Outlander star Sam Heughan hails Scotland's scenery for inspiring his acting journey
Outlander star Sam Heughan reckons Dumfries and Galloway 's stunning scenery helped inspire him on his acting journey.
And the 44-year-old also believes nature 'really helped' get him through tough times in his career.
The actor, who was born in Balmaclellan and spent his early years in Dumfries and Galloway, shared a video on his Instagram account to promote the WWF's Prescription for Nature campaign.
The video was shot in Dumfries and Galloway and released on World Earth Day.
Sam said: 'This is where I was born and raised. I think as a kid, playing in the outdoors, imagining that I'm King Arthur or Robert the Bruce, definitely inspired me to become an actor.
'Using my imagination, being in the outdoors, exploring and losing myself in these amazing woods and mountains of Scotland.
'I love to come to this location because it helps me relax or reflect on the journey that I've been on in my life and to slow down a bit and I think we all need that, we all need time to reflect.'
Sam, who attended Glenkens Playgroup and Kells Primary before moving to Edinburgh with his mum in 1991, has played Jamie Fraser in hit US show Outlander for more than a decade.
He has also appeared in River City, The Spy Who Dumped Me and The Couple Next Door.
In the video he said: 'I'm very fortunate to work as an actor with some amazing people but there were times where it was really tough. I think nature really helped get me through those harder days. It energises you.
'I think getting outdoors is just really important for all of us to switch off from the busy hectic lifestyle that we all have in the modern world.
'Take time for yourself but also enjoy the incredible nature all around us. Go and get your daily dose of nature.'
Sam – who is set to run this weekend's London Marathon – also feels nature has played a 'key role' his My peak Challenge Fitness and charity programme.
The WWF's Prescription for Nature campaign encourages people to spend 20 minutes a day connecting with nature to boost their mental wellbeing.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
a minute ago
- Daily Mail
Country singer Adam Mac ties the knot with partner Lee Pfund in romantic Sedona wedding: 'We snuck away'
After eight years together, country singer Adam Mac and his partner Lee Pfund are now married. The couple wed in a recent, sunrise ceremony atop Baby Bell Rock in Sedona, Arizona, according to Us Weekly. Adam, 35, and his partner hiked to the overlook at 4:45 AM in order to begin the nuptials 'as the sun was peeking over the horizon,' the country singer told the publication. The Disco Cowboy singer shared the moment they said 'I do' in the new music video for his song, Last Rodeo, which contained footage from their intimate nuptials. 'This one's for my love,' Adam gushed on Instagram as he dropped photos from their special day. 'He's everything I'm not, but just as quirky and odd in all the best ways. 'I truly can't imagine facing everything this career and world throw at me without him. I wrote 'Last Rodeo' as my wedding vows, and we snuck away to Sedona to say 'I do.'' Lee, who works in real estate, gushed to his own Instagram Stories simply, 'My husband.' According to Us, the song was written for Lee as part of Adam's wedding vows. While the couple sensed early in their relationship that they were 'each other's forever person' and already 'felt married in spirit,' they were compelled to make it official due to the current state of politics. 'With everything going on in the world, we felt like it was the perfect time to stand strong in our love and celebrate it out loud,' he told Us Weekly. 'We already felt like life partners — but now it is official.' In their music video, the couple were overflowing with happiness as they professed their love for one another upon the majestic overlook. They wore coordinating pinstripe suits by H Bar C and exchanged rings made by Brilliant Earth, according to Us. The newlyweds plan on having a honeymoon in the U.K. and Italy and will celebrate their nuptials with friends and family in the near future with a Nashville reception. Adam shared photos from the nuptials along with the Us Weekly article to his Instagram, gushing, 'I love you forever @leepfund.' In April, Adam celebrated his partner's birthday with a gushing tribute. 'Thankful for this birthday boy today and everyday! This life would be so much more boring (and quiet) without you in it. I'm the luckiest to get to love you forever. y'all tell @leepfund how hot and young he is!' The Dust Off Your Boots singer released his debut album Horizon in 2016 and followed it up with 2023's Disco Cowboy. Country singer Adam moved to Nashville at age 22 and came out as gay the following year, according to People. 'I had lived my whole life just terrified to come out and to tell anybody who I was,' he told the outlet in 2022. 'And then when I moved to Nashville, it hit me that I didn't see anybody else like me in country music, so I didn't think they would want me, and it certainly wasn't going to be a place where I could thrive.' After a pause, he added: 'I struggled with that for a really long time.' However Adam overcame the fear. 'I don't really care what anybody else's perception of me is or their opinion of me is or if I belong here or not.
