Episode 310 - "Heaven and Earth"

The Official Outlander Podcast Episode 310 - Heaven and Earth

Drink of the week: The Macallan Fine Oak 15 year old Highland single malt scotch whisky

Toni: Hi everyone. Just wanna give you a heads up that on this episode we have a few scenes before the main title. So the podcast will start at the top of the show. [0:10]

[0:12] Matt: Hi, I’m Matt Roberts, executive producer and writer on Outlanderand uh, we are here in the Outlander Podcast. I’m here with Toni Graphia

Toni: Hi everyone

Matt: Who’s also…

Toni: A writer, executive producer. Of Outlander

Matt: And we’re here to watch uh, Episode 310, uh, sorry we were thrown off a little bit because we expected the main titles to start and they didn’t and um, uh, (Toni’s laughing) it’s been awhile since we saw this episode. So, anyway

Toni: They tried to trick us

Matt: Anyway, they did trick us

Toni: They tried, I think it was Mikey O’Halloran, our editor. I think he tried to trick us here

Matt: Anyway, this is Episode 310. It’s called “Heaven and Earth,” and it’s written by Luke Schelhaas. Um, a very talented writer of ours. He’s been um, uh, uh and uh

Toni: And in fact Luke um, I remember when he wrote this episode uh, when he sent us the, the writers usually send us a little list of, you know, two or three titles that they’re considering and one of his titles was, “Plague Ship.” And I remember writing back and going, “Uh, no, no. (laughing) ‘Plague Ship’ is not that exciting as a title,” and uh, luckily he came up with um, “Heaven and Earth,” and I thought that, that was actually perfect cause it’s, it, it’s a line from uh, the Jamie and Fergus storyline and it fits, fits the episode perfectly. You know, a little more poetic than “Plague Ship.”

[1:42] Matt: So over the, this episode and uh, episode nine that you saw last week um, we’re, we shot almost entirely on the ships. Um, there are a couple moments where they’re on land uh, but the undertaking of, of shooting full episodes on the ship, cause every scene you see right now, everywhere you look you’re looking out over the ocean and these we, we, we consider a, a visual effect shot um, because these uh, both ships were noton the ocean, they were on our backlot in South Africa

Toni: The parking lot, right?

Matt: Well it wasn’t a parking lot but it was a, the backlot. And um, so, you know, they were designed, you know, we, we had the Artemis designed for us and then we, we used a couple of the uh, repurposed, the ships from uh, Black Sailsuh, for the other ships. But the Artemis, the ship they’re on now, was actually just made for Outlander.And um, we could move it, it could turn so we, we, we shifted it when the sun, you know, we followed the sun so to speak. But um, still it’s a, it’s a big undertaking to do full episodes on, on the ship. So every time you see that that’s, that’s a green screen back there um

Toni: Right. I always say when we’re watching the dailies we’re kind of underwhelmed sometimes because you see a lot of green and it just, it, you know, the actors are still giving a good performance but when you’re watching them against just a green background it’s distracting and you don’t get the full, you know, sense of what the scene is. Then when we see them in the final mix and we see the, the visual effects it’s like watching them for the first time, it’s amazing. Um, and we’ve really

Matt: Here are the main titles

Toni: Here’s the main titles

Matt: I, one thing you’ll notice, last week and this week, uh, we didn’t really discuss it um, but we changed the main titles a little bit. It’s got a different beat

Toni: Yeah. It’s got a caribbean kind of flavor there

Matt: Yeah

Toni: Um, I love that, that we’ve, that the titles were able to change. The music changes, you know whether it’s French lyrics or you know it, we, we fit it uh, you know, to the season that we’re doing

Matt: Yeah. Or the, the episode portion of the season. Yeah

Toni: Or the, the portion of the season. Yeah. Um, and, and the picture, the, the visuals change too sometimes. I think some of these are the new, the new visuals, yeah

Matt: Yeah, most of these, most of these are. You see some, some of the iconic shots that you’re used to have been replaced with uh, uh, you know, where we are in the story and then we go back um, once we, once we, you know, get back to, to another portion of the story we’ll, they’ll change back

Toni: Right. I don’t know if they know how we do this but the editors will usually compile a, a selection of, of clips. They send them to us and um, and we change it a few times, everybody weighs in and we’re like, “Oh that’s a cool shot but hey, maybe this one could be replaced with something.”

Matt: But, but we also shoot, we shoot specific shots for our main titles

Toni: And we shoot specific shots, yeah

Matt: So if you guys remember

Toni: You shoot them actually, so

Matt: Yeah. If we remember this is uh...

Toni: Ah, the creme de menthe! Here it comes!

Matt: ...the ole creme de menthe, yeah.

[4:58] Toni: How did you get the water to be green there? Did it, did it, food coloring green water?

Matt: Uh, they made green water. I think so, yeah

Toni: Was it real creme de menthe? We should have had a little bit

Matt: It wasn’t, no. Cause uh, creme de menthe wasn’t uh, around in 1760, whatever.

Toni: Ah. Yeah this, this episode, I, I have to confess that um, although I liked this part of the book it’s, you know, thinking of visualizing it on TV, a whole episode about, you know, a typhoid ship, uh, (chuckling) this was one of the ones that I was like, “Eh, I, I hope I don’t get that, I really don’t want to write this one, it’s not one of the ones I’m dying to write.” Um, I had other favorites in mind and this would’ve been probably my least favorite that I personally would have wanted to do, but, as all good episodes, that’s how I know when they’re good is suddenly, you know, as, as the first drafts start coming in I go, I start liking them and when I get jealous and go, “Ah, I wish, I wish I would have written this one,” that’s, that’s when I know it’s really good. And I think uh, Luke did an amazing job on this episode and it’s, it ended up being one of my favorites um, so

Matt: You have a lot of favorites, though, Toni

Toni: Well, you know, this season, I have to say, I really like, I don’t think there’s a bad one

Matt: I, I don’t have, I don’t have any favorites and you have nothing but favorites, so it actually balances

Toni: I, I love, yeah, I have thirteen, thirteen favorites

Matt: Are you gonna tell everybody what you’re drinking?

