Outlander stars Richard Rankin and Sophie Skelton have been chatting to Digital Spy about what fans can expect from their characters as the series moves forward, and rest assured it's going to be an "epic story".

Richard and Sophie, who play Roger and Brianna in the series, will reappear together in season 3, episode 4 this Sunday (October 1) on Starz in the US – but what they're really looking forward to is the season after that, which will be based on Diana Gabaldon's fourth novel in the Outlander series, Drums of Autumn.

"We read the books before we actually got the roles, and we always said the fourth book was both of our favourites for our characters and their relationship together, and also just in terms of doing the roles," said Sophie.

Starz

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"I think book four is largely why we wanted to do the roles as it is really where you see Roger and Brianna come into their own, so we are very much looking forward to filming it."

Agreeing, Richard added that being fans of the books puts them in an "advantageous" position.

"We do have the bigger picture, we can plot a nice entry for the characters and from that point onwards because we have all that material at our disposal," he explained.

"We can take these characters on a real journey and our story really kicks off in season four, I suppose."

Starz

Sophie's particularly looking forward to her character developing, explaining: "I am very protective over Brianna and there were a lot of comments about her brattiness at the end of season two.

"We have read the books, we know what is coming and for Bree, you peel more and more layers and she shows you more and more of her personality; and there is that thing that a lot of people take a long time to warm to Brianna, and by book four, that is kind of when people start to love her.

"And it's the same this season, one of the hard things is that you want to show aspects of her personality like that but you don't want to bring it in too soon, because many people haven't read the books and you don't want her to be one-dimensional, you want people to see the layers of Bree unfold and see more and more of the personality.

"Because Brianna really does grow from a girl into a young woman, I want to show that, and sometimes the hardest thing is sticking to the script and not reverting to where you know she is going to go in the book."

Richard also promised an "epic story" for Roger and Bri, but he did tease that not everything in the books will be taken to the small screen.

"In preparing for the series we still need to bear in mind we're making an adaptation of the books, so not everything we read may feature in it."

Outlander continues on Starz in the US this Sunday (October 1) and is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video in the UK.

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