“Outlander” Casts Tortured Gay Character Lord John Grey For Upcoming Third Season

David Berry will take on the mantle of "consummate gentleman" Lord John Grey in the period drama.
From: NewNowNext

 Australian actor David Berry has joined the cast of Starz period drama Outlander in role of Lord John Grey, a pivotal character in the show’s upcoming third season.

 In the Diana Gabaldon novels that inspired the time-twisted series, Lord Grey is a British nobleman, “torn between a finely-honed sense of familial duty and a strong moral compass of right and wrong.”

But he’s also a closeted gay man with feelings for protagonist Jamie Fraser—feelings that are not reciprocated. According to press notes, a scandal from Grey’s past has landed him as the governor of the Scottish prison where Jamie is being kept and the two form an “awkward” friendship.

 Grey is also featured in a series of Lord John novels that all take place between 1756 and 1761.

“He’s what I call a ’mushroom,’ one of those unplanned people who pops up out of nowhere and walks off with any scene he’s in,” remarked Gabaldon.

“He’s also a gay man, in a time when to be homosexual was a capital offense, and Lord John has more than most to lose by discovery. He belongs to a noble family, he’s an officer in His Majesty’s Army, and loves both his family and his regiment; to have his private life discovered would damage — if not destroy — both.”

“Consequently, he lives constantly with conflict,” she adds, “which makes him both deeply entertaining and easy to write about.”

According to Starz, Season Three of Outlander will be based on the third books in the series, Voyager—picking up right after Claire returns to her life in 1948.

Now pregnant, she struggles with the fallout of her sudden reappearance and its effect on her marriage to her first husband, Frank.

Meanwhile, in the 18th century, Jamie suffers from the aftermath of his doomed last stand at the historic battle of Culloden, as well as the loss of Claire. As the years pass, Jamie and Claire attempt to make a life apart from one another, each haunted by the memory of their lost love. The budding possibility that Claire can return to Jamie in the past breathes new hope into Claire’s heart… as well as new doubt.

Berry is an Australian actor best known for roles on the series Home and Away and A Place To Call Home, where he played a gay man in 1950s Australia.