Toni: Speaking of favorites, what, this is uh, one of, one of your favorite whiskies

Matt: Well, because uh, a lot of these uh, ships were made out of oak um, it’s, it was a very sturdy wood uh, we’re drinking The Macallan Fine Oak 15 year old Highland single malt scotch whisky. You see how we do that? We, we cleverly work um, um…

Toni: Very clever. Very clever, Matthew. Matthew Roberts

Matt: Well, maybe it’s not so clever. But anyway we’re…

Toni: (takes a drink) Mmm, mmm. Ahh. That is...

Matt: ...that’s what we’re drinking um, for the podcast um, thankfully it’s not nine in the morning so

Toni: No. We really have to be careful with the scheduling of these podcasts or we...

Matt: We do

Toni: ...(chuckles) if we expect to work, get any work done the rest of the day. Um, here we see

Matt: Well, I think Hemingway said, “Write drunk, edit sober,” so

Toni: (laughs) Well, what about the reverse?

Matt: Well that’s when you get gibberish

Toni: Ah.

Matt: That might have been uh, um, forgot what I was gonna say uh, um, I lost it. See, that’s what alcohol does, it makes you forget what you were doing

Toni: (laughing) You lost your

Matt: I lost my train of thought

Toni: You were probably about to say you hate this voiceover because I know you’re not a voiceover person.

[7:37] Matt: I’m not, I, you know, I’m not a voiceover person and, and you

Toni: But that’s why we’re a good team because I actually like voiceover

Matt: I, I know and, and Luke likes voiceover um, I’m

Toni: Oh, Luke does. Should we tell them about Lukies?

Matt: Uh, we, we could say, well, we, you’ll have to tell them about Lukies when you do the podcast for episode twelve

Toni: Oh, alright, I’ll save it til then

Matt: Yeah. Cause that has the, the, that has the, a big one

Toni: We’ll keep them in suspense but we do, we do, Luke has a specific style of writing that we started making fun of so we’ll wait and tell you when we get to a Lukie

Matt: (laughing) I’m sure he’ll, I’m sure he’ll be very happy to know that you’re, you’re outing him

Toni: (laughs) Well he’s not here, he’s actually, he’s actually in Scotland working on season four right now so um

Matt: Yeah

Toni: But we’re drinking in his honor

Matt: Um, in his stead

[8:22] Toni: Yeah, we’ll pretty much drink in anyone’s stead

Matt: Well, pretty much, yeah. Uh, so this

Toni: Speaking of, speaking of drinking, they’re making a, they’re have, they have a still going, right? Tis, cause they’re making some alcohol to use as a disinfectant um, so Claire can get some medical thing to help the

Matt: Now, the Porpoise uh, the ship they’re on now um, is um, it’s a fixed ship, it’s actually uh, a replica size so it’s a, a full size um, man-o-war, seventy four gun um, ship of the line and it’s, it’s massive and it has all the decks…

Toni: It’s beautiful, that’s a beautiful shot there

Matt: ...that we, we use but it’s stationary, can’t, you can’t move it

Toni: Right

Matt: So um, it’s, it’s fixed. Uh, it has the below, it has two decks that we can go down below on, on, on the backlot uh, Porpoise. And then we built these stages um, uh, we built these uh, decks on the actual stages so uh, you just have more, more control of the light down here. Um, and uh, what makes it difficult to film on the Porpoise is that you have to, you’re beholden to the sun, whereas on the Artemis, because the Artemis moves…

Toni: Oh right, right

Matt: ...you can, you can change, you can move um, the Artemis to keep the sun at your back all the time, cause that’s what we always aim for, we strive for backlight.

[9:56] Toni: I love the relationship here between um, Claire and Elias Pound. In the book it’s, it’s just really sweet, a special relationship. Um, this actor did a tremendous job, we were all just blown away by him. Cause this is from real life, I mean, this was authentic that kids in this era were on ships as early as six or seven years old, they would be, you know, go on board a ship and be like, kind of the errand boy and they, they grew up on, on ships and it’s just so interesting. Um

Matt: It’s just a different way of life and I think it’s one of the things in, in the writer’s room that we uh, definitely uh, we kind of beat into the people uh, the writers here is that you, you can’t think modern thoughts when you write these. You have to think that this was standard procedure back then

Toni: That’s right

Matt: This is what they, this is what they did so it, the, the person of the time, the character in that time wouldn’t be thinking a modern thought. So. It’s hard to do. I mean, it’s hard to get it out of your head

Toni: It is, you, you, it is. It’s something you have to acquire um, all the new writers, it takes them a while. It took us, it took meawhile, I know, to, you kind of have to put, put yourself in that eighteenth century mind. I mean I wasn’t a history major but I’ve read a lot of history since starting this show and I have a new appreciation of it. Every episode that we do we have to dig into whatever this, the episode is about so, for instance this, we did a lot of reading about ships. I know Luke had a, a bunch of um, books about ships um, in fact one of the ones he brought in was kind of almost a children’s book. It was just like, “Here’s the parts of a ship,” (chuckling) and, and it was written on a very, you know, elementary level but it helped us all to understand the different decks and the differences of which sailors did what and which, you know, which parts of the ship. Cause, you know, it wasn’t something I’d ever encountered in any of my um, writing or shows before

Matt: I remember uh, giving notes and I’d write back in all caps, you know, “IT IS A,” you know, “GANGWAY. IT IS A GUNNEL.”

