Outlander casts King Louis XV for season 2


by Lynette Rice | July 28 2015 — 5:15 PM EDT

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Meet the royal who could either help — or hurt — Jamie and Claire in the new season of Outlander.

French actor Lionel Lingelser has been cast as King Louis XV in the Starz drama that’ll return for a second round of episodes in 2016, EW has exclusively learned. As the King of France, Louis XV has a taste for the ladies and is used to getting whatever he wants — until he grows tired of people who no longer appeal to him.

Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and Jamie (Sam Heughan) cross paths with the king after they flee to France to avoid Black Jack Randall. Their plan is to ingratiate themselves in the French court so they can thwart the financing for Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Jacobite rebellion and — with any luck — stop the battle of Culloden that will upend the Highland uprising.

A graduate of the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in Paris, Lingelser stars in Jean Emmanuel Godart’s forthcoming feature Big House with Gérard Depardieu. He is set to recur in the new season that will is expected to return in the spring.