Despite working for 11 years on Outlander with Sam Heughan, who created the My Peak Challenge fitness and health movement, Caitríona Balfe declares that she is not known for being a “gym bunny.” However, that didn’t stop her from taking on a role that involves a lot of physicality as Caitlin in The Cut, which arrives in theaters Sept. 5, a woman who owns and runs a boxing gym with her boyfriend.
“I wanted to feel what it was like that body feeling of being a boxer,” she tells Parade. “Because Caitlin, she’s not just Boxer’s girlfriend, she’s his partner in the business. She’s a trainer in the gym, she comes from a boxing family. So I started training with an amazing boxing coach called Ruth Raper in London. I probably started boxing about two months before we started filming and found out that I loved it. I wanted her to feel very different; this character felt very different to me than anything I’d done before, and I wanted to get that in my physicality as well. So, it was fun.”
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The Cut isn’t your typical boxing film like Rocky. Rather, it’s a psychological thriller about the extremes that a contender might go to in order to win a title. The story is about a former champion known only as The Boxer (Orlando Bloom), who, after a career-ending defeat, trains for redemption. But as obsession takes hold and reality unravels, he may be spiraling into something far more terrifying.
Caitríona Balfe and Orlando BloomPhoto courtesy of Republic Pictures (a Paramount Pictures label)
“This is a very different world, a very different take on a boxing film because there’s really not any boxing in it, it’s more about the psychology behind what it takes,” Balfe continues. “It’s a world I didn’t actually know anything about. So when I first got sent the script I was like, ‘Come on, [losing] 30 pounds in a week? That’s impossible.” And then when I talked to [director] Sean [Ellis], you realize that even though this is the extreme end of it, this stuff actually happens. And then you realize that there’s this whole underworld of extreme cutting and the body horror of what people put themselves through sometimes in this sport, and I just thought it was a really interesting new take on this genre.”
So many of the films that Balfe has done, with the possible exception of Belfast, have featured alpha males. But even so, the BAFTA-nominated Irish actress always manages to stand out in them. The Cut is no different.
Related: Outlander Star Caitríona Balfe Is Unrecognizable in New Movie Role
“I don’t really think I do anything,” she says. “I’m attracted to characters that even if they’re not the central character, they have enough depth and enough of a life and a story that gives them enough humanity to be able to play and to be able to draw on. This is very much Boxer’s film. But Caitlin has such a rich background that you get glimpses of, but it was enough for me to be like, ‘Oh, I know who this person is, I know what her life might have looked like,’ and you start building that.”
Orlando Bloom and Caitríona BalfePhoto courtesy of Republic Pictures (a Paramount Pictures label)
The one comparison that can be made between Outlander’s Claire and Jamie and The Cut’s The Boxer and Caitlin is the strong love that the couples have for each other. They are both soulmates.
“Her relationship with Boxer, she’s so important to him and his life, and the loss of her and what that means in the story is so important,” Balfe says “If there were to be an angel and a devil sitting on Boxer’s shoulders, [trainer] Boz (John Turturro) would be the devil and Caitlin would be this angel. She’s the light in his life. What I loved about this relationship and this character was that they’re both broken people, but she’s further ahead on her road to recovery.”
Related: Outlander Star Caitríona Balfe Makes Her Next Career Move — And It’s Another Historical Drama
While The Cut opens in theaters today, Balfe is back in corsets filming Sense and Sensibility, but also waiting for Season 8 of Outlander to premiere on STARZ, which won’t happen until 2026.
“I’m just anxious for people to see it,” she says. “We finished filming almost a year ago. I think our fans have been with us for so long on this show, it has been such an incredible journey for all of us. It feels like it will be really nice to celebrate it all with our fans. And, hopefully, they’ll be happy with it and, hopefully, they’ll walk away feeling like we did them justice, and we did these characters justice and the story justice.”
Next, Everything We Know So Far About Outlander’s 8th and Final Season
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