Toni: (laughing) Well, we kept calling it a boat

Matt: Yeah. “IT IS A SHIP,” you know, it’s like

Toni: Yeah, and even uh, Ron was always like, “It’s not a boat! It’s a ship.” (laughs)

Matt: Yeah

Toni: We’re like, “Sorry, sorry, Mr. Tallship.”

Matt: “It’s not the front, it’s not the back, it’s not the side”, you know, I’d, I would write in all caps, you know

Toni: Right

Matt: Cause, you know, you want it, you want to just pound it in there so you start using it all the time. You just want to start using it in the, in, in the way you talk but also, you know, we would say, when we were there we would always say, “Port,” we would always say, “Starboard.” We wouldn’t say, you know, “Right,” or, “Left,” because that’s not how it works.

[12:44] Toni: And um, I mean, look at just this, the detail in this, this captain’s log, for instance. Uh, the prop people, the set decorators, they have to make these from scratch. They don’t exist, you don't go to the prop, you know, store or the prop warehouse and buy one of these. Every time we have a prop like that there’s people who research it and write it out in handwriting and make these things. It’s just incredible.

(silence)

[13:18] Toni: I love when Claire’s trying to explain some, you know, twentieth century concept and people are like, “That’s absurd!” You know, “How dare you say that, you know, a man could carry a disease and not, and not have it.” Um.

Matt: I think you might notice a South African accent there. Um, and South Africa was a colony um, at the time

Toni: You’re right

Matt: So we say the colonies, actually we, when we actually say “the colonies” um, in the time they would have been more specific. We say the colonies like, “Oh, there’s only one colony, it’s in America,” but there, the British empire had colonies all around the world

Toni: Yeah, it’s territories everywhere

Matt: So when, when we said, you know, we, you know, Jamaica was, you know, the, the West Indies, then, then there was South Africa, there was, uh, it was all over the, all over the world so um

Toni: A lot of these um, actors came from South Africa. The, the, not the main characters, obviously, we brought them with us from the UK but almost everyone else that’s cast in these other roles are South African talent.

Matt: We used um, so when we, we shifted production to South Africa for, for these uh, final episodes um, we brought our HODs, which would be the head, head of departments. And um, then we brought a select few crewmembers from Scotland so they would be the keys, we’d have our, our key um, hair and makeup uh, for, uh, Caitriona and Sam and then the key costumers for Caitriona and Sam. And then we brought um, uh, uh, Gary and uh, Gary Steele, the art department and um, and, and a portion of his team to get the ball rolling, to get everything going and the, once you, once you have everything designed and being built, then Gary actually left South Africa and went back to start on season four because we needed to get, we needed to get that started

Toni: Yeah, we were, we were well, we were well into prepping season four, way, way before the end of season three. Um, it made us feel a little schizophrenic at times um, to be doing two things but we overlapped season, we were lucky enough to have the two season pickup um, but it did um, accelerate things and I’ve never worked on a show that’s actually done that and

Matt: Well that’s cause it’s not done, that’s why

Toni: It’s notdone and it was a, it was um, um, a thrill and a privilege to have a two season pickup but it put a tremendous strain on all departments and even the writers because we had already started writing season four by the time this episode was shooting. We were already down the line

[16:11] Matt: Well I think, you know, even if your show does get a two season pickup they don’t uh, what, what our issue was is they had

Toni: The prep time

Matt: Well, well they also had the date picked out on when they wanted it to air and that was, that’s the difference, is when we got our season two to season three pickup they, we shifted air dates

Toni: Right

Matt: So we went, that’s what created the longer droughtlander was they shifted the air date. Everybody expected April, all of us expected April and then it was shifted to September and um, uh, you know, a lot of times people ask us questions on social media and then when we’re on panels or doing interviews and uh, most of this stuff comes from uh, Starz and uh, Sony, you know, we don’t do air dates, we don’t do any, uh, any of that stuff.

Toni: No, we don’t, we don’t have a say in that

Matt: We don’t have a say in uh, even, even when they post the podcast. We don’t, we don’t have a say in those things. That's all, all of the network um, uh, and even, you know, like Comic-Con. Are we going to Comic-Con? I don't, you know, that’s stuff that they plan and uh, I plan to avoid. I mean, no, I plan on being there!

Toni: Well you’re busy, very busy with work

Matt: I know. I’ve missed Comic-Con every year because I have been prepping

Toni: Well you’re, yeah, you’re, you’re in the UK. Um, here Jamie, we just heard him say the line about heaven and earth and his definition of, you know, loving someone is that you’d move heaven and earth to help them or save them and he’s sort of testing Fergus here for his own purposes like, “Help me get out,” cause he wants to go after Claire. Um, but Fergus loves him and is like, “Hmm, can I, can I do this for him?” Um, it’s a story, that story is not in the book um, but we wanted to do, we love the relationship between Fergus and Jamie. His, you know, sort of, they’re adopted family um