The Guardian
a minute ago
- The Guardian
‘Old people are capable of more': meet the female weightlifters in their 70s and 80s
Joan MacDonald is an influencer. There's no other word for it, though she winces a little when she says it. But she is an influencer, and an extremely successful one. The fitness maven has been on the covers of magazines such as Women's Health, modeled as part of lucrative brand deals and launched her own fitness app, Train With Joan. On Instagram, where she has more than 2 million followers, she shares pictures of herself posing in bikinis in picturesque locales and training at the gym in color-coordinated workout sets. But there's one small difference between MacDonald and many other social media starlets. She is 79. 'I was 70 when I started [working out],' MacDonald says on a video call from her home in Ontario, white hair elegantly coiffed. 'I keep thinking I'm in my 30s.' MacDonald's workouts are intense, whether you're 30 or 70. She does deadlifts, weighted planks and kettlebell swings, and casually lifts dumbbells the size of fire extinguishers over her head. Her arm muscles could put professional rugby players to shame. She is arguably the most famous older woman lifting heavy, but she's far from the only one. There's Ernestine Shepherd, 89, who has more than 101,000 Instagram followers and calls herself 'the world's oldest living female competitive bodybuilder'. Nora Langdon, in her 80s, recently shared a video of herself deadlifting 225 pounds. And earlier this year, the New Yorker published a documentary about Catherine Kuehn, who broke multiple world records for deadlifting in her 90s. This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. Many of these lifters seem to delight in bucking the stereotype of the frail old woman who needs help carrying her groceries. 'Once you reach a certain age, it's like you can't do anything any more,' MacDonald says. 'Trainers and coaches dumb down everything for older people, but old people are capable of more than they think.' As they age, women's physical abilities are often underestimated by others as well as themselves, says Elaina Manolis, a physical therapist and assistant clinical professor at Northeastern University. Manolis says the menopausal and post-menopausal women she works with often need help unlearning the negative messages about exercise they absorbed growing up. 'This is a generation that has been wired to think women should never be in the gym,' she says. MacDonald and Shepherd remember worrying they would 'look manly' when they started lifting. 'At the beginning, I thought, 'I don't want to be lifting weights, I'll look like a guy,'' recalls MacDonald. 'But that's just brainwashing. [Women] are told that so much that we believe it.' Women who avoid strength training are robbed of its benefits, many of which are especially helpful for ageing bodies. In addition to building muscle – which one can do at any age, Manolis notes – strength training has a significant impact on bone health and cognitive function. The former is especially important for women, who have a much higher risk of developing conditions that weaken the bones, like osteopenia and osteoporosis. And it's fun. Shepherd says that as soon as she started strength training, her favorite thing about it was 'the joy and the way that you felt'. She and her sister started lifting when they were in their mid-50s, and soon they were training others and building a community. 'I would wear what my trainer would call my 'costumes',' she says – shorts, crop tops, leopard-print leggings. MacDonald says she faced some criticism from people in her life when she first started working out and posting about it on Instagram. 'I got some really awful remarks from people I thought were my friends,' she says. They commented on how she dressed – 'because I wear form-fitting clothing', MacDonald says – and her growing public profile. 'They said I didn't have to prance around and keep telling people what I was doing,' she says. 'That's not what old women are supposed to do. You're sort of told, 'Go quietly out the back door, will you?'' Sign up to Well Actually Practical advice, expert insights and answers to your questions about how to live a good life after newsletter promotion Attitudes are shifting, though. Manolis says she has lots of patients coming to her saying: 'I know I should start [lifting], I've been listening to a lot of podcasts.' And this is the first year the National Senior Games – an Olympic-style, multi-sport competition event for adults over 50 that takes place biennially in the US – will include a powerlifting competition. 