Outlander’s Caitríona Balfe Compares Building Chemistry With Sam Heughan And Her Belfast Co-Star Jamie Dornan

For the past seven years, Caitríona Balfe has been linked to Sam Heughan as they’ve told the tragic and incredibly steamy romance between Claire and Jamie in Outlander. The time-bending love story has had its fans hooked for years, but now the actress will star opposite Fifty Shades Of Grey star Jamie Dornan in the upcoming drama Belfast. As the movie hits theaters this weekend, Balfe compared her Belfast experience to the hit Starz series. 

During CinemaBlend’s interviews with the cast of Belfast, Sean O’Connell asked the actress about how it was different to build chemistry with Jamie Dornan for the movie following having experience over a longer period of time with Outlander. She shared why it’s actually a lot more similar than we might think. In her words: 

When Sam and I first started, you only have a couple of weeks to find that and build it, too. Interestingly, Jamie and I had ever only met once before we started filming this. We sort of bumped into each other in Toronto two years ago. But from day one, we’ve had very similar lives in a weird way, so it was strange that we’ve never crossed paths before. But I think we both approach our work in a very similar way. I think we approach life in a similar way! From day one, we clicked and it just felt very organic. I was lucky enough to have someone who is so talented, but also such a cool, fun guy to work with.

It sounds like Caitríona Balfe and Jamie Dornan found a natural chemistry between them straight away and were able to implement it into the black and white film that's written and directed by Kenneth Branagh. The movie is a semi-biographical story for the filmmaker that chronicles the life of a working-class family and their young son’s childhood. It takes place in 1960s Northern Ireland during a rough time in the capitol's history. 

As Caitríona Balfe shared, her and Jamie Dornan’s paths only really crossed when it came to making Belfast, but they’ve oddly led similar lives. Both actors are Irish actors who have found a great deal of success in Hollywood starring in adaptations of massively popular romance novels. Both have also married and started families amidst being working actors. They’re each quite popular these days, but continue to make exciting and high-quality work they are passionate about. 

Belfast has been highly-praised by critics, including CinemaBlend’s own Mike Reyes, who awarded the movie a 4.5 out of 5 stars in our review. He said the movie includes “top notch performances” along with the movie having “technical precision.” The movie also stars Judi Dench, Ciarán Hinds and Colin Morgan. It sounds like we could be talking about Belfast into award season. You can check out the movie in theaters now and check out what else is next with our 2021 new movie release schedule

Sarah El-Mahmoud
Staff Writer

Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.