Outlander actor Sam Heughan once found himself stranded in New York City with just £21 to his name when he went travelling. The 45-year-old decided he wanted to “take some time out” before committing to university.
Initially, Sam embarked on an interrailing journey across Europe, visiting places such as Lithuania and Estonia. It was then that he chose to venture to the US, with New York City set to be the last stop on his adventure.
Sam, who has portrayed Jamie Fraser in Outlander for the past decade, revealed he found himself with just $30 – around £21 – to his name. Speaking to the Travel Diaries podcast, the star admitted he hadn’t even planned how to return to Scotland.
He recounted: “I had perhaps $30 left in my pocket and I had no idea how I was going to get home, back to the UK, and I thought, ‘What do I do with this $30?’ Instead of doing something sensible, like calling my mum or trying to get home, I decided to go up the Empire State Building.
“I spent the last of my dollars, I went up there to catch the view, and for some reason Val Kilmer was up there and I took a photo of him and was like, ‘Oh my God, there’s a famous actor up here’ and I don’t know, maybe, perhaps, it was some sign.
“I returned to the hostel I was staying at and thought, ‘Okay, I now need to work out how to get back home’ and there was a note on my door from a very good schoolfriend of mine who had flown out to New York and tracked me down and we spent a week together in DC.
“I was very lucky, sort of I guess, to be rescued by my friend, and in some sense be rescued by a fellow actor.”
Sam shares that it was at this point he decided to apply to an acting school back in Scotland. Despite doing a “terrible job” during the interview process, it provided him with the “impetus” to pursue acting as a career.
His first foray into the acting world saw him gracing the stage, before securing a role in the World War II drama Island at War in 2004. Five years on, he landed a part in the British soap opera Doctors.
In 2014, Sam was cast as Highland warrior Jamie in Outlander. He disclosed that filming for the final season of the popular show concluded in November.
He added: “People in every walk of life go through break-ups or changes in their situation and big life changes and I wouldn’t equate this in that extreme but it is in some ways.
“You’re surrounded by a family, by people you see every single day in high pressure moments, so you become very close, very quickly.
“For it to then suddenly end is a bit of a rift or a moment that you have to get over. We all knew it was coming, so in the months before, some days it just felt like another day and other days you were like, ‘Oh, this is the last time I’m seeing this person’ so there were a lot of goodbyes.”