Starz has announced that Caitriona Balfe (Super 8) will be playing the role of Claire Randall in the original series Outlander, adapted from the international best-selling books by Diana Gabaldon.

“Hard to believe lightning can strike twice, but it surely did. The moment Caitriona Balfe came on screen, I sat up straight and said, ‘There she is!’ She and Sam Heughan absolutely lit up the screen with fireworks,” Gabaldon said.

Outlander, a sci-fi/adventure/romance/history series, follows the story of Claire Randall, a married combat nurse from 1945 who is mysteriously swept back in time to 1743, where she is immediately thrown into an unknown world where her life is threatened. When she is forced to marry Jamie Fraser, a chivalrous and romantic young Scottish warrior, a passionate affair is ignited that tears Claire’s heart between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

Balfe joins previously announced cast members Sam Heughan (Jamie Fraser), Tobias Menzies (Frank Randall/Jonathan “Black Jack” Randall), Graham McTavish (Dougal MacKenzie), Gary Lewis (Colum MacKenzie), Duncan Lacroix (Murtagh Fitzgibbons Fraser), Annette Badland (Mrs. Fitzgibbons) and Stephen Walters (Angus Mhor). The series will begin filming in Scotland in September 2013.

Balfe can next be seen in Escape Plan, starring opposite Arnold Schwarznegger and Sylvester Stallone.