Outlander producer on print shop scene: 'Give fans something they don't expect'

Outlander type TV Show network Starz genre Romance

Fantasy

Drama

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Matthew B. Roberts knows what you are thinking: How much did he change the print shop reunion in season 3 of Outlander?

Last November, the executive producer tweeted a section of the print shop script that he wrote and the reaction from fans was immediate — if not a little paranoid.

Rest assured, Outlander nation: Roberts not only painstakingly adapted the important scene from Voyager, the third book in Diana Gabaldon’s best-selling series, he actually made it bigger and better.

“It’s not just Claire’s story. It’s Jamie and Claire’s story,” Roberts tells EW exclusively. “So, we wanted to show both perspectives. In the book, you get it from Claire’s view. She comes in the print shop. It’s really kind of told from her POV. I wanted to give Jamie’s POV of the same moment. I wanted to also give the fans the moment twice. They’ve been waiting for it for a long time! So, rather give it to them one time, you give ‘em something they don’t exactly expect.”

Image zoom Jason Bell/Starz

“It was nice for me to be able to go, ‘Alright, what was Jamie feeling during this part of the day? What was he doing?'” continues Roberts. “When I was writing the script, I tweeted out a picture of and it said ‘Interior print shop, Jamie enters.’ And the fans kind of blew up on it and were like, ‘you’re changing it! You’re ruining it! You’re going ruin it!’ And I got a big chuckle out of that because I knew what I was doing. I was kind of instigating them and firing them up because I knew what I was going to give them later. And so, hopefully they’ll enjoy it. But that was the plan all along.”

As for the performances by Sam Heughan (Jamie) and Caitriona Balfe (Claire), Roberts couldn’t praise their work enough on portraying such an intimate and special moment. “I think Cait and Sam definitely found the small moment in the reality of being apart for 20 years. And I think that’s what was special is that, no many how many different takes we did, they found it every time. That’s difficult to do.”

Outlander season 3 premieres Sept. 10 on Starz, and don’t forget to tune in at noon ET on Sept. 11 for another edition of Outlander Live! with me and Amy Wilkinson on EW Radio, Sirius XM 105.