Caitriona Balfe has told how becoming one of Ireland’s best known international models didn’t help one bit when looking to get into TV.
The Monaghan native has recently bagged a massive role on Outlander, which is tipped to quickly become the new Game of Thrones.
But the 34-year-old had to fight to get to that stage of her career – despite being the only Irish woman to ever walk for Victoria Secret’s.
And Caitriona admits that initially directors were so suspicious of her career move that they wouldn’t ever let her speak.
Outlander: But Caitriona had to fight for the role
She said: “They’d say, ‘She’s great, but don’t let her open her mouth.’ I would have been a huge silent movie star in the 1920s.
“But I came from one career and moved to LA, affectionately starting from ground again. I had no experience and no-one cared about the modelling.
“They don’t really care what you’ve done before so you have to be humble and take whatever you can get.”
And Caitriona admits that nervousness rubbed off on her, leaving her fretting that fans of the Outlander book series would go crazy about her casting in the show.
Model: But experience for Victoria’s Secret didn’t help | VIPIRELAND.COM
“I didn’t realise how many books had been sold and how die-hard people were about it,” she told the Sunday World.
“Had I known that going into my first audition, I could have very easily messed it up as I would have felt massively overwhelmed.
“And when I got the part, I was nervous because I didn’t want people to be like, ‘Who the hell is she? She hasn’t done anything before this’. With Twitter and social media, people can really voice their opinions.”