Matt: But I think that was one of the questions you, we often get asked. “Why did you change this from the book?” And what, you know, one of, my typical response is, “We didn’t, we don’t change the book at all. We never change the book. You can go back a thousand times and read it a thousand times and it’s exactly the same.” And I know that’s not what people want to hear but it’s the truth. We don’t change the book. We are a different beast altogether, I mean the, the books are huge, we could never do them. But we have to give story sometimes to um, uh, another character to tell the story. So Fergus has to have a story in this episode. Now he may not have had one in the, in the book, at this point. But we needed to give him one because he’s here, so you have to service, what we would say, we have to service the character on screen or, or they become just an accessory and you can’t do that, you know, you just can’t do that to, to the actor, and you can’t do that to the character. So I, I think when you, when, when, when it’s, it’s very tough to do and, and we, we, we try to give reasons for it, but the fact of the matter is this is a, this is a television show. This is a different medium and we have to tell the story in a different way

Toni: Right, right. And we, we do all love the books. We’ve all read the books many times um, and we all have different favorite parts that we write, write and bring into the show, but we also have to put a little bit of ourselves, we’re, we are here to make a TV show and it’s expected by the network that we don’t just translate the book literally. We’re, we’re supposed to bring our, our, our own talents and visions into it and, and, and meld them together and bring the, the best of both. And we always respect the book and try to get everything we can in but we’ve, we’ve brought things in that, even fans will say, “Oh I love that part and you did such a great justice to the book.” And we’ll go, “Well that part wasn’t in the book!” Um, because even, even we have lost track at times of what’s in the book and what’s not. We do try to write in the spirit of the book. We would never do anything that was the opposite of the book but we, we’ve, we like to think that we fill in um, we fill in the book and expand it um, using our own imaginations and spurred by our love of the characters and where we think they might go

Matt: I think a good example is that, in the book, after the reunion, Jamie and Claire have some bumps in the road. But it’s spread out in the book. It’s not con, it’s not in one, one moment. And since we wanted to do it and get it out of the way, we, we condense it. Like a lot of story gets condensed. And I think there’s a visceral, a visceral reaction to, “Hey, you’ve changed who the character..” Well we, well we haven’t, we just show you it in more of a microcosm and that’s why you’re having a reaction to it, you’re like, “Oh, this is not how they are in the book.” Well you’re right, they’re not that way in the book, they’re different in the book because there’s, there’s a lengthy two hundred pages in between um, and not twenty minutes. And so we have twenty minutes to show the same thing that Diana takes two hundred, three hundred pages to do. And that’s why I think that you have a different emotional reaction to it.

[21:48] Toni: I think um, what people don’t realize about the business of television is that there’s never a book that’s bought and given a mandate to the, to the TV writers to do exactly what’s in the book. In fact most of, most of the times it’s, “Use this as a jumping off point and do your own thing.” I think we stick closer to the book maybe than other, than any other TV show does um, but

Matt: Not to name names but there are a lot of shows that will keep, you know, uh, that, they kill characters they don’t like and just move on and, and, hey but look, we, we, the biggest adjustment we’ve made is, uh, for characters, we kept one that was beloved um, alive

Toni: Yeah! Yeah, and then people applaud that, so I think, you know, it’s challenging for us. We, we really, oh, we work so hard and that, I know, you know, we just want the audience out there to know that our intent is always to um, give them something that they’ll like, but we do realize that not everyone’s gonna like every single episode. And that’s okay because even on any TV show, my favorite TV shows I watch, there’s some I don’t like as much as the others, but you know what, I respect the writers, I go along for the ride, and we just trust that our audience is on this voyage, um, no pun intended (chuckles) to, to, you know the, they’re on this ride with us and if I was a fan of the book and everything I watched I knew in advance because I’d read it, I think I’d be disappointed. I think I would um, expect to be a little bit surprised along the way and that’s what we um

Matt: Well I think that’s, that’s what we’re, that’s what literally we’re here for is to give the audience uh, what they want, but just not how they expected it and that’s…

Toni: Yeah!

Matt: ...that’s the key to writing this, this book, these books is to, to give them the unexpected because if you expect every moment you’re just not, you know, hey look, I’ve read all the books. I’ve read them you know, twenty years ago, so I, I know these books and I, you know, I’m, I’m a big proponent of, “Hey, this is going to be neat for a fan to see. We gave it to them in a slightly different way and they’re going to be surprised.”

Toni: Right

Matt: Just like we did with the uh, the reunion episode. You, we could’ve done it exactly like the book, they would have had Claire’s POV and then it would’ve been over. But you get a little bit of, you get Jamie’s POV, so you get double and, and I think that’s what we’re doing here

Toni: Well, a lot of people really love that and we get, I mean, overwhelmingly more positive response than negative. Uh, occasionally a few people won’t like something but, again, if they, if you aren’t on board with the TV show, you always will have the book, even Diana says that. You always have the books and if it’s so beloved to you, you can stick with the books. If you want to come along our ride, there’s gonna be a little bit different here and there, and we hope that we do justice to it. We all, just know that we always try to do justice to the books and that that’s our goal. We all love Anika in this, we all were like, “Oh, the ‘My goats need grass!’” (chuckles) We, we all laughed about this in the writer’s room. We thought it would be really fun and um

[25:06] Matt: “I keep do.” (Toni laughs) Yeah, that was the line. I think we, at the read through we all laughed uh, out loud, so um

Toni: We actually film the, you know, we do, we do, I don’t know if people know this, but we do a read through for every episode where, after we have the final production draft, everyone sits around a table, most of the cast members are there, including the guest cast, and they read it out loud and that’s where we kind of do our final adjustments for dialogue um, for how it sounds, for the pacing. Not that they perform it, completely outright at the read through but, but we do get the flavor of, of the rhythm of it and, it’s videod, whether it’s in South Africa or Scotland, they video the read through and, uh, the next day everyone at the writer’s office, all the writers, all the assistants, we watch it together every week and we take notes and we see kind of what works, what doesn’t, what the actors, which lines they stumbled over, which lines maybe they improvise a tiny bit of their, their own stuff in, you know, to make it smooth for, so it fits in their own, in their own rhythms and we, we keep tweaking up til the last minute. We work so hard to get it perfect

