d pop up and then the next take would be the makeup people popping up, blotting the sweat,” Diana continued, of her experience, as she spoke with Access and other reporters.

Diana told reporters on set she “wasn’t nervous at all” about shooting on the show.

The author was tight-lipped about her exact role in the episode, titled “The Gathering,” but she had a great time.

“It was very cool,” she told reporters. “They were asking me all along, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ And I was saying, ‘Well, yeah.’ I said, ‘I’m a writer, I’ll do anything once just to see what it’s like.’ And this would include taking a sauna naked with my Finnish editor and then jumping in a Finnish lake at midnight. She said, ‘You’re the bravest American I’ve ever seen.’ I said, ‘No, I’m a writer, I’ll do anything just so I could write about it.’ So yeah, I’m gonna do it once. I have absolutely no desire to be an actor or to do this repeatedly, though I’ll do it tomorrow since they didn’t quite get all the takes they wanted.”

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It was a highlight for the cast and crew to have Diana on set, and she revealed she got a few compliments and thanks for her work and how it has had an influence on Scotland.

“My husband — last night, we had been talking to Adham [O Broin] the Gaelic instructor and so forth, and you know, he’s been very nice about my books and the Gaelic in them and what he sees as the role in… encouraging and preserving the Gaelic tongue and also telling me that everyone’s so thrilled that the production is bringing so much employment to Scotland and they said, ‘Oh you’ve even saved the border weaving industry,’ ’cause this factory that was going to close now is staying open just to weave all the tartan we need for the show. … And as we were leaving, my husband said… ‘So you’ve lifted the Scottish economy, saved the border weaving industry and preserved the Gaelic language. What are you going to do for an encore? ‘He said, ‘Oh, I remember, you’re gonna act,” Diana laughed.

“Outlander” continues Saturday night at 9 PM on Starz.

Jolie Lash

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