‘Outlander’: Getting To Know Sam Heughan

Summer 2014. It’s just after sundown on Friday at Comic-Con and hundreds are gathered inside of the Spreckels Theatre in downtown San Diego watching the premiere of “Outlander.” As the minutes tick by, the crowd (some of whom have traveled by plane to be here), has been watching intently, cheering, whooping and gleefully giggling as Diana Gabaldon’s novel comes to life on-screen for the first time. Three-quarters of the way through the episode though, outside of the sound of the production, things suddenly grow eerily silent. It is as if no one wants to spook him.

That “him” is James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser, and when the man playing him — Scottish actor Sam Heughan — finally makes his debut, bringing to life one of modern fiction’s most adored heroes, there is a loud, collective, gasp.

“The first glimpse you see of him is literally a glimpse. … I think you see his right shoulder, like from the back. You can barely tell it’s a person, but the fans knew and they were like… I guess at that point people were fainting and [there were] just like screams and sighs,” Lotte Verbeek (Geillis Duncan in “Outlander”), who was in attendance, remembered of the reaction to the moment when Sam arrived on screen, for the first time, as Jamie.

PHOTOS: ‘Outlander’s’ Sam Heughan

Since that premiere, and in the first six episodes of the series that have rolled out on Starz, Heughan has charmed viewers, slowly bringing to life this complicated, wise beyond his years, and beautifully nuanced, but entirely charismatic character. This Saturday night, though, things are about to amp up for Heughan’s Jamie Fraser as the young Highlander joins the show’s center — time traveling nurse Claire Beauchamp (Caitriona Balfe) — on a trip down the aisle in “Outlander’s” “Wedding” episode.

Today, it seems impossible to picture anyone but Heughan in the part, but the path to Jamie Fraser, a career changing role for the rising star, wasn’t short or easy.

WATCH: ‘Outlander’ Stars Preview The Wedding Episode

It was while growing up in New Galloway, Scotland, a town so small, his grade at school consisted of just four students, that Heughan first found he enjoyed performing.

“I’m very lucky. I had a great childhood,” he tells Access Hollywood by phone, after wrapping shooting some “Outlander” scenes one evening in late August. “I was brought up in the countryside and I also spent a lot of time playing outdoors and in the woods, and you use your imagination a lot, I think. I spent [a lot] of time pretending I was Robert the Bruce or King Arthur or something. I still desperately want a sword. I think that’s probably what it is.”

But it was moving to Edinburgh, “the big city,” as he thought of it, at age 12, that really set the dream to become an actor in motion, as Heughan was swept up in the magic of the stage.

“I kind of knew [what I wanted to do], but I kind of didn’t think I could do it, and then I joined a youth theater in Scotland — in Edinburgh — and they put me in a couple of the mainstay shows. And to be honest, I just absolutely fell in love with theater,” he explains. “I used to be like a spear carrier in the big shows. There was one show I was doing — there was a woman… she was a fantastic actress and she had a quite emotional scene and I used to go down like half an hour before my call and just sit in the wings and listen to her, and I’d love, somehow, the sound of people listening. There’s something about the silence of people listening to someone, or watching someone — I just… I love that.”

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Seeing the man he is today, with those chiseled good looks, his commanding height, a refreshing mixture of confidence and vulnerability, and that splash of humor that feels akin to a young Hugh Jackman, it’s hard to imagine Heughan once had doubts about taking on Hollywood.

“I suppose when I was just thinking about what I wanted to do and I just thought, you know, my parents were self-employed and I just thought, ‘Can you make money in this? You can’t really have a career.’ … It seemed like a very hard life. It seemed very difficult,” he recalls of his early feelings. “I never once dreamed of sort of being able to be in an American TV series, you know? It was all about theater and touring and sort of being an actor around Scottish theater.”

It was that passion for theater that led Heughan to study his craft. When asked if there was a performance or role that helped cement his confidence in his talents, Heughan reveals he actually had one moment of discouragement, which came just before landing the male lead in literature’s most tragic romance.

“I don’t know if anyone knows if they’re ever any good, but I went to drama school in Scotland, in a classical acting course, and my first year, I remember one of my tutors telling me that I couldn’t act and I should give up and all this sort of thing and then, they cast me as Romeo in ‘Romeo and Juliet,'” he says. “Shakespeare language is fantastic, and to be honest, you don’t need to do anything to Shakespeare. You just say the words and the words kind of affect you, the actor, if you’re open to it and I think I just really relished that role and threw myself into it and sort of realized that that’s what you need to do and I guess, that’s, yeah — that’s what I do now.”