Matt: We also, uh, we also destroy those uh, uh, tapes so no, because once, cause we dont’, that’s something for, it’s a working thing, we don’t want those to

Toni: It’s a work in progress and um, but that’s the kind of attention to detail that we’re very serious about doing because we want so bad to get it right, to get it where everyone’s happy with it and we learn so much from watching something like that. It’s almost like um, a theater piece. You know, you watch it being just read without all the distractions of the sets and dailies

Matt: Well, what happens, what happens is when you read, you, you’re writing a script and you read the dialogue over and over again, you begin to read it um, in your voice, but you also, you also miss things, cause you’re reading it over and over and over again. And that’s where typos happen. But when somebody else reads it and they put their own inflection on it, it’s completely different. And I think that’s the other thing what, that happens from the book dialogue to, to the show dialogue is, when you read something, you put your own inflection on it. The, the “he saids” and the, the “she saids” are kind of read over most of the time and you’re putting your own inflection on uh, whether you know it or not, you do. And that’s why you have a different image of a scene sometimes. And that’s why we always say, this is the TV show and not the book is because you’re getting actors performing the moments and they are putting theirinflection on, on each word so. And we tone things like, so this, this moment was, is careful that we didn’t want um, the, the, the, the cook here to be tooevil. So it was toned in a way that, that Claire puts him back on his heels, even though he has a very stern look, he gets nervous. There’s a nervousness when he says, “I had no intention.” Because his, his life, so it had to be, it had to be, we had to be careful with it, so

Toni: Yeah, and a tone meeting, I know we’ve mentioned it before, but a tone meeting is where uh, we meet with the director and we explain what we want for the tone of the scene because directors, remember, are visiting for the most part. They’re, they don't work on the show. In fact, a director may do many many many shows a year. Uh, a lot of times, sometimes, they haven’t, maybe not even seen your show. But usually it’s someone who’s seen your show, liked your show

Matt: All our directors, all our directors have, have seen our shows, yeah

Toni: Our directors, we make sure they’ve seen the show and know the show

Matt: Yeah. Seen, and we give all the scripts, they know, they know what we do

Toni: But, sometimes they step off of an airplane and they come straight to the set and they start their prep. So we, it’s our job to get them up to speed on what our show is, to give them kind of a crash course in um, how our show operates, what our characters are, and where the storylines are going because, even if we give them um, previous episodes to read, to get up to speed, they don’t know, necessarily where we’re going. So we have to tell them, “Hey, make sure you do this scene a certain way because it’s going to play in a later episode. You can’t cut these lines,” or, “You can’t drop this scene because we need it,” and the, the director relies on us um, they’re all very talented but they rely on us uh, for the continuity and the tone of the show so that they’re not making their own little movie that doesn’t fit with what the Outlander um, tone is

[29:48] Matt: Well, we also have uh, what we call creative producers who, one of our writers on set for each block. One, one writer covers uh, a block, which is two episodes. And um, that’s happened from day one, on every episode from the, from the beginning. And um, we uh, it’s important because that person, whoever it is, will, on a day to day basis keep the tone of the show um, um, uh, keep the continuity and the, and the structure and the tone of the show um, steadfast

Toni: Right, right. But yet, you know, the point is there’s a lot of, we try to keep a lot of cohesiveness in our intentions, in what our plan is for the episode but there are many voices that um, come into play here and sometimes something a fan sees may be, it may be that the, it was the writer, something they put in, it may be something in how the director interpreted it, it may be how a certain actor interpreted it in the moment, um, this is a collaborative medium so, you know

Matt: We also, we also...it is, we have the, the studio and network uh, weighing in

Toni: The studio and network weigh in and give us notes

Matt: There’s a lot of, there’s a lot of um, we always say, “If you wanna, if you want to do something alone, be a painter.” Because uh, you just uh, um, this is, this is a medium where there are a lot of voices all the time

Toni: It, there’s a, there’s many voices but these things get discussed over and over and over in great detail and sometimes compromises are made. Sometimes they come out for the better sometimes we’re like, looking back we wish we would’ve fought harder on certain things. Um, but I think overall, no, we’re very, very proud of what we’ve done and we have to stand behind whatever decisions get made um

Matt: I’ll stand right behind you, Toni

Toni: (laughs) Well, there’s a saying that, that’s very appropriate for Outlanderwhich is, that it’s better to fall on your own sword. So sometimes we fight for things, because you know what, if it doesn’t work, at least it was, we’re falling on our own sword. I don’t like to give in on something and then have it fall flat and then go, you can’t go, “Well that wasn’t me!” You know, “That was somebody else.” Um, so

Matt: Well we’re a team, that’s the thing

Toni: So we’re a team and we take the fall for each other and we stand up for each other

Matt: We, we win as a team, yeah.

