Richard Rankin on how Outlander changed his life

Scottish actor Richard Rankin is a busy man these days with Outlander season 8 filming taking place and his new detective series Rebus coming out this week on BBC Scotland . In a new interview about season 8 Rankin said ” I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that in the first part they’re in the 1980s, which is cool. So that’s relatively contemporary because the core of it is 18th century. Although the 1980s feels relatively recent, it’s kind of not. The vehicles, how people dressed, what was going on in the world, it was a very different time and place. In a lot of respects it’s as much of a leap as jumping back to the 18th century.

Asked about how season 8 might end , he said

“Season eight will be the last season of Outlander as far as I know .

The truth is I don’t know how it ends . I don’t think THEY know. The lie is that they go into the future and travel too far, and climate change is unstable and looking apocalyptic, so they all transport to a newly-colonised Mars.”

Rankin has admitted being in Outlander has been life changing .

” It films for such a large part of a year you’re left with quite a small amount of free time to do other things, but we have more choice about the work we take on. It’s given us the security to do the work we want to do, which is an incredible position to be in.

I’ve loved doing Outlander. It’s kept me in work for eight or nine years and given me the means to do things for the love of doing them. Theatre – you’re almost out of pocket doing it sometimes so you have to want to do it – and TV, I’ve done because it appealed to me. I got to do The Replacement, Trust Me, and little projects of my own, photo exhibitions. And it gives an incredible amount of experience, filming such a huge show over years in a lead capacity. You learn a lot and it frees you up as an actor and increases your range and capacity. So it’s been life changing.”

He has been ROGER WAKEFIELD MACKENZIE SINCE 2015.

He enjoys playing this role “. He doesn’t really have a bad bone in his body. But actors often want to play someone with a darker streak and I sometimes wish he was maybe just a wee bit darker.”