Theater, it seems, is his first acting love. But before “Outlander” came calling, there was television and film work too, including “First Light” (2010), based on the memoir of a British WWII pilot (the film also featured Heughan’s eventual “Outlander” co-star, Gary Lewis).

“I’ve done quite a few things based on real events or real people, and I think that’s always really interesting that you can read about them or, if you’re lucky, you can meet them. I did a sort of a low budget movie about Geoffrey Wellum, who was a spitfire pilot, and I got to meet him and that was incredible to sort of play this guy in the second World War,” Heughan said of “First Light.” “I think every job I do, I sort of look for the challenge in. I mean, that’s why we do this job. It’s not, you know, obviously not for the money or for the fame, it’s for, I guess finding out more about yourself. You find out what your limitations are and what you can get away with on stage, or not, as the case may be.”

One of the many challenges of Heughan’s “Outlander” role has been to transform into Jamie (or JAMMF to fans), a 23-year-old Highlander, with the brawny build of a man who was raised on a farm, and spent years roaming (and fighting) throughout the Scottish countryside.

“I put a lot of effort into that, actually, and I think I still am,” Heughan explains of changing his physique.

WATCH: Sam Heughan & Caitriona Balfe On Jamie & Claire’s Big ‘Outlander’ Moment

“My body’s aching a lot and it takes up a lot of extra time and sometimes you find yourself — I guess it’s about willpower. If you want something, you work for it,” he says, after being asked what he’s learned about himself from his “Outlander” experience.

“I probably won’t know until I finish this season [and] look back on it,” he continues. “But, you know, I’ve certainly discovered that I’ve got more stamina than I thought I had. I guess it’s about confidence, as well… about being able to get up and do these scenes or to sort of be, you know, a main part in a big show. I guess all these things, we don’t know, it’s all quite new. Yeah, I don’t suppose I’ll know until we finish this series.”

Another thing Heughan doesn’t know just yet is quite how big of a splash he’s made, so far, with this role. Since returning to Scotland following a press tour that included Comic-Con, “Outlander” premiered to a robust audience on Starz. His face, alongside Caitriona’s, has stared back at customers from a TV Guide cover in the supermarket checkout lane, and there have been countless articles touting him as your new celebrity crush.

When Access suggests that next time he returns stateside he’s going to find himself with increased attention, and probably a few more people approaching him, Heughan, who is currently working on the “Outlander” set in a quiet area outside of Glasgow, Scotland, can’t even imagine it.

“Honestly, I can’t quite get my head around that. If that’s the case, then yeah, it’ll be fun,” he laughs. “It’ll be nice to meet people. I mean, I’m slightly nervous about losing anonymity. Honestly, I think an actor’s best tool is the fact that they can change themselves and adapt and be different.

“It’s gonna be interesting and it’ll be a new part of the journey. Wow. I don’t know. We’ll see. I mean… the show’s not being aired in the UK yet, and that feels quite nice to be able to still remain sort of slightly under the radar,” he adds.

Being on the radar, as Jamie, in Executive Producer Ronald D. Moore’s “Outlander” production for Starz and Sony Pictures Television, has allowed Heughan to begin experiencing benefits that are attached to joining the ranks of TV’s leading men.

“It’s already opening up a lot of doors and avenues and really, you know, not just sort of show-related other jobs and things, but also, I do work for charities and I’ve been able to make some new contacts and get some sort of little projects on the go,” Heughan says. “Yeah, it’s really nice.”

The attention has been a long time coming, but looking back on the journey so far has allowed the actor to appreciate his own perseverance.

“I’ve been over — flown over — ever since I started acting, you know, testing on films and on TV shows and I’ve been out for pilot seasons and always, the carrot has been dangled very, very close and also then, the opposite of that as well,” he says. “I’ve been out there and things haven’t been going well and it’s felt very lonely or very difficult. So I guess it feels — I feel glad that I didn’t sort of give up or that you know, I sort of persisted and tried.”

“Outlander” airs Saturday nights at 9 PM on Starz.

— Jolie Lash