Toni: And we, I believe, you know, in all the years I’ve been doing this, I think we have the best cast, we have the best crew, we have the best network and studio. Even when we disagree with those entities uh, for me and, I have to say, this is the best group of people I’ve worked with. And that, you know, that’s just a pleasure to be able to say after all these years um, and if something doesn’t work once in awhile, you know, we have to live with that, but everyone likes a different thing. Cause, as soon as there’s something someone doesn’t like, someone else writes in and says, “I love that part! I love that.” And even things that I’m like, “Eh, I’m not sure about that,” someone else will love it. And something maybe that I love, someone ends up not liking so, this is all subjective

[33:10] Matt: It’s the uh, it’s the world we live in now, is there’s immediate feedback. You know, before when we worked on shows you didn’t know what anybody thought, you know, you’d read a critic’s review of it every now and then and if the show kept going you just, you know, there were fans but you just didn't know about it. Now it’s, you know, direct contact, more than, and, and um, so there’s immediate feedback but we can’t, the, the, the thing is you just can’t, you can’t let that dictate a lot of what we do because…

Toni: No, we can’t, we can’t

Matt: ...everybody has a different interpretation

Toni: Everybody. It’s almost like a game of telephone. When something goes through the, you know, everyone has a different opinion. It, things get interpreted and

Matt: But it’s, it goes back to, and I used this analogy on, on Twitter once, is that, when we were in South Africa, in South Africa, butternut squash is used for everything. And I don’t like butternut squash

Toni: I love butternut squash!

Matt: I know, see and there, that’s a perfect example (Toni laughs) is that, there’s something that you may love about Outlanderand the very next, the person next to you could go, “Oh, I, I don’t, I don’t really, that, that didn’t, I didn’t love that part of the book, but I love this part of the book.” And that could be something that you don’t and, and, and that’s the, that’s the thing about these, is you can never guess what it is. And that’s what happens in the writer’s room. There, this is, in the book, you said this wasn’t your, your favorite part, but you, it, you’ve come to love it in the television show because

Toni: Right. That’s right. But I haven’t, I’ve not liked things that I’ve written. I, I was like, “Please don’t give me this episode,” and then once I wrote it I liked it, or I’ve written something I thought, “Mm, I did my best but I wish, eh, I wish it was,” and then people have loved it and that makes me feel great. Or things that I wrote I thought were really great and people were like, “Eh, yeah, that’s okay,” and then I’m like, “You’re kidding, you didn’t love that? I thought you’d love that.” (Matt laughs) But you know, that’s being a writer, I mean, when you’ve done it for this many years you realize that, you know, you’re not gonna please everyone so you gotta please yourself. You gotta be true to what, and, and people have to trust us that we’ve done this for a long time. We always always do our best. On this show more than any others, nobody considers it just a job. Nobody just goes, “This is my paycheck, this is what I do from nine to five and I’m going home and I’m not thinking about it.” I can guarantee you that everyone on this production uh, we, we live, eat, and breathe Outlander. We love it, we call each other on the weekends. I go home and work on this until literally I nod off and slump over because I love this show and um, it’s 24/7 and so um, I, I just think, I don’t know, I don’t know that we’ll ever have an experience like this again so I really hope it goes for many years. I’m like, “Diana, keep writing!” (chuckles) We want to do this for a long time

[36:08] Matt: I’ve, we’ll never, we’ll never catch up to the book

Toni: No, well (laughs)

Matt: Anyway we uh, if you remember this gentleman from episode six and uh, seven, uh, well actually, really just uh, seven. Um, that was Barton uh, Mr. Creme de Menthe and uh, we had a lot of debate about the eye, how milky it should be, the scars

Toni: Well they sent us pictures, remember? They sent us like, ten pictures like, “Is this milky enough? Is this?” We’re like, “Eh, that looks,” you know, um

Matt: You know it was the, you know, how, how intense we wanted the scars and. Those, that’s always a process it, you know, we talk about all the little details that we go through. It, it, you’d be amazed on a day to day basis what the meetings look like it, when you’re on prep it’s, you go from the scar meeting and then you go to the, you know the headband meeting, and then you go to the, you know, cause, uh, what is the vomit going to look like on, you know, what are the, the sores are going to look like. We, we go through each individual scene

Toni: Yeah

Matt: And we call it a page turn. It’s what we, we

Toni: Yeah, cause literally we turn the pages of the script and go, “Page one, what does everybody think? What do we have to decide here?” You know, “Where, where will this take place? What will, what will it look like? What are the details?” Um, “Do we have to pick out a song? Here’s ten songs. Which one do you want the guys to sing?” Um, I thought the milky eyed guy looked a little too, I think I weighed in on he looks a little too much like a horror movie. I wasn’t, I wasn’t, what I, there were others that felt like he needed to look as sort of

Matt: Well we have, we had photos of real milky eyes and that’s, the, we, we

Toni: And that’s what they look like, yeah

Matt: Yes, that’s what it looked like, so

[38:10] Toni: I love that they have goats on the ship. And this is a historical fact, see, that I didn’t know. When we researched it, obviously, ships took animals along for, for milk and cheese

Matt: No, for food

Toni: And, well

Matt: That’s how you kept the animals, that’s how you kept the food fresh (Toni laughs) is you kept them alive until you had to use them

Toni: Eh, well then they’re eating the goats, they’re eating goat cheese, it’s awesome

Matt: Well, they’re not at the moment, but that’s uh, it was it, it’s one of the ways they, you know, you preserve food by keeping it alive and then using it only when necessary. Cause they had no way of, of doing that so

Toni: Right. Well I love that, you know, they didn’t even allow, really, women on ships at all. They were bad luck, in fact. But Claire’s on the ship um, this is

Matt: On some ships. Some ships

Toni: Some ships. There’s only one other woman on this ship and that’s because she’s the wife of, of um

Matt: One of the soldiers

Toni: One of the guys

Matt: The marines

Toni: And, and her job is to tend the goats. And I love that, even though there’s a language barrier here, she bonds with Claire and Claire saves her husband. Um, and she wants to help Claire to save Claire’s husband. But Claire’s like, “Whatcha talking about? (chuckles) What do you mean, ‘My goats needs grass?’” Grass.

