Caitríona Balfe

Caitríona Mary Balfe (/kəˈtriːnə ˈbælf/; born 4 October 1979) is an Irish actress and model. She is best known for her starring role as Claire Fraser in the Starz historical drama series Outlander (2014–2023), for which she received nominations for four Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress in a Television Series – Drama.

At age eighteen, while studying drama at the Dublin Institute of Technology, Balfe began working as a fashion model in Paris. Ten years later, she refocused on acting. She had leading roles in the series The Beauty Inside (2012) and H+: The Digital Series (2012–2013), and appeared in the films Super 8 (2011), Now You See Me (2013), Escape Plan (2013), Money Monster (2016), and Ford v Ferrari (2019). Her performance in Belfast (2021) earned her nominations for the Golden Globe and British Academy Film Awards.

Balfe was born in Dublin and grew up outside the village of Tydavnet, County Monaghan. She is the fourth of five children. Her father was a Garda sergeant. She went to Dublin Institute of Technology to study drama, before being spotted by a model scout.

Modelling

Balfe started modelling after she was scouted by an agent while she was collecting money for charity at a local shopping centre. At 18, after working as a model in Dublin for a few months, she caught the attention of a visiting Ford Models scout, who offered her the chance to work for them in Paris.

Balfe's modelling career highlights include opening and closing fashion shows for Chanel, Givenchy, Dolce & Gabbana, Moschino, Alberta Ferretti and Louis Vuitton. In a three-year period, she walked in more than 250 runway shows. At the height of her career, Balfe was considered to be among the twenty most in-demand models in the world.

Acting

While living in New York, Balfe played the minor role of an employee of the magazine Runway in the 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada. In 2009, after a decade-long modelling career, Balfe returned to her initial career choice and moved from New York to Los Angeles, spending her first year and a half in the city exclusively taking acting classes, first at the Warner Loughlin Studios and then at the Sanford Meisner Center and the Judith Weston Studios. Balfe has appeared in the films Super 8, as the protagonist's mother, Now You See Me, as Michael Caine's character's wife, and Escape Plan, as the CIA lawyer that hires Sylvester Stallone's character.

In 2012 she portrayed Alex #34 in The Beauty Inside, a social film divided into six episodes telling the story of a man named Alex (Topher Grace) who wakes up in a different body every day. In 2013 she starred in the music videos for "First Fires" by British musician Bonobo and for "Chloroform" by French band Phoenix, the latter directed by Sofia Coppola.

Balfe was part of the main cast of the Warner Bros. web series H+: The Digital Series during 2012 and 2013, in which she played Breanna Sheehan, one of the executives of a biotechnology company that develops an implanted computer which allows people to be connected to the Internet 24 hours a day.

In September 2013, Balfe was cast as the lead character, Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser, on the Starz television drama series Outlander, based on the novels written by Diana Gabaldon; the series premiered in August 2014. She plays a mid-20th-century nurse (later surgeon) who is transported back in time to the war-torn mid-18th-century Scottish Highlands. Both the series and her performance have received critical acclaim, with Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair saying "it helps immensely that Balfe is such an appealing actress, [she] makes Claire a spirited, principled, genuinely heroic heroine". Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Balfe is "reason enough to watch; she's a confident actress who brings various shades to her character." James Poniewozik of Time labelled Balfe's portrayal as "wry, [and] infectiously engaging." Angelica Jade Bastién of The New York Times called Balfe "one of the most stunning actresses on television".

In December 2014, Entertainment Weekly named Balfe one of its 12 Breakout Stars of 2014; that month she was also voted "Woman Of The Year" at BBC America's Anglophenia Fan Favorites tournament.

In April 2015, Balfe received Best Actress in a Lead Role Drama and Rising Star Award nominations for the 12th Irish Film & Television Awards, and was named one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People in the World". She won Saturn Awards for Best Actress on Television in 2015 and 2016. In November 2016, Balfe won the Scottish BAFTA award for Best Actress on Television and in February 2018 she won the Irish IFTA for Best Actress in a Lead Role Drama. Balfe also received four nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama for her role in Outlander.

Balfe co-starred in the film Money Monster (2016), directed by Jodie Foster and starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts. She played the head of PR of a company whose stock bottoms out, causing a man to lose all of his savings and subsequently take hostages on a live TV show. Eric Hills of The Movie Waffler wrote "But it's relative newcomer Balfe who leaves the greatest impression; she's magnetic, stealing scenes even when her character is only glimpsed reacting to the situation on a background monitor. Expect to see a lot more of this Irish actress in the coming years."

In 2019, Balfe had a recurring voice role as Tavra in the Netflix fantasy series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. The series, which was a prequel to the 1982 fantasy film The Dark Crystal and produced by the Jim Henson Company, was released to critical acclaim. Also in 2019, she had a starring role opposite Matt Damon and Christian Bale in the sports drama film Ford v Ferrari. Balfe portrayed Mollie Miles, the wife of professional race car driver Ken Miles, a role which earned her an IFTA nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. The film received universal acclaim upon release and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

In 2021, Balfe had a co-starring role in Kenneth Branagh's semi-autobiographical film Belfast, for which she received critical acclaim. Critic Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair lauded Balfe for her "modest, affable performance". Her performance earned her nominations for the Screen Actors Guild Award, Golden Globe Award, Critics' Choice Movie Award, and British Academy Film Award for Best Supporting Actress. The film was nominated for Best Picture at the 94th Academy Awards. She has been a member of the Actors Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since June 2022.

Balfe will next star in the 20th Century Studios film The Amateur.

Balfe lives in London and, while filming Outlander, in Glasgow. She previously lived in Los Angeles, where she started acting professionally, and in New York City, Paris, London, Milan, Hamburg, and Tokyo while working as a model. In addition to her native Irish, she is a speaker of the English language and is conversant in French.

On 10 August 2019, Balfe married her long-time boyfriend, band manager Anthony "Tony" McGill. She announced on 18 August 2021 that she had given birth to their son.

In an interview, Balfe was asked if she considered herself spiritual. Balfe responded "I would say I'm spiritual, though have long turned my back on institutionalised religion. I definitely believe in the inherent goodness of the universe."

Philanthropy and other ventures

In 2014, she became a patron of the organisation World Child Cancer. She visited World Child Cancer facilities in Ghana in 2016, meeting with key healthcare staff in Accra and Kumasi. She also spent time with the children there receiving care and their families. In 2017, the organisation reported that Balfe's fans raised over £100,000. In April 2018, she ran the London Marathon, raising over US$41,000 in support of the organisation. She has also hosted several campaigns selling shirts featuring her Outlander character Claire Fraser with proceeds benefiting World Child Cancer. In June 2023, Balfe appeared on BBC Radio 4 Appeal to share the story of one of the children World Child Cancer has supported. The appeal raised a total of £28,101.

She is also a supporter of charitable causes involving refugee relief with ChooseLove, raising thousands of dollars in funds to help aid refugees in crisis globally, as well as a vocal supporter of charities that aid the environment.

In October 2020, a group of fans who met through Caitríona’s pandemic online book club created a fundraising initiative called Project CaiTREEna, to raise money for the environmental charity One Tree Planted in honour of Caitríona’s 41st birthday. With Caitríona’s support, fans raised nearly $50,000 that year. To date, over US$190,000 has been raised and more than 190,000 trees planted.

In August 2020, Balfe launched Forget Me Not, a Scottish-based small-batch gin. Twenty-five per cent of the proceeds from sales go to funding arts programmes.

Film

Television