From 18th-century Highlands to modern-day rap battles, Seamus is set to lead in James McAvoy’s directorial debut, California Schemin’, a genre-blending coming-of-age film that puts his range front and centre. Whether he’s rapping and wreaking havoc in Trafalgar Square or donning period garb in the Scottish mist, one thing is clear: Seamus is a storyteller rooted in empathy, curiosity, and an undeniable fire.

In our exclusive interview, Seamus tells us all about his booked-and-busy acting career.

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Hi Seamus. How are you?

 I’m off to California tomorrow to launch season one of Blood of My Blood, so I’m very excited! 

Amazing! Speaking of, your role as Colum MacKenzie in Outlander: Blood of My Blood marks your first major period drama. How did you prepare for that historical setting and character?

I just did what I normally do; I haven’t acted in many professional productions, so I applied what I knew about preparing for a character and really got into the historical world. I had to understand the context of that time: what was going on, what people were like. Also, since I’m playing a pre-existing character (originally portrayed by Gary Lewis), I watched his performance.

I read the scripts like mad. It’s such an interesting character, especially because of his physical ailment. It really affects his worldview. He’s someone who’s been sidelined, seen as weak or lacking value because of his physical limitations. That was all there, I just had to tap into it. Honestly, it’s such a magical job. The sets feel like time travel. It made it easy to immerse myself; it was a real joy, man.

The show is a prequel to Outlander. Did you have any nerves going into this project to uphold following the success of the show? 

Absolutely. It was such a great job, and the scale of it was quite daunting. This was my first big, proper job with a recurring character. The first day on set, we were all nervous; it was quite higgledy-piggledy. Things were changing, it felt hectic. But once we got past day one, we settled into it.

It is a prequel, there was a pre-existing fan base who loved it so much. And, I mean, even the other day, when a little clip came out of me, I was nervous to see what the fans would say, but they’ve all been so receptive and so excited as we have. So yeah, it’s been great. 

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You’re currently filming for Season 2, how does it feel to be back with the cast and the set of it all?

It’s such a blessing. I love it. I think this is the most I’ve ever enjoyed filming or acting, maybe in my short career. I think playing a recurring character, like a lot of actors, talks to other actors about that, like “Oh, you’re so lucky if you get to play a character more than once.” I didn’t quite understand that. But when you do, when I went to the costume fitting of season two, the jacket just fits so well, and you just feel like you know your character inside out. 

This season dives even deeper. We’ll explore each character’s personal arc and how they came to be. It’s going to be really cool.

Your range is broad for acting. How do you go about preparing for each role, as every role is so different?

I think everyone’s trying to look for that little whatever, their way of doing it. I mean, I think everyone’s just looking for a kind of way in all the time. And I think the way I tried to do it is feeling, like I just tried to get a sense of what this character is and what he wants, what his obstacles are, I think it’s quite easy to overcomplicate acting and I think if you can do it, you should just trust yourself that you can connect with this and you just have to be able to have the confidence to let yourself go and commit to the life of someone else’s version of that. When you say someone else’s words, you’re doing it. The magic’s happening before you know it. 

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There’s quite a lot of empathy behind it too, having to be able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, someone else’s words, someone else’s story and understand that. 

Absolutely! And it can be hard. It’s like you can sometimes have empathy for other characters when maybe your character has done something wrong, but you have to kind of back that and find the logical step for what this person has done. You’re like a lawyer for that character, to be like, “Why did that person do that? What kind of preconceived ideas?” Or things beyond the surface we don’t know about. That’s the great thing about season two in this. Hopefully, get to see more of that. You know, all those hidden things you might not see. 

Do you feel like that also seeps into your real life as well? Where you look around and you’re like “oh, I’m more of an empathetic person in reality than just work.” 

I definitely feel when I finish acting and going out of my comfort zone, I feel really alive and I feel really connected. Acting can be scary. If I’ve not done it for a while, it can be like “Oh, how the hell did you do this?” But once I’ve done it, I certainly feel more human. I don’t know how else to explain it. 

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You studied at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, and you built up your stage credits. How did classical theatre training transfer to your screen acting?

Oh, that’s a question, having a lot of pals that haven’t gone to drama school, who don’t understand it, and also people who have, I mean, I can swear by Guildhall and its experience of what it gave me. I mean, I was like 18 when I joined, and I didn’t really know much about acting. 