'Over the last three or four years, more and more people have been asking me when we're going to add [powerlifting],' says Sue Hlavaseck, president and CEO of the National Senior Games Association (NSGA). Roughly 12,400 athletes are expected to participate in this year's National Senior Games, which are taking place in Des Moines, Iowa, at the end of July. Of those, 187 will be participating in the powerlifting competition – 99 men, aged 54 to 95, and 88 women, aged 50 to 82. The oldest female competitor, 82-year-old Faith O'Reilly, says a friend took her to a powerlifting meet in her late 30s. 'I was watching everybody and I thought, 'Well, I can do that,'' she says. O'Reilly has been lifting ever since. 'It suits me,' she says. She likes setting goals for herself, and enjoys the camaraderie of gyms and meets. And she appreciates the independence and confidence it has brought her. 'I've always liked being able to do things,' she says. 'And that's what powerlifting can do for you – you can handle your grandchildren, and your sacks of groceries.' Regardless of age, if you've never picked up weights before, it's best to start by working with a trainer or physical therapist who can help with form and individual needs. 'In most gyms that I've been in, people are happy to help,' says O'Reilly. Total beginners can see significant improvements in strength fairly quickly, says Manolis. She's had patients say that after four to six weeks of training they were able to get out of a chair without using their hands, walk up a full flight of stairs, vacuum the whole house or load a dishwasher for the first time in years. 'As we age, what we really want to do is to keep our independence and remain functional,' Manolis says. Strength training facilitates both of these things. That doesn't mean it's a cure-all. 'Being healthy and living life to the best of your ability doesn't mean you're going to be happy every day, or that you're going to be without pain or accidents,' MacDonald says. 'These things happen, but that's life. You've got to keep pushing forward.'
The Sun
a minute ago
- The Sun
Jennifer Ellison's dance studio targeted by thief who made off with kids' iPads & bikes as she shares chilling CCTV
THIS is the chilling moment a thief broke into Jennifer Ellison's dance studio. The actress shared CCTV footage revealing the alleged thief to her social media as she urged her followers to help recover the stolen items. 7 7 7 7 Among the stolen goods were iPads and bikes belonging to her young students, as well as laptops and other personal belongings. The break in reportedly occurred at 5am on Wednesday morning. Posting the footage to her Instagram, Ellison wrote: "Anyone who tells me who this RAT is and where he'll be or lives I'll give a HUGE reward!!! She added: "He's broken into our school at 5am took all of our bikes, laptops iPads!!! THE LOT!!!!!" Additional footage shared to her Instagram showed the man searching through a till, as she wrote: "The rat went everywhere!! Took drinks." An update later in the day thanked a different man for recovering one of the stolen bikes. Commenters expressed their support for the star, with some saying they had reached out via DM with information. One wrote: "Hope everything gets returned safely. Horrible horrible people." The post has since been deleted although the Instagram stories are still up. Ellison opened the Liverpool-based Jelli Studios after stepping away from TV work, providing "elite intense Dance and Musical Theatre training for those wanting a long successful career in the Professional Industry of Performing Arts." Moment brazen thief steals hairdresser's £1,300 phone in plain sight - would you have spotted him? The studio was featured in the 2014 TV show Dance Mums with Jennifer Ellison which followed the early careers of some of its students. It focused on seven girls who were working towards competing in the Dance World Cup in Portugal. She had previously led a successful acting career, playing Meg Giry in 2004's Phantom of the Opera, and Emily O'Leary in Brookside from 1998 to 2003. Ellison has been married to boxer Rob Tickle for 15 years, and the couple share three sons. She previously dated violent gangster Anthony Richardson who was jailed for a sword attack. The actress was left fearing for her life as she balanced her blossoming career alongside her husband's involvement in the criminal underworld. During an appearing on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins she talked about her trauma after beating abused by her ex-boyfriend. After meeting when they were 16, the pair got engaged within two years. She witnessed fire-bombings and drive-by shootings, even being subjected to violence at the hands of her ex. He was later jailed for eight years in 2011 for a sword attack in Liverpool. The Sun has reached out to Merseyside Police for comment. 7 7 7
