Men in Kilts also gives us a little insight into the famously private Heughan. His friendship with McTavish, and their witty conversation, reveals a side of the actor most fans haven’t seen before. Let’s take a look at the surprising and endearing things we learned about Heughan while watching the premiere episode.
1. He doesn’t look or sound exactly like Jamie on Outlander
Don’t get us wrong, he’s as handsome as ever—if not more so. But for fans who are used to him appearing as Outlander’s Jamie, there are a few differences that might strike you right away upon seeing him out of character: His hair is shorter, less red and more dirty-blonde. He also has much more of a clean-shaven baby face than in Outlander, in which he played a 50-year-old last season (he’s 40 in real life). And is it us, or does real-life Heughan sort of resemble Super Bowl-winning quarterback Tom Brady? Another surprise is Heughan’s accent: In Outlander, he speaks with strong Highland inflections, but in real life he sounds, well, a bit less Scottish. “My accent is… sort of an Edinburgh sort of soft southwest Scottish accent,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “It could almost be English. So we try to do a bit of a Highland lilt to it [in Outlander].” On Men in Kilts, he tells viewers he spent his teenage years in the Scottish capital, Edinburgh.
2. He has a real bromance with costar Graham McTavish
Nevermind the Scottish scenery: This is perhaps the best part of Men in Kilts. These two banter like brothers, and aren’t afraid to get in their digs. Yet they still remain playfully sweet—we can tell they really enjoy each other’s company. “I knew you were going to go there, that was beautiful,” Heughan says when McTavish compares Scotland to a tartan kilt just a couple of minutes into the episode. Later, as the two sit down to a meal of local seafood at the Michelin-starred restaurant The Kitchin in Edinburgh, Heughan can’t resist leaning over to steal some food off McTavish’s plate—even after he said he didn’t want to share. “You’re literally pushing all my buttons now,” McTavish says.
3. He can be as giddy as a small child
One of our favorite moments of the first episode is when Heughan looks longingly at a room full of barley grains used for making whisky, and asks the proprietor if he can literally dive in. “This is like a cathedral to malt, to barley,” he says, wide-eyed. “I want to do it!” After being given permission, he and McTavish jump into it as if they were kids hurling themselves into a ball pit. “Oh, it’s heaven, it’s lovely, it smells amazing,” Heughan says, as he makes barley angels (you know, like snow angels except in barley). How adorable is that? Heughan shows himself to be naturally easygoing and not afraid of looking a wee bit silly.
4. He’s not above some grade-school teasing
Yet another way we can tell Heughan is a kid at heart is the way he teases McTavish throughout the episode. After finding an unidentified strange sea creature in their haul of fish, he shoves it in McTavish’s face amid his protests, saying, “Do you want to keep this one? Go on, just take it for later.” Totally childish, and totally cute. The two trade barbs throughout the episode, as McTavish also teases Sam that he’s a “raging boozehound.” “Well, thank you very much,” Heughan replies.
5. He could have his own cooking show—if it weren’t for the lobster murder
Heughan clearly has an appreciation for Scottish food and seems like a natural assisting chef Tony Singh in an outdoor kitchen in the Scottish fishing village of Pittenweem. “We should do a cooking program,” he tells McTavish. Might we suggest a spinoff title: Men Cooking in Kilts? We would definitely tune in! But, adding to his complete adorableness, the one thing Heughan wouldn’t be able to do on his cooking show is to take the life of the lobsters. He and McTavish make a show of turning away as Singh does the dirty deed himself. “We’ll just go over here and talk amongst ourselves,” Heughan says. “Oh look, is that a dolphin?”
6. He may not be dating anyone
Notoriously private about his dating life, Heughan revealed one more tidbit during the cooking segment: He may be single. As Singh adds garlic to the yummy meal, Heughan declares, “Don’t be shy, I’m not kissing anyone today.” It might not mean anything—after all, he’s on a road trip with McTavish, so he might be simply away from his girlfriend—but we can dream, can’t we? Just kidding: We’d love to see Heughan find love because he seems like such a genuinely nice guy.
7. He may have lied in his Outlander audition
Heughan and McTavish have some more fun joking about the life of an actor, and how if you’re asked if you can do something, you just say yes—whether or not that’s actually true. “We are actors, right, so we generally lie a lot,” Heughan jokes. “I remember [for] horse riding [I said], ‘Oh yeah, I can do that, of course.’ Anything that they say in the audition, ‘Can you do it?’ you’re like, ‘Yes, yes, of course, I can, I grew up on a farm and was born in the saddle.’" Heughan used the same approach on Men in Kilts. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he says while on the fishing boat, “but I’ll pretend.” And later, “For this episode, I was born in a distillery.” He’s also not shy about making just a little bit more fun of Outlander. “What is portrayed in the show is truthful in many ways,” McTavish says, to which Heughan deadpans, “Time travel,” he pauses, “is truthful.”
8. He has a deep appreciation for whisky
It’s clear Heughan enjoys partaking in this Scottish pastime. “You know a lot about whisky, don’t you?” McTavish asks him. “I mean, I’ve had one or two,” he says. For the unfamiliar, “whisky” (spelled without the “e”) is what we would call “Scotch;” you could also call it “Scotch whisky.” But Heughan is also modest: Although he has his own new line of whisky himself, appropriately called Sassenach after his nickname for his love, Claire, on Outlander, he doesn’t even mention it on Men in Kilts.
9. He doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty, but is not a fan of manual labor
Heughan definitely has the strength to cut peat, an organic material used for fuel, out of the ground—and we totally don’t mind watching him do it. “Let’s get a sweat on,” he says. But it also made for one of the funniest moments of the first episode when he and McTavish decide to bail on their duty to harvest the peat in favor of going to drink some whisky. “It’s not that I’m against a little bit of hard work,” he says, “but let’s get our whisky, shall we? Before they notice.”
10. He’s a good driver
It must take some level of concentration and skill to drive a camper-van on narrow Scottish roads while coming up with witty comebacks and interesting things to talk about, all the while being filmed by a dashcam. “The things that we’re fishing for are?” McTavish asks as they head to the fishing village. “Compliments,” Heughan jokes, “mostly about my driving.” But it looks like he’ll be the driver for the whole adventure, as McTavish tells him at the end of the episode. “Am I doing the driving the whole way?” Heughan asks. “Yeah, actually you are. I just feel more comfortable as the passenger,” McTavish says. Next episode, the two try their hand at Scottish sports. “It’ll be men in kilts, but it’ll be men in very little else,” McTavish says. “Men in very little kilts, like mini-kilts?” Heughan says. “No normal-size kilts,” McTavish says. “Men in mini-kilts!” Heughan insists. We can’t see wait to see, ahem, more of these two. Read more from Sam Heughan in our exclusive interview, in which Sam Heughan shares what he loves most about Jamie Fraser and some Outlander Season 6 scoop!
