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BACK TO HER ROOTS: CAITRÍONA BALFE, PHOTOGRAPHED WEARING A JACKET AND TROUSERS BY BURBERRY, IN THE GROUNDS OF CASTLE LESLIE, THE STORIED MONAGHAN ESTATE, FOR THE OCTOBER ISSUE Simon Upton

Inside the rise and rise of Caitríona Balfe as she lights up the silver screen in Sense and Sensibility

From bidding farewell to time-travel smash Outlander to playing a ‘manifesting’ Mrs Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, actress Caitríona Balfe is a busy woman. So much so that Dora Davies-Evitt had to hunt her down on holiday at an Irish castle…

It’s late afternoon on the border of Northern Ireland and the Republic, and the sun is pouring through the drawing-room windows of Castle Leslie. Outside, the gardens unfurl in every conceivable shade of that luscious Irish green. The Gothic grandeur of the storied Monaghan estate has drawn everyone from Sir Mick Jagger to Sir Paul McCartney.

Caitríona Balfe is staying at the castle with her family on holiday but has made time for a Tatler cover shoot. Those turrets’ Victorian drama makes a fitting backdrop for the arresting beauty of a woman who spent a decade as a model before becoming an actress. Her chestnut hair falls in immaculate, bouncy curls; her complexion is luminous; those startling blue eyes catch the light slanting through the towering sash windows. In her lap is her five-year-old son, momentarily interrupting Balfe in the business of being one of television’s most recognisable and beloved leading ladies.

REIGNING SUPREME: BALFE IS SET TO STAR AS MRS DASHWOOD IN THE NEW FILM ADAPTATION OF SENSE AND SENSIBILITY. PHOTOGRAPHED ABOVE, DRAPED IN A CORSET AND SKIRT, HARRIS REED DEMI-COUTURE AND SHOES, BALENCIAGA Simon Upton

She was the face of Outlander, the television show that became a global phenomenon and, during its eight-season run, saw her take on the roles of producer and director as well as star. But now she is ready for the silver screen. This month, she will appear in Sense and Sensibility, playing Mrs Dashwood, alongside Daisy Edgar-Jones as Elinor and Esmé Creed-Miles as Marianne in the much-anticipated adaptation of Jane Austen’s first novel. Perhaps a daunting prospect, considering just how much affection there is for the 1995 version, starring Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet.

Yet for all the international success and the glamour of her life – the Parisian catwalks, Hollywood premieres and the years at the centre of one of television’s most devoted global fandoms – Balfe grew up only a few miles from here, outside the village of Tydavnet. ‘We were always out in the fields climbing trees,’ she says, in a gentle Irish lilt. She hoists her son up in her lap. ‘Our friend had a horse, and some of my earliest memories are that five of us would be on the horse at the same time... every time it would bend down to eat grass, I’d be on the floor. We were really outdoorsy; it was a very free childhood.’

NEW-AGE AUSTEN? BALFE’S MRS DASHWOOD IS MORE EMOTIONALLY COURAGEOUS THAN PREVIOUS INTERPRETATIONS.‘SHE LETS NATURE OR FATE TAKE ITS COURSE.’ WOULD SHE CONSIDER HER A MANIFESTER? ‘COMPLETELY’ ABOVE, IN THE GROUNDS OF CASTLE LESLIE IN A DRESS BY ERMANNO SCERVINO Simon Upton

She is one of seven: four biological siblings, and a foster brother and sister her parents welcomed into the household. ‘I’m number four,’ she says. The family had spent the previous weekend together. ‘There were 20 of us. It’s hard to get everybody together all at once.’

Mention the extraordinary generation of Irish actors now dominating Hollywood – from Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott to Cillian Murphy, Saoirse Ronan, Jessie Buckley and Barry Keoghan – and Balfe has an explanation. It’s all in the upbringing: a deep respect for the art of storytelling is instilled in every Irish child.

‘I think because we’ve always valued the arts,’ she says. ‘You grow up, you get together, you sing, you recite poetry or tell stories. It’s so ingrained in you from being a kid that that’s part of how you express yourself.’ Her father, a Garda sergeant, was equally enthusiastic about performing comedy sketches whenever the opportunity arose.