I loved it, I grew up watching it. But like having a classical training to just be able to be a good communicator and stand on a stage, not move your feet and be listenable is a huge thing. I don’t think I had that, so I needed that. 

But transferable to screen acting, I think these old drama schools, they have their ways of screen acting as secondary. Acting is acting. And I kind of believe that what we can do on stage is just a heightened version of the screen. However, I’ve learned in the industry that screen is such a specific skill, and the more you do it, the more you’re kind of exposing yourself to a camera in your face, the better you are at it. So I definitely think drama schools could do way more of that. Especially Guildhall. 

There is such a difference between how acting is viewed in the UK versus even America. I feel like theater is way more respected here and taken as a craft and art. 

It’s so funny, isn’t it? There’s such a difference across the Atlantic, isn’t there? Americans probably watch more screen while the British do more theater. It’s funny. 

Do you have one that you prefer?

Oh, I think theater is my ultimate first love. Although I am loving screen, I really am! It’s just about getting out your head with any form of it and just enjoying it. I’m loving just being in this environment of doing screen, so maybe I’ll say screen. [laughs]

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You’ve recently landed a lead role in James McAvoy’s California Schemin’—can you talk us through your audition process, especially learning to rap for the self-tape?

Yes… Yes I can, I booked it like a week after coming up to Glasgow to start prep for season one of Blood of My Blood. And the audition process was that I got a tape for it, and they asked me to rap, and I chose a song that I used to rap to when I was like 16 with my pals, “New Choppa” by Payboi Carti and A$AP Rocky. I chose A$AP Rocky’s verse, and it’s like so fast! I wanted to do something really hard, so I learned that. And I filmed it like a music video, so it’s like you got a tripod, you can’t really do much. But I wanted to just put the camera above me and rap up into it. Eventually, at the third round, I was working with the other Billys, the other kind of two leads, so Sam’s part. And when I met Sam, he had this like natural way of acting that really grounds me. He’s just such a good listener, he’s so simple with his acting, and just so honest and pure. We just connected. But I had to write a rap for that, which was, well, I didn’t know how good it was [laughs], but James seemed to like it; that was a really fun experience. It was just like playing. James McAvoy is just insane in his level of creative focus. 

Most importantly have you nailed your disguised Californian accent?

We’ll see! [Laughs]

This is James’ directorial debut, have you been able to learn a lot from him?

Oh, absolutely! I touched on it a bit there, but his level of creative focus is incredible! He’s just a master at his craft, and he’s also a massive hero of mine as a boy from Glasgow and as a Scot. What he’s achieved in Hollywood is just something that I can only dream of working with him, never mind meeting him. It did feel a bit surreal being on set, but once you kind of get past that, you just want to do him proud. He also has this level of talking and intensity that just ignites me! I’m like, “Yeah! Got it! Got it! Let’s go!” He’s just so on it in terms of holding a narrative in his head, holding shots in his head, and holding a personal connection with the actors, and like a love, like he was such a good, like, not father figure… Well, I mean he was on a set of young cast and the people. He was great, and he would just sit in the corner of shots with a handheld and be like “yeah, that’s funny! Yeah! Say that! Call him this, call him that!” It’s like we were puppets and he was just controlling it, but if it’s James McAvoy doing that, you don’t really mind. 

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Did you have a lot of room to improve and build your own character within the character he’s given?

We did! In the film, you’ll see a lot of handheld video recorder stuff. It would be just me, James, and Sam (Lucy occasionally) just mucking about. Trying to make each other laugh and say silly movie quotes in American accents, and their characters are trying to learn their American accents and the persona they’re kind of fully embodying. We did a lot of like Jackass stuff, we tried to do. James would just give us the handheld, and we’d just be like skating around Trafalgar Square, getting in trouble from security guards. It was a lot of fun, yeah. 

Sounds like you are incredibly busy at the moment, but all good things, so I hope it keeps staying busy! Do you have anything else coming up? What can you speak about?

A few things, potentially. I can’t really speak about it. Just this for now, season two could be going on, I mean, it will be going on until at least December. So that’s going to be keeping me busy for a while.

Outlander: Blood of My Blood is currently available to watch in the UK on MGM+, and on Starz in the US.

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