Interesting article.

I [Fred Topel] can usually spot Ronald D. Moore at Outlander events wearing a kilt. For the Starz Television Critics Association party this summer, he was wearing khakis. I actually asked him about the switch to pants and he joked, “Well, you know, you’ve got to mix it up, keep everybody guessing.”

Season three of Outlander sees 20 years of Claire and Jamie’s lives apart, leading to Claire and Jamie’s daughter Brianna (Sophie Skelton) in the ‘60s with Roger (Richard Rankin). Here is our one-on-one interview with Moore at the TCA party including a look ahead to season four’s move to South Africa for production, and an ocean voyage for Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and Jamie (Sam Heughan).

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.”

Outlander returns September 10, 2017 on Starz.