Outlander Sam Heughan's admits a kid could beat him at Scots tradition (2024)

Outlander's Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish want to take his new series Men In Kilts over to New Zealand, America and Canada.

The Scots hunk, who plays Jamie Frazer in Starz historical drama Outlander, was talking about the launch of his new travel series Men in Kilts: A Roadtrip with Sam and Graham which airs on February 14, when he revealed that he's keen to take it around the globe, a fact that is sure to to please Outlander fans no end.

Asked if they had plans to to make more than the eight episodes that are already to be screened, Graham said: "Oh, yeah. We’ve got loads to do still with Scotland. Loads that we haven’t included. Loads still to do. And then there’s the rest of the world that, by extension has that Scottish influence. New Zealand being one of them."

Sam then added: "Or America and Canada. Yeah, as long as Graham’s prepared to do a little driving. That’s assuming we’re going by car."

While Graham felt that rappelling off a 300-foot cliff for the show was the most nerve-wracking thing he'd done, Sam appeared to choose something a little more grounded - but admitted he as useless and that a five year old kid could do better.

He explained: "We met this probably five-foot-five, young girl who’s a professional Highland dancer. We were there in the middle of Braemar in Aberdeenshire, Scotland with some swords that were remarkably sharp, having to learn to sword dance.

"It was extremely difficult and also, this young girl was just completely showing us up. It was not even embarrassing."

"She made it look so easy, and we’re just so useless at it. A five-year-old kid could do, and we couldn’t."

Graham agreed it wasn't their strongpoint. He said: "And traditionally, when you’re doing the sword dance, if you touch the sword—this would be before battle—it meant that you’d be injured. If you kicked it, that meant that you would die. I kicked my swords within about 30 seconds."

Sam joked: "He died several times that day."

Filming for the show was never dull and Sam reckons the two lads managed to stir things up between some of the clans.

He revealed: "We managed to reignite some clan feuds as well, leaving destruction behind."

Graham explained: 'Sam engineered it so clan chiefs, who are pretty much sworn enemies, are in the same place at the same time."

Sam said: "And things have not really changed much. They’re still bickering, dare I say, still arguing. But now they’re doing it via email and they haven’t stopped since we were shooting. They still keep popping up in emails telling us exactly what “actually” happened.

Graham laughed: "One email begins with the immortal line: “462 years ago, one of your ancestors did so and so…."

The two friends both had wanted to do a travel show for ages and had initially thought someone else would make it, before deciding they could do it themselves.

Sam said: "We both had ideas about creating something Scottish, or around the Highlanders and the clans. I had seen the interest in that from Outlander . I was looking at creating some IP around it, with a TV show, and then it just made sense. I was in Scotland shooting Outlander and I thought, 'Why wait for someone? Why don’t we just do it ourselves?'"

"I had access to all this crew that I knew. I had a line producer I’d worked with before. I knew the cameraman and a lot of the guests I knew from either Outlander or other productions. My producing partner, Alex Norouzi, we’ve created other stuff as well. He came on board and we very quickly threw a crew together, a rough schedule and flew Graham over without him really knowing what was going on.

"And before we knew it, we were in a camper van. I took him hostage. And then we found ourselves driving around Scotland and it was very organic. We knew where we were going and who we were meeting, but the content was really up to us and our guests. And I think that spontaneity really is part of the road trip."

The schedule was pretty tight with filming taking place over five days.

Sam said: "We were pretty tight on the schedule. We knew who we were gonna meet and talk to. But when you actually get in there, for instance with Clan Cameron, we knew we were going to speak to the clan chief there. And just walking in, you see the broadsword that was used at Culloden, or in fact, their standard from Culloden. It just makes you stop. "

"And then it goes on a journey talking about what these were used for and how they were used. I don’t think that actually made it into the edit, but you just never know what guests you’re going to meet, or where it’s going to take you in the conversation."