[39:31] (both laugh)

Matt: Maybe some voice over here would help. (Toni laughs) Ah, that was me being snarky, sorry

Toni: Voiceover is good. Voiceover is good. I like this shot cause it’s like

Matt: I like, it, I’ll say it. I like the voiceover when it, it gives you something...else. Something that’s not just

Toni: It can be overused

Matt: Well, I think, I think the one thing that we have is, is a very smart audience, you know.

Toni: Definitely, definitely

Matt: They’re very smart, they, they know how to watch that um, we don’t uh, need to clarify things um, all the time

Toni: Mm. Claire-ify

Matt: Yeah, that was clever, wasn’t it?

Toni: Very clever Matthew Roberts. (laughs) (pause) Um, I think something that’s different here from the book is that we don't see Jamie’s point of view.

Matt: No

Toni: I believe that once Claire is kidnapped we’re with her all the way and we don’t come back to Jamie um, but we made the decision um, that we wanted to see what Jamie would have been going through. Here, here’s an, a great example of, of how we augment the book because what's happening with Jamie while Claire is on this typhoid ship. And, you know, if I was a fan I’d be like, “This is great! I get to see something that wasn’t there.” Um, it doesn’t mean anything was wrong with the book. It’s just a different decision that gets made and it’s multiple artists giving their point of view of how things would go

Matt: But it also goes back to, once again, in service of the character we, we have to, you, you have to service the character in the stories. We’ve done this a couple of times where we, we’ve stayed out of uh, in season one I think we, we did that once where we were out of Jamie’s POV, where we didn’t see Jamie at all in the episode. And we probably should’ve dropped in, you know, in hindsight we probably should have dropped in with him a little bit but it, in the book you were without him and that built tension and we thought, we, you know, we wanted to do the same thing, is build that same tension

Toni: Right

Matt: Um, and it’s tough to know, you know, when to do it, when not to do it. It, it’s always a, a challenge.

Toni: Well we debated and we have a lot of spirited debates, as we always say, in the writers’ room and um

Matt: We use the word spirited, you can add your own, add your own adjective, yeah, add your own

Toni: Spirited. Really we’re, okay, we’re having fistfights (laughs). We’re, we’re wrestling in the writers’ room and we do, we have a diverse group of people with very different opinions. Everyone’s got a different character, advocates, advocates for different storylines. Um, this stuff isn’t, we don’t just toss it off. We put a lot of care and a lot of thought into everything and um

(silence)

Toni: Like, it’s seeing Claire with all the guys and the songs and here comes uh

Matt: Well I think one thing that Claire is very comfortable is being around a lot of men

Toni: Well yeah, she was in World War II and um

Matt: Well not only that, but, you know, Culloden and all the other things she’s done

Toni: Culloden in there and Prestonpans and everything else. Here’s something very sad. I think this was um, a lot of our, a lot of us, it was our favorite part where she

Matt: I think we, we had a moment here where we wanted to, like, what would, Claire’s a, Claire’s a, a healer. She knows how to do this

Toni: Compartmentalize

Matt: But she also knows how to, you know, she knows when someone’s gonna die and when they’re not and for her to pretend to be his mother to give him a peaceful, you know, uh, send off um, is, is, it’s heartbreaking to do but she has such a great bedside manner um, that that was one of the, I think, really pretty moments in the, in the show

Toni: Yeah. I think you added that part um, where she says, “Yes, it’s mother.”

Matt: I did, it, you know, it was a, something that speaks to what she did earlier uh, in the, the series when she was with Geordie and Dougal

Toni: That’s right

Matt: And uh, it’s a, kind of a callback to that

[44:03] Toni: And the rabbit’s foot. I mean, we, Matt and I have talked, talked through the, throughout the season as using a rabbit as sort of a, it’s very subtle, but if you’re paying attention while, you’ll notice that we use rabbit. You know, Jamie saw the rabbit at Culloden um, Brianna had a, a stuffed bunny that was her favorite stuffed animal

Matt: She lost it, she, the bunny got trapped uh, in the crib so, you’ll, you’ll hear them throughout, yeah

Toni: And she had lost it, yeah, and he’s got a rabbit’s foot for luck and a rabbit, a mention of a rabbit may appear later this season if you’re paying attention

Matt: Well in season, in episode three the guys were uh, uh, trapping rabbits when Jamie is, escaped. So there are, there’s mentions throughout the, the season um, uh, you guys, you know, read into that as much as you want

Toni: Well this, I love this. God, it makes me cry every time I watch it. This was something I believe Luke added from some research he’d done. This wasn’t in the book but um, he had done some research that um, you would put the stitch through the nose to make sure the, the person was dead and, you know, Caitriona just, ah, she just kills us there with her, you know, and um. You know, she talked to Elias earlier about how she’s able to, to even do the job, job that she does, by compartmentalizing and not mixing her feelings with what her job is. And here, you know, is a moment she couldn’t compartmentalize because she cared about Elias, she saw potential in him and she feels guilty that she didn’t see the signs that maybe he was becoming ill and she lost him and it’s a huge loss for her. She’s a, she’s a doctor but she never stops feeling

Matt: Well we took this, you know, we talked to real, you know, we talked to real physicians, doctors and um, about how, how it is that they can do that, you know um. My, my brother’s a paramedic

Toni: Paramedic, yeah

Matt: He’s been one for a long time and he, you know, I talked to him about it a little bit and that’s, you know, you go in, you rely on your training, you do the job and then you move on to, to, because if you, if you feel for, and I’m not saying you don't feel at all, but if you give all your emotions to every patient you, you won’t survive. You’ll end up being a, a mess. So this is one of those moments where Claire, you know, kind of gave in to it. She, she, and it hurt her. You know what I mean? She wouldn’t, as a surgeon, she’s working on a body part. That’s what we were talking to a surgeon about. They’re working on that body part. Of course they want you to live and they want you to survive that’s, that’s a given. But they can, they can do that, they can focus. And that’s what you want is a really focused surgeon, I know I would!

