Caitriona Balfe

Balfe on the runway for Michael Kors in 2003

Balfe started modelling after she was scouted by an agent while she was collecting money for charity at a local shopping centre.[4][5] At 18, after working as a model in Dublin for a few months, she caught the attention of a visiting Ford Models scout, who offered her the chance to work for them in Paris.[4] Her career highlights include opening and closing shows for Chanel, Moschino, Givenchy, Dolce & Gabbana, Alberta Ferretti and Louis Vuitton.[6][7][8][9][10] Balfe also walked in multiple fashion shows for notable brands, including[11] 14 shows for Dolce & Gabbana; eight for Chanel; seven for Marc Jacobs, Narciso Rodriguez and Moschino; five for Armani, Roberto Cavalli, Max Mara, Ann Demeulemeester and Louis Vuitton; four for Givenchy, Oscar de la Renta, Missoni, Bottega Veneta, Burberry, Alberta Ferretti, Alexander McQueen and Emanuel Ungaro; and three for Rochas, Christian Lacroix, Cacharel, Sonia Rykiel and Kenzo.

Advertising campaigns featuring Balfe include those for[11] Calvin Klein, Levi’s, Max Mara, Oscar de la Renta, Bally, Dolce & Gabbana, Moschino, Costume National, Escada, Bottega Veneta, Hush Puppies, Mango, Neiman Marcus, BCBG Max Azria, Blumarine, Dries Van Noten, Wella, Roberto Cavalli, Victoria’s Secret and H&M. She appeared in the 2002 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show and on the cover of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and ELLE magazines.[5][11][12] In a three-year period Balfe walked in more than 250 runway shows.[11] Often credited professionally as simply Caitriona, at the height of her career she was considered to be among the twenty most in-demand models in the world.[13][14]

Other brands that she has walked in fashion shows for include[11] Anna Molinari, Balenciaga, Céline, Chloé, Christian Dior, DKNY, Emilio Pucci, Fendi, Gianfranco Ferré, Hugo Boss, Issey Miyake, Jil Sander, Lanvin, Loewe, Michael Kors, Miu Miu, Paco Rabanne, Perry Ellis, Salvatore Ferragamo, Stella McCartney, Valentino, Viktor & Rolf and Yohji Yamamoto.

For her work in Milan in the 2002 and 2003 seasons, Balfe earned close to $300,000, but after her Italian agency Paolo Tomei filed for bankruptcy, she and the other models who were represented by it lost all the earnings they had made during that time, with the agency's financial backers allegedly keeping them. Due to models being considered freelancers under Italian law, her lawyer discouraged her from filing a lawsuit. Years later, in 2009, working for the company BCBG, Balfe faced a similar situation, with the company first delaying its payments and then refusing to pay the models altogether alleging financial problems, but still booking them after privately reassuring their agencies that they would be paid. Against her agency's advice, Balfe decided to stop working for BCBG until she was reimbursed all the money she was owed; the company eventually complied.[15] Incidents like the aforementioned led to the creation of The Model Alliance.

Reflecting back on her career in 2013, Balfe commented: "Modelling wasn't a passion of mine so that made it get old kind of quickly. I was getting very frustrated."[4] She has stated that she will not return to modelling full-time,[16] but did not rule out occasional jobs with people with whom she has previously worked.

Balfe with Outlander co-stars Tobias Menzies and Sam Heughan

While living in New York, Balfe played the minor role of an employee of the magazine Runway in the 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada.[13] In 2009, after a decade-long modelling career, Balfe returned to her initial career choice and moved from New York to Los Angeles,[4] spending her first year and a half in the city exclusively taking acting classes, first at the Warner Loughlin Studios and then at the Sanford Meisner Center and the Judith Weston Studios.[17][18] Balfe has appeared in the films Super 8, as the protagonist's mother, Now You See Me, as Michael Caine's character's wife, and Escape Plan, as the CIA lawyer that hires Sylvester Stallone's character.[4][19]

In 2012 she portrayed Alex #34 in The Beauty Inside, a social film divided into six episodes telling the story of a man named Alex (Topher Grace) who wakes up in a different body every day.[20] In 2013 she starred in the music videos for "First Fires" by British musician Bonobo[21] and for "Chloroform" by French band Phoenix, the latter directed by Sofia Coppola.[22]

Balfe was part of the main cast of the Warner Bros. web series H+: The Digital Series during 2012 and 2013, in which she played Breanna Sheehan, one of the executives of a biotechnology company that develops an implanted computer which allows people to be connected to the Internet 24 hours a day.[23]

In September 2013 Balfe was cast as the lead character, Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser, on the Starz television series Outlander, based on the novels written by Diana Gabaldon; the series premiered in August 2014. She plays a mid-20th-century nurse who is transported back in time to the war-torn mid-18th-century Scottish Highlands.[24] Both the series and her performance have received critical acclaim,[25] with Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair saying "it helps immensely that Balfe is such an appealing actress, [she] makes Claire a spirited, principled, genuinely heroic heroine".[26] Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Balfe is "reason enough to watch; she's a confident actress who brings various shades to her character".[27] James Poniewozik of Time labelled Balfe's portrayal as "wry, [and] infectiously engaging".[28] Angelica Jade Bastién of The New York Times called Balfe "one of the most stunning actresses on television".[29]

In December 2014, Entertainment Weekly named Balfe one of its 12 Breakout Stars of 2014;[30] that month she was also voted "Woman Of The Year" at BBC America's Anglophenia Fan Favorites tournament.

In April 2015, Balfe received Best Actress in a Lead Role Drama and Rising Star Award nominations for the 12th Irish Film & Television Awards,[31][32] and was named one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People in the World". She won Saturn Awards for Best Actress on Television in 2015[33] and 2016.[34] In November 2016, Balfe won the Scottish BAFTA award for Best Actress on Television[35] and in February 2018 she won the Irish IFTA for Best Actress in a Lead Role Drama.[36] Balfe also received four nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama for her role in Outlander.[37]

Balfe co-starred in the film Money Monster (2016), directed by Jodie Foster and starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts. She played the head of PR of a company whose stock bottoms out, causing a man to lose all of his savings and subsequently take hostages on a live TV show.[38] Eric Hills of The Movie Waffler wrote "But it's relative newcomer Balfe who leaves the greatest impression; she's magnetic, stealing scenes even when her character is only glimpsed reacting to the situation on a background monitor. Expect to see a lot more of this Irish actress in the coming years."[39]

In 2019, Balfe had a recurring voice role as Tavra in the Netflix fantasy series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. The series, which was a prequel to the 1982 fantasy film The Dark Crystal and produced by The Jim Henson Company, was released to critical acclaim.[40] Also in 2019, she had a starring role opposite Matt Damon and Christian Bale in the sports drama film Ford v Ferrari. Balfe portrayed Mollie Miles, the wife of professional race car driver Ken Miles. The film received universal acclaim upon release and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.[41]