Showbiz Junkies sat down with showrunner/executive producer/writer Ronald D. Moore at the recent TCA summer press tour to discuss season three of Outlander. The first question and answer is hysterical! Sorry, Richard Rankin. And the second question solidifies that Ron really wants Tobias to come back for season four and five. Excerpts are below, but head over to Showbiz Junkies to read the whole interview.
One of the fans asked about the decision to have Roger with a full beard. Why was it decided vs. clean shaven?
Ronald D. Moore: “I think we just decided that Richard looks really good in a beard. It was literally about that simple. I think he shaved it at one point and then we went, ‘Oh.’ If I’m remembering the order of events correctly, Maril (Davis) will correct me if I’m wrong, I think we saw him audition in a beard and then I think we saw him shaven and we all kind of went, ‘Aww, he looked so cool in the beard. Let’s have him grow it back.’ And it looked really good.”
How does Brianna as an adult change the dynamic between Claire and Frank?
Ronald D. Moore: “We don’t play that too much because the way the season is structured, she’s just graduating high school and then Claire and Frank (Tobias Menzies) have their ultimate break and then he passes away. So, you don’t really get a chance to explore that aspect of the relationship too much this season. We have talked about in later years, season four and five, as we get more into Brianna, we might be talking more about her backstory and her relationship with her father and then maybe more about what it was like when there were the three of them and she was on the cusp of adulthood.”
Do the time jumps over the 20 years happen at relatively the same intervals?
Ronald D. Moore: “No. We did try to structure that initially but it didn’t really match up so it’s not literally five years pass in Jamie’s story and five years in Claire’s. It’s more thematic. Thematically things are parallel in between the stories but not literally in terms of chronology.”
Source: Showbiz Junkies