Toni: Yeah, yeah. Um, hmm.

Matt: Uh oh

Toni: Here we go

[47:12] Matt: So this is uh, a yellow flag is a quarantine flag. Or, essentially you got uh, a plague on your, your ship so. Uh, we uh, this is a beach

Toni: This beach is in South Africa

Matt: It was, yep

Toni: Um, you had to scout beaches, right? And you picked out, I remember, you kept sending me pictures of beaches and saying, “This beach is for this scene, this beach is for that scene,” um

Matt: Yeah, you can’t spread the production crew, you know, a, a thousand miles over beaches so we had to find an area that we could shoot for three or four different episodes and uh, we found a few that worked for us all within, you know, like a five, ten mile radius, or not radius, a strip um, so uh, that was close enough to the studios that we could get there. Um, there were gorgeous beaches that were hundreds of miles away that we just couldn’t get to but um

Toni: Right. One time didn’t you plan on something and then the tide came up and surprised you? And you had to move every, the production really quickly, or?

Matt: Yes. We, we did and, and the fans will see that at some point but

Toni: I can’t remember which, which episode that was but, it’s further down the road. But I thought that was funny when I heard that story. They’d all set up and then, whoops! Here comes the tide. Move everything up the beach!

Matt: Yeah. there’s a lot of things in, in shooting um, that, and filming that happen. Um, especially when you’re on a tight schedule, you know. So when we go out, say to a location like this, we’re out there for the day and, and in, in filming one episode a lightning storm hit right in the middle of, of filming and that means you have to stop. You can’t film when that happens. And, when I say a lightning storm, I mean it, the, the lightning struck just a few hundred yards away. And not even a few, maybe a hundred yards away. And, and everybody had to go, “That’s it! Party over! Everybody inside.” So they got into the trailers and, and, kind of locked down. Because, and that, that, that's time wasted, you don’t get that time back

Toni: Right.

Matt: Um, and you’ll notice it’s a beautiful sunny day and, and um, many of the, the cast and crew had no idea what that big orange glowy thing was in the sky (Toni laughs)

Toni: The Scots were like, “Wait, sunshine! What’s going on?”

Matt: We had to, we had to pause for a moment and uh, put on sunblock, which we’ve never had to do in almost three seasons of filming (Toni laughs). Uh, so that was uh, it, but, but that had its challenges just as well because, you know, when we left Scotland it was the middle of winter. And when we arrived in South Africa it was the middle of summer. So, you know, we went from forty, thirty to forty degree temperatures…

Toni: Wow

Matt: ...to, you know, a hundred degree temperatures. Uh, those of you who are on Celsius can do the math. Uh, sorry. And it was more like, in the zeros and up into the forties. So uh, that was Celsius for those of you that do that. And uh, this, this is also one of the things that we, we wanted to incorporate more of um, there’s some of it. But it’s the Jamie in the, in the looking at uh, the pictures of, of Brianna. And I think that was something we wanted to show over the course of the season and I know when he, when he looks at them in six, he didn’t, he didn’t take a ton of time with them. And it’s also, I think, maybe also Sam knew that he had read forward so he knew that he was going to be doing it more. Um, but I think it’s, it’s this thing that we want to show that, that he is getting to know his daughter over the course of the season.

[50:57] Toni: Right. That’s right, we, I mean, he was in shock when she first came back and he saw the pictures of his daughter. But we’d always planned to have a little bit in each episode where he says, “Tell me about Brianna.” Or he looks at the pictures and he’s absorbing it and getting to know her and hearing stories about her for a long time, you know.

Matt: You know, it’s one of the, the tougher things that, when you, when you decide to put the scripts out, so when we publish scripts to production or the actors um, there’s a, there’s a timing that you do it. Cause, if they’re playing a pes, specific um, moment you, sometimes you don’t want them to know what's coming because you don’t want them to play that

Toni: No. If you knew that, that's why I don’t read ahead in the books. If I knew what was coming, this person was dying, or this person would fall in love with that person, it would affect what was going on in the moment. I’d know, I’d know too much. Because we don’t know that in life.

Matt: But we also, we’ve said that to, the, you know, you’re having a meeting with, with the actors and, not just Cait and Sam but all, a lot of the actors, and you say, “But you don’t, you don’t know that. In the moment you don’t know that this happens.” Because a lot of our actors, they have the luxury of reading the books. We also say that, “Hey, some of the things that are in the book that weren’t, we, we can’t play so you can’t play that, because the audience won’t understand, you know, why you’re doing a certain thing if you’re playing, you know, if you’re playing a scene a certain way and it’s, it, we’re not, we know we’re not gonna play that other scene, then it, it, it…”

Toni: Well this is a good example right here, because we don’t know that Fergus and Marsali are going to fall in love. And we didn’t want Fergus or her to be playing that or for, for Jamie to know that she would eventually be his daughter-in-law, as well as his daughter, uh, cause he adopted Laoghaire’s kids. And we don’t want Claire to know that one day, you know, Laoghaire’s daughter is gