Popverse's top stories

• San Diego Comic-Con quietly renewed its contract with the City through 2027, but even they are openly talking about 2028 being a turning point thanks to the LA Olympics
• What to Watch This Weekend: Jason Momoa as a Hawaiian war chief, Tom Brady invades real football, and reality romance veterans clash in Perfect Match
• Five Nights at Freddy 2 has a secret weapon for making the animatronics real: Muppets creator Jim Henson's Creature Shop

When a show becomes as big as Outlander has gotten, it is inevitable that networks will want to expand the universe with spin-offs as the original series comes to an end. Hence why Starz is bringing Blood of My Blood to us. However, the cast of Blood of My Blood were encouraged by the producers not to watch the current seven seasons of Outlander ahead of filming, even though many of them are playing younger versions of existing characters.

While they weren’t expressly forbidden from watching Outlander ahead of filming the prequel series, the cast were given a choice between studying the performances of their older counterparts or going in as fresh as possible. “For me, I took the second option,” explained Rory Alexander, who plays a younger version of Murtagh Fitzgibbons Fraser in Blood of My Blood. "Matt [B. Roberts] and Maril [Davis] kind of encouraged it. [They advised,] ‘Don’t go in and try to do an impersonation. If you can, at this point, keep clear.’ I’d watched some of it prior to starting the process, but then I really tried to stop so that I didn’t just make a bad impression of Duncan [Lacroix] and ruin what he had already done. Because it is the same world and universe, once you step into that, there are some pretty clear guidelines around, so you feel like you’re very much walking the same path but wearing slightly different shoes. Well, actually, maybe we wear the same shoes.”

It is a fine line to balance between keeping performances consistent between series and feeling like the cast of Blood of My Blood is doing an awkward impression of their counterparts in Outlander. For at least one cast member, it made more sense to trust the writers and directors to keep him on the right track while he gave his own spin on the character’s younger days.

Want to know what's coming up next in pop culture? Check out Popverse's guides to:

• Upcoming movies
• Upcoming TV shows
• Upcoming comics
• Upcoming games
• Upcoming fiction books
• Upcoming comic conventions