'Outlander's' Caitriona Balfe finds those tough scenes 'almost cathartic' 

\'Outlander\'s\' Caitriona Balfe finds those tough scenes \'almost cathartic\'

Zap2it: With all your intense scenes on Starz\'s "Outlander,"  does your character of Claire require some coming down from at the end of the day?

Caitriona Balfe: Only twice that has had to happen. You know, it\'s interesting. Some days, those tough, emotional scenes are almost cathartic. You get out anything you need during them and you feel quite exhausted by the end of the day but sometimes you feel quite refreshed in a strange way. It\'s like you purged something of yourself. 

But one particular day, both Sam [Heughan, her co-star] and I sort of attested to this, when there\'s the judgment scene, I guess is what we\'re calling it. You know, a lot of people know that\'s coming up, which is sort of the punishments where Jamie needs to sort of chastise Claire or whatever for her trying to run, and that was a difficult one because I feel like it\'s not something that is easy to wrap your head around ... . But I think we both walked away from that day feeling a little like, "Oooof," just that was tough. It was a tough line to find.

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Zap2it: You have said that you feel like playing Claire has made you a stronger person. How?

Caitriona Balfe: ... I think there\'s something about playing someone who\'s so fearless and so strong that it just allows you to exercise that part of yourself. And when I look back now and we filmed for 200 days and I think about the hours that we put in and I think about the conditions that we were working under, I can feel really proud and I can feel really that, wow, I\'m a lot stronger than I thought because that was a great experience and I didn\'t break [laughs], I rarely got sick and it was fantastic. I don\'t think it could have been any better. So in terms of that, yeah, I feel like I\'ve definitely gained strength or realized, maybe, my own inner strength a little bit more with Claire.

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