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NOTE: I don’t speak or read Spanish. The following text is what Google Translate gave me… I think… Errors definitely abound. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Caitríona Balfe begins her new journey.

Enter the name of Caitríona Balfe (Dublin, 1979) in any internet search engine is to enter a universe of biographies that start with her career as a model, fans who admire her for her work in Outlander and information about the well-known series, which this year will broadcast its last season. Among the results it is also possible to find a video recorded in 2002, shortly before she participated in the parade of Victoria's Secret, in which they ask her about her acting studies and if she will resume her acting career. "I don't know, I have no plans, maybe," replies smiling and insecure a young woman who is barely over twenty. Four years later, aware of how important age is in the fashion world, the possibility became a fact.

"When you look back on your life, you realise that everything that has happened has brought you to where you are," explains the Irish actress.

"Every moment can feed your existence later on. I have been very lucky to have had an interesting life so far," she recognises.

A moment, the current one, in which the day to day that has marked her biography in the last 11 years has undergone a change, because the filming of the series that led her to world fame has ended. "I know I've been doing this for 15 years, but since I was in Outlander for so long I feel like I'm starting a journey," she confesses.

The first stop of this journey is The Amateur (April 11 in theatres), a feature film starring Rami Malek in which the actor known for playing Freddie Mer-cury in Bohemian Rhapsody, is Charlie Heller, a brilliant CIA decoder who makes revenge for the death of his wife, murdered by a terrorist group, his most personal mission. To carry out this bloody task, he will have the help of a computer hacker of Russian origin played by Balfe.

As Inquiline in The Amateur (2025). Blurry screenshot from PressReader’s presentation of the April 2025 issue of Mujerhoy (Spain)

"When I read the script I thought: "This is fun," she confesses, before adding that although "these action movies are dominated by force, because everything revolves around fights, The Amateur is a very intelligent and very funny version of the genre." Something that added to the admiration she feels for Malek - "He is a very interesting and unique actor" -, with whom she had not worked but whom she knew "socially because we coincided in the Golden Globes", made that in a break from the filming of the latest installment of Outlander changed the wardrobe of a doctor of the Century XX who travels in time 300 (stet) years through that of a woman who lives hidden today.

For the actress, the best thing about the character is that she is "A lone soul who lives in the shadows." She was inspired by Nadya Tolokonnikova, a member of the Pussy Riot, because she "tried to find someone who felt very comfortable in English but who had a Russian origin," because of the accent of her character, but also because of her motivations. "I really enjoyed finding in it a commitment to justice and integrity that is not contaminated by the influence of a regime," she acknowledges.

The revenge that moves Malek's character, and hers, is for the actress "very interesting to portray, because it is very different for each person: in some it is debilitating and paralyses them by complete; in others it drives them forward and leads them to do really incredible things. That's a point where my role and Malek's diverge, but it also gives them this place where they connect deeply," she explains.

Photo: Observer Magazine (The Guardian) 23 January 2022

A child's dream with an unexpected diversion

Fourth of five siblings and with two other foster children at home, Caitríona Balfe grew up in rural Ireland dreaming of being an actress. "It was that annoying girl," she shares smiling, "who has been doing small performances at home since she was three or four years old. My father used to do comic sketches with his friends, so I think, somehow, it was in my genes." So when the time came to choose a career, she opted for interpretation. But he didn't expect that, while helping some friends raise funds for multiple sclerosis, a man who worked for a modelling agency in Dublin would give her her card and, little later, a French agency hired him to work as a model in Paris.

She paraded for firms such as Louis Vuitton and Chanel, but she defined herself as a "blue collar model", those who live in the step before the supermodels and go unnoticed.

When in the 2000s she decided to return to the path of acting, she moved to Los Angeles and went back to classes. "I was very lucky because I met great teachers and it helped me regain confidence," she shares after recognising that "when you come from the world of fashion, you feel comfortable with rejection." After getting small roles in movies and series, in 2013 she had not worked for several months when her agent proposed to present himself to the audition of Outlander. In the absence of news, she organised a vacation that she finally had to cancel because she was asked to travel to London for the final audition. After getting the role with which she became famous, she decided that she would change Los Angeles for Scotland for a Year.

More than a decade later, she still lives in Glasgow and enjoys spending time with her son, "because it was hard not to do it in recent years." A project as long-lived as the series based on Diana Gabaldón's novels has been a "very hectic time, as if you were on a train that never stops." That unstoppable convoy took her, among other destinations, to work in Belfast, the film by Kenneth Branagh with which she got a Golden Globe nomination. "Now I enjoy the luxury of taking some time and choosing good projects," she admits, expectant of the direction taken by her new, although experienced, career.

Mujerhoy via PressReader

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