Sam Heughan and Caitríona Balfe on the Surprising Effects of Aging for 'Outlander'

When Outlander began filming in 2013, Sam Heughan and Caitríona Balfe were older than the roles they played, but now, as the second half of Season 7 unfolds, Jamie and Claire have aged. Their epic love story began in 1743 and it’s now 1778, so some 34 years have passed, and the actors are having to age up with help from hair and makeup.

“I think when we started, we felt young, and I think now we’re old so it sort of worked,” Balfe joked with Parade when asked which was more difficult to play: Younger than her age or older.

“I realized one day my makeup artist was doing less work on me,” Heughan said. “I asked, ‘Don’t you normally paint in lines and things?’ She said, ‘Yeah, I don’t need to anymore.’ I realized that we have grown older. It’s been amazing to play a character from a young age to an older one, to go through all these different experiences. It’s very, very rare for actors to get that opportunity. But, yes, we do feel we’re closer to our age than we were in the beginning.”

Related: Sam Heughan's Recast Outlander Sister Reveals What It's Really Like to Join the Family

But it isn’t just a matter of adding grey hair and painting on wrinkles, aging bodies don’t move the same as 20-year-olds.

“Jamie maybe gets out of breath a little bit more now,” Heughan admitted “He’s a little stiffer and certainly makes a lot of noises when he gets out of bed in the morning.”

But Balfe declared they’re still doing OK. They’re very healthy and fit people. "Even for 60-year-olds, they can still move at a quick clip.”

Season 8 of Outlander, which will be the television finale of the time-traveling epic based on the novels by Diana Gabaldon, won’t air until 2025, and since Gabaldon hasn’t yet released the tenth book in the Outlander series, which may or may not wrap up the story, the TV series may not end the same way, but should include Jamie’s ghost as that was there at the start of the story.

Related: Outlander Shocker: Is Jamie Dead? Author Diana Gabaldon Weighs In (Exclusive)

Outlander Season 8 has wrapped and is now in post-production, so unless they are called back for some ADR work (automated dialogue replacement), the actors are done until it’s time to do press.

“On the last official day, there were lots of tears,” Balfe said. “I saw [executive producer] Ron [D. Moore] and I was bawling. I was like, ‘This role has changed my life.’ It really has. It’s changed all of our lives; it’s given us so much and it’s going to be very strange not to have this as part of our lives.”

Related: Sam Heughan and Caitríona Balfe on Why Their Outlander Love Story Is 'Endless and Boundless'

But Heughan has a more forward-looking outlook on the end.

“We’ve had a lot of goodbyes, at least moments in the last day with another actor or the last day together or the last scene,” Heughan said. “We had an event recently and some fan I was speaking to said, ‘Now that it’s over.’ It really, really hit me there. I was like, ‘Oh, it is,’ but it’s not for the fans, honestly. There’s so much to look forward to. After Season 7B, there’s the whole of Season 8. Obviously, we’re going to be around for quite some time doing press, etc. So, it isn’t quite over yet. But we’re close. It’s a huge part of our lives, it has been for 11 years.”

New episodes of the second half of Outlander Season 7 are released at midnight ET on the STARZ app, all STARZ streaming and on-demand platforms each Friday. On linear broadcast, it will debut on STARZ Friday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT in the U.S.

Next, Everything We Know So Far About Outlander's 8th and Final Season