SENSE VS SENSIBILITY: BALFE, WEARING JUMPER, TROUSERS AND BOOTS BY HERMÈS AND SCARF BY JOHNSTONS OF ELGIN, RE-READ SENSE AND SENSIBILITY THIS YEAR, AFTER FIRST READING IT AT 18. ‘I THINK I USED TO BE A MARIANNE AND NOW I’M MORE OF AN ELINOR’ Simon Upton

Long before audiences came to know Balfe as television’s most formidable time-travelling heroine, her life was already one of improbable glamour. At the age of 18, she was scouted by a model agent at a shopping centre in Dublin. She left County Monaghan and moved to Paris, attending fittings for Chanel and Alexander McQueen. Over the next decade, she walked the catwalks of Paris, Milan, London and New York, modelling the creations of Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Moschino, Balenciaga and others. Balfe regards that younger version of herself with affectionate disbelief. ‘It was wild. I look at it now, and I’m like, “Oh my God, I can’t believe I did it.”’

Would she encourage another 18-year-old to follow the same path? ‘Would I be rushing to say to somebody, “Your daughter should be a model”? Probably not...’ She elaborates: ‘It was a different time. But I value the education I got from travelling the world so much.’

Fashion taught her to recognise brilliance when she saw it. She remembers working with Yves Saint Laurent and being fitted by Narciso Rodriguez. ‘I have such an appreciation for the creativity and artistry.’ Off duty, she appears to prefer simplicity: today, she wears a white T-shirt and loose-fitting jeans.

PERIOD DRAMA: THE CASTLE'S VICTORIAN GLAMOUR MAKES A FITTING BACKDROP FOR THE ARRESTING BEAUTY OF A WOMAN WHO SPENT A DECADE AS A MODEL BEFORE BECOMING AN ACTRESS. ABOVE, COAT AND DRESS, MCQUEEN Simon Upton

In her late twenties Balfe pulled off a notoriously difficult career move with panache: the switch from modelling to acting. Many have attempted it; very few have succeeded. The gamble paid off: along came Outlander. ‘I remember my lawyer emailing me, “So it’s going to be a year in Scotland? Are you OK with that?” Flash forward 12 years later…’

Few television dramas have inspired devotion like Outlander. Adapted from Diana Gabaldon’s bestselling novels, the series became an almost-overnight international phenomenon. Balfe’s character, the fiercely intelligent and complex Claire Fraser, is an English nurse transported from post-war Britain to 18th-century Scotland. Audiences adored her. Fans crossed continents to attend Outlander conventions.

‘You never know with things how they’re going to go,’ she says modestly. ‘I think we were very lucky. There was an amazing alchemy from the very beginning with all of us, and obviously Diana’s books already had such a huge following, which I didn’t even realise when I started.’

FIERCE FANDOM: SAM HEUGHAN AS JAMIE AND CAITRÍONA BALFE AS CLAIRE IN THE FIRST SERIES OF OUTLANDER ©Starz! Movie Channel/Courtesy Everett Collection

While working on the show, her relationship with Scottish-Irish music producer Tony McGill flourished. The couple, who had met several years earlier through mutual friends in London, became engaged in 2018, marrying the following summer in a small ceremony at St Mary’s Church in Bruton, Somerset. These days they live with their son in Notting Hill, enjoy strolls in Hyde Park and have date nights at Kol, a popular Mexican joint in Marylebone.

Saying goodbye to Outlander proved harder than Balfe had anticipated. Did she cry? ‘I cried for ages.’ She allowed herself one memento from the period. ‘I got my rings from all my weddings.’ (Her character married three times in the course of the series.)

Away from the show, in 2021 she starred in Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast, where her performance as the fiercely protective Ma earned her Bafta, Critics Choice and Screen Actors Guild nominations. And since then, she has worked with other Hollywood titans such as Christian Bale, Rami Malek, Matt Damon and, most recently, Sir Anthony Hopkins. Asked to describe the experience of working with Hopkins, she searches for the right words. ‘I was like a kid in a candy store. He was so wonderful and kind and powerful.’

IN A PAST LIFE: BALFE, DRAPED IN A PRADA DRESS (WITH SCARF), REGARDS HER FORMER CATWALK MODELLING DAYS WITH DISBELIEF. ‘I’M LIKE “OH MY GOD, I CAN'T BELIEVE I DID IT.” WOULD I SAY TO SOMEBODY, “YOUR DAUGHTER SHOULD BE A MODEL?” PROBABLY NOT' Simon Upton

The Housekeeper, which has just wrapped, is based on the real-life inspiration behind Daphne du Maurier’s novel Rebecca. Balfe will play the titular housekeeper, alongside Hopkins and Helena Bonham Carter. There is more on the slate: she will appear alongside Tom Hiddleston in Tenzing, a drama about the historic ascent of Mount Everest, and in an adaptation of Colm Tóibín’s short story A Long Winter, directed by Andrew Haigh. Tóibín, from County Wexford in southeast Ireland, is one of Balfe’s favourite writers; Sally Rooney, that Irish literary superstar, is another.

The final episode of Outlander was only broadcast in the UK in May, but Balfe had no interest in a break from filming. She does admit, though, that when Georgia Oakley’s adaptation of Sense and Sensibility came calling, she was not immediately eager to sign up to another period drama, having spent much of the previous decade wrapped in the garb of the 1700s. ‘When they came to me with it, I was like, “No more corsets.”’ She had another concern. ‘I thought, “Isn’t she really old?” Because in my head, I was thinking of the 1995 Ang Lee film.’

RETURN TO FORM: BALFE, SEEN HERE IN A BURBERRY TRENCH, WORE A CROPPED VERSION OF THE CLASSIC COAT WHEN SHE WALKED FOR THE HOUSE’S SS02 COLLECTION Simon Upton

Oakley reminded her that Mrs Dashwood is only in her forties. More importantly, she proposed an entirely different reading of the character. ‘I think sometimes she [Mrs Dashwood] can seem frivolous and silly,’ Balfe says, ‘but Georgia really wanted to tap into this idea of optimism.’ Rather than portraying Mrs Dashwood as an impractical widow drifting through life, Oakley saw her as ever hopeful. As Balfe explains: ‘We used to joke that she’s just a hippie.’

It is a modern Austen for a modern age, 251 years after the perennially popular novelist’s birth. ‘Every generation discovers something different from her.’ Balfe’s Mrs Dashwood is less naïve and more emotionally courageous: a woman who allows her daughters to make mistakes because she trusts life to unfold as it should. ‘She lets nature or fate take its course, which I thought was lovely.’

Would she consider Mrs Dashwood a ‘manifester’, as the 2026 parlance would have it? ‘Completely.’ But Balfe confesses she does not share the disposition: ‘I’m not naturally optimistic.’ Motherhood has altered the way she reads Austen, too. Romance, the apparent focus of Sense and Sensibility, no longer feels so central. ‘I think my relationship to relationships is so different.’ She re-read the novel this year, after first reading it at 18. Is she a Marianne, the ‘sensibility’ of the title, ruled by emotions with a stubborn refusal to conceal her feelings; or is she an Elinor, the ‘sense’, rational, composed but perhaps too restrained? ‘I think I used to be a Marianne and now I’m more of an Elinor.’

MOTHER SUPERIOR: BALFE AS MRS DASHWOOD WITH DAISY EDGAR-JONES STARS AS ELINOR DASHWOOD, ESMÉ CREED-MILES AS MARIANNE DASHWOOD, BODHI RAE BREATHNACH AS MARGARET DASHWOOD IN SENSE AND SENSIBILITY Courtesy of Focus Features

While acting is a dizzying schedule of travel – sets in Morocco and the Canadian Rockies, Dartmoor and Kathmandu, and that was just to shoot Tenzing – away from work, her life sounds simple. ‘My perfect Sunday usually starts at about 5.30am when a little mouse, or a little boy, comes and wakes me up.’ She chuckles into her son’s neck. ‘There are family chats in bed, and we have our first breakfast at home, then we usually go out for a second breakfast.’

Weekends revolve almost entirely around her son. There might be football; occasionally, there is an early morning trip to the cinema. ‘It’s all very child-centred at the moment.’ There is still some opportunity for glamour. Balfe excitedly reels off favourite London restaurants: Lita and Kudu in Marylebone, Notting Hill’s celebrity hotspot Dorian.

Donegal is the place she’d direct anyone visiting the Emerald Isle for the first time. ‘I know Kerry and Cork are beautiful, but Donegal has that wildness and that feeling of still being slightly undiscovered.’

RED CARPET ROMANCE: CAITRÍONA BALFE IN VALENTINO HAUTE COUTURE WITH HER HUSBAND, TONY MCGILL, AT THE 2020 ACADEMY AWARDS Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

She would like to return more frequently, and tell more of the country’s stories on the big screen. ‘I think, especially as my son is getting a bit older, I’m craving connecting with Ireland more.’ Of course, she filmed Belfast in England, mostly in London. ‘What is “Belfast”?’ her son pipes up. After an impressive stretch of obedience while Balfe switches into movie-star mode and answers my questions, he clearly wants her to return to the role of mother. ‘It’s a city,’ she says, ‘but it’s also the name of a movie. When you’re a bit older, you can watch it.’ Few mothers can offer their children such a thing: the chance to see them on the silver screen.

It feels fitting to meet Balfe in an Irish castle where she happens to be holidaying with her family. For all the glamour of the Parisian catwalk career and the international Outlander adoration, something calls her back to this land of poets, pop stars and storytellers, the place where her story began.

This Caitríona Balfe cover story first appears in the October issue of Tatler, on sale 3rd September.

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