Ed Speleers on Embracing His First Rom-Com & Getting ‘Swept Up’ in ‘Irish Wish’ With Lindsay Lohan

Ed Speleers is feeling lucky. The Outlander alum makes his rom-com debut in Netflix’s Irish Wish. Speleers stars alongside Lindsay Lohan in her second rom-com with the streaming service.

The actor, known for his villainous roles as Stephen Bonnet in Outlander and Rhys Montrose in You, brings effortless charm and rom-com leading man energy in Irish Wish. He plays James Thomas, a dashing photographer Maddie (Lohan) meets in Ireland as she gears up to attend the wedding of her best friend (Elizabeth Tan) to the love of her life (Alexander Vlahos).

When Maddie makes a wish for true love, she finds herself in an alternate reality. While she seemingly gets everything she’s ever wanted, Maddie soon realizes that her soulmate isn’t who she thought.

Below, Speleers opens up to TV Insider about diving into his first rom-com, working with Lohan, and how the worlds of Outlander and rom-coms are colliding.

How is this your very first rom-com?

Ed Speleers: I guess people like to see me play psychos. I don’t know. I think it’s probably that the right opportunity hasn’t come up at the right moment more than anything. To be fair, this came about as I was still filming You. I was coming towards the end of shooting it, and Netflix was like, “We’ve got this other opportunity for you. It’s a rom-com.” It was never a genre that was at the forefront of my mind. However, I’m quite an open book when it comes to genres and opportunities. There’s not one thing I specifically want to do. I just want to try it all. Not until I work out what suits me best, but just so I experience as much as possible. Rom-coms have just got such a hold on many people. I just think it makes a lot of sense to explore that. I feel genuinely that it was a good thing for me to remove myself from playing some of the more intense roles I’ve played, which I want to play again, but I just feel that this maybe opens up an opportunity to show a whole load of other people what I can do.

I was going to say, stepping into something much lighter and leaning into the comedy must have been fun considering your past intense roles.

Yeah, I mean, I always try to find the fun in any part because even when you’re playing dramatic parts or intense parts or shady humans, you still need to find a way to elevate them off the page and lift them and to find a way of thinking, okay, this guy’s still interesting. But yeah, it was a really lovely adjustment going into work and going, “I don’t need to reach into the depths of my soul to understand what I’ve got to do here.” However, it’s really interesting because there’s an art form to rom-coms. Of course there is. Any art, any cinema-making, anything we do, there is a technique. There is, I don’t want to say formula, but there’s definitely a strategy that’s employed in rom-coms. My girlfriend and I, we were watching one last night. It was Mother’s Day here, so we were winding down the evening. And it was another Netflix film. All the scenes are really short. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that yourself watching rom-coms. You don’t have these long-ranging monologues. Very rarely you might. But most of the time they are short-lived sequences where you have to sort of start at one point and get to the end, and you’ve got to try and ferry it along with giving enough detail of what each person is wanting, and then there’s normally like a little lift or a little punch at the end of each scene, and then we move on to the next. They’re always really fast-paced. That was probably the biggest adjustment I had to make.

Have you caught the rom-com bug at this point?

I mean, I’ve caught the acting bug. I am definitely open to doing more rom-coms if they come around. It’s pure and simple: it has to be the right part. This was a no-brainer moment because it was, again, teaming up with Netflix and working with Lindsay, who is so experienced and well-versed in this way of working. But yeah, I think that is the thing. Naturally, once you start working a certain way, inherently, people start seeing you in that light. If that’s another string to my bow, I’m here for it for sure.

Speaking of Lindsay, did you have to do a chemistry read with her prior to the film?

No, no chemistry read, which I suppose is really surprising given the nature of who is involved and the scale of the production company. You’d think that maybe that’s the thing to do, so hopefully the chemistry works. I think we both had a common understanding of where maybe both of us were at in our careers and also what this film could potentially mean for us from the existential situation. But I feel that, actually, what was even more important was that we had a really good understanding of how much we cared about the work and how much we wanted to invest in what we’re doing. And again, coming back to what I was saying earlier, even though it’s rom-com and it should be light and fun, you still have to work hard in the sense of the preparation of it and understanding of it. She is great to riff off. She’s really amazing with all the physical comedy, which we all know her for from her previous films. That’s always been a real strong point for her. It’s interesting because it’s physical comedy, and it’s not like she tries to do it. She just effortlessly finds herself in a position where she can just do it, and her comic timing is great. I think, as a result, we just learned to respect one another and go, “Okay, this works.” And I think maybe the chemistry just built from that.

Plus, traveling around Ireland together probably helped a lot.

I mean, going around in an old convertible trying to look cool with decent clothes on, yeah, it certainly painted a romantic picture, which allowed the characters to get swept up in the story. I think the tourist board of Ireland is certainly singing our praises at the moment. Look, Ireland is a gorgeous place to go to. The people are fantastic. They have a wonderful sense of humor, and they’re great to work with. They’re a really lovely crew, very hard-working, but very easy to be around. The island itself, it’s a stunning place. If I wasn’t working on set, I’d be off doing a lot of trail running because we were in this area called County Wicklow, which is known as the Garden of Ireland. We’re just surrounded by beautiful mountains and lakes and coastlines. So if I wasn’t working, I was normally running up a mountain or running around a lake. I would be earning my pint of Guinness.

What was your introduction to Lindsay? What was the first movie you ever saw her in?

You know, it must have been The Parent Trap. Must have been. And then Mean Girls, I think, even though there’s a big gap between those. I think it was The Parent Trap. I remember even at a young age being like, “How is this person doing this?” I think we were all so acutely aware of how talented she was. I think that’s why it’s great to be having that honor to work with her now, to go toe-to-toe with someone that has been part of such iconic comedic films, and she’s back doing it again. It’s a great thing.

When did you realize that two Outlander villains were going to be playing the love interests in Irish Wish?

I’d been told that Alex [Vlahos] was going to be playing the other chap. We’d never crossed paths before that on Outlander. Our stories were very different in Outlander. He came in a bit after me.

I feel like Outlander and the world of rom-coms are colliding because I know Sam [Heughan]’s done some.

There’s a good example of someone who’s done a few back-to-back. You think he’s going to go be an action man, which he still is very much doing, but I think he’s definitely opened his eyes to rom-coms. I suppose it’s quite a natural progression for someone who is aspiring to be a leading man. You need to be able to do that side of the resume as well.

Irish Wish, Friday, March 15, Netflix