Front Row: Outlander star’s X-rated search history and the split-second emergency that almost derailed our celebrity interview

Front Row is a new weekly column on nine.com.au bringing you behind the scenes of some of the Aussie entertainment industry’s biggest parties, premieres, and more. Got a tip? Email us at frontrow@nine.com.au.

This week, Front Row donned our best tartan for Stan’s Outlander: Blood of My Blood Scottish banquet. Between dodging camera-wielding influencers, swooning over Scottish accents, and enduring an actual emergency alarm mid-interview, it was a week we won’t be forgetting anytime soon.

Outlander star fears being booted over X-rated internet search

There’s nothing quite like sitting in a room full of influencers, mere metres from a Hollywood star, and listening to him talk about getting kicked off hotel Wi-Fi for researching something downright scandalous while his famous co-stars try to hold back their laughter.

That’s exactly what Front Row got treated to when we attended the immersive Outlander: Blood of My Blood Scottish banquet and cast Q&A Sydney’s Curzon Hall with stars Jeremy Irvine, Hermione Corfield, Jamie Roy, and Harriet Slater.

The new season of Outlander: Blood of my Blood will premiere September 19, only on Stan. 

The venue’s stone cellar had been decked out in oak barrels, flickering candles, and platters of mouth-watering food. Of course, most of the influencers in attendance refrained from touching the mini pies and arancini.

“I think they’re watching their diets,” one sad waiter whispered to us. We felt so bad for the guy that we ate enough canapés to feed a small village. For a week.

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Then came the Q&A, which was promptly derailed when Irvine asked how a certain "purity test" elixir from the show actually worked.

For the uninitiated: in season one, Slater’s character, Ellen Mackenzie, has to undergo an archaic test to prove she’s a virgin.

Problem is, she got intimate with her true love Brian Fraser (Roy) in secret a few days prior, so Brian sends in Julia Beauchamp (Corfield) to help her pass the test with the help of a herbal remedy made from sugar and egg whites that’s applied to, ahem, her lady parts.

When that particular plot point came up during the Q&A, Irvine couldn’t contain his curiosity.

“Did anyone figure out what that… I mean, does it close up…?” Irvine began, before suddenly realising he was asking about female anatomy in a room full of women.

As Corfield bravely attempted to explain, an embarrassed Irvine quickly cut her off.

“Sorry, just a bit of a biology lesson for me – I’ll do my research later,” he quipped. “I’ll get kicked off the hotel Wi-Fi!”

Roy burst into a fit of laughter while Corfield had to look away to keep her composure. By the time we moved to the photo-op – where half the women in the room were ready to pay Roy just to read the Yellow Pages in his Scottish accent – we were totally sold.

‘Do we need to evacuate?’: When celebrity interviews go wrong

Celebrity interviewers usually worry about stumbling over their words or running out of time for a crucial question when they sit down with TV stars, but one Front Row reporter can now add another fear to their list: emergency alarms.

During our sit-down interview with the cast Outlander: Blood Of My Blood, an alarm suddenly blasted through the room and almost derailed the whole junket.

Harriet Slater, who was mid-answer when the alarm sounded, paused and glanced around awkwardly to the camera crew and producers.

“Do we need to evacuate?” she asked.

Co-star Jamie Roy looked ready to vault out of his chair at a moment's notice. But after a few tense seconds, the alarm stopped, and Slater proved she was an absolute pro.

“Can we edit that, or should I start again?” she laughed, casually launching right back into her answer.

The alarm sounded again a few minutes later, but the actors were utter professionals and just worked through it the second time. Talk about learning fast!

Though the alarm itself was pretty quiet, junket rooms are dead silent during interviews, so it felt like an incredibly big deal at the time.

The production team running the junket clearly weren’t impressed either, and we heard a few cranky mutterings as the interview wrapped up.

To this day, we have no clue what the alarm was for or what set it off, but we’ll be hearing that sound in our nightmares for weeks.

Nine Entertainment Co (the publisher of this website) owns and operates the streaming service Stan.