Sam Heughan & Jessica De Gouw Gossip About ‘The Couple Next Door’

Fear not, Sam Heughan fans. Just as the Starz drama Outlander Season 7, Part 2 comes to a close, Heughan’s contemporary domestic thriller, The Couple Next Door, will debut on Starz. Loosely adapted from the Dutch series New Neighbours, the six-part series first aired at the end of 2023 on Channel 4 and now gets its North American airing. The Couple Next Door unearths the secrets and lies simmering within the relationships of two couples: Danny and Becka Whitwell, played by Heughan and Jessica De Gouw (Vienna Blood), and Evie Greenwood and Pete Thomas, played by Eleanor Tomlinson (Poldark) and Alfred Enoch (The Critic), who live next door to one another in suburbia. 

The couples meet after Evie and Pete move into the Whitwell’s seemingly bucolic neighborhood in Yorkshire. Unbeknownst to the other, both couples are in the throes of some potent interior drama. Local cop Danny Whitwell’s been hiding financial and personal secrets from his besotted yoga instructor wife. Meanwhile, pregnant Evie and Pete are trying to bridge the distance created by their disappointing fertility issues. When they all start to commingle as new friends, unexpected attraction, old resentments, and betrayals make themselves known. 

Directed by Dries Vos (Suspect) and written by David Allison (Marcella), the series gives the audience a voyeur's peek into the messy interpersonal relationships we know are swirling around us every day. Despite the poor decisions made amongst this foursome, the twisty scripts and the engaging performances from the ensemble cast make getting all up in their business pretty addictive. 

We chatted with The Couple Next Door co-stars Jessica De Gouw and Sam Heughan about what intrigued them about this contemporary thriller and the dynamics of their character’s unconventional marriage.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Telly Visions: Over the last decade, both of you have chosen various television series projects, including several period pieces; The Couple Next Door is so contemporary, so I'm curious: What about the story or your particular character that made you want to invest in this series? 

Jessica De Gouw: I was sent the script, and I thought there was an interesting and quirky version of this. It has this very odd flavor to it that I was very interested in; I thought if this is the right team, and they get the right actors who can give performances that elevate and challenge, then I think this will be something really fun. And, of course, we have the actors that we have, and if those guys are on board, then I'm 100% in. We had a beautiful time. 

The talent of this cast and Dries Vos, who has such an interesting take on things, did bring out that quirkiness. At times, it feels a bit David Lynch-ian, and that's what interests me. You've got this suburban noir or psychological drama, so how do we do something a little different? I think we've done that.

Sam Heughan: I'd worked with Dries before on Suspect [which is streaming on BritBox] and had such a blast with him. I enjoyed his quirkiness, actually, and his genius. He films very fast. Sometimes, we'd only have one take. Sometimes, the shot's on the back of your head. He just really approached things differently from how I'm used to, and the Belgian crew as well. It's a very different way of shooting and working and then playing a character that's quite different from what I've been playing recently. 

All of that, combined with then finding out who else was playing in this ensemble piece, was, where do I sign up? Because it's such a great project.

TV: At the start of the series, your characters are already having their share of secret keeping and communication issues. And then Evie and Pete arrive like ignition sticks to accelerate your issues. 

De Gouw: I feel like when we meet Danny and Becka, they are at a crisis point and a point of disconnection. Something was going to happen to break it open at some point, but then you put in Pete and Evie, and it certainly ignites a catastrophic situation for all four of them. But, I think historically, Danny and Becka live an alternative lifestyle and have set their own terms for their relationship and what it looks like. And that, in the past, has worked for them and has given a richness to their relationship. But that's not where they are right now. So yeah, chaos ensues. 

Come back for our The Couple Next Door finale post-mortem with De Gouw and Heughan in February. 

The Couple Next Door Season 1 airs/streams new episodes weekly on Fridays on the Starz linear channel at 9 p.m. ET, the Starz app, and all Starz streaming and on-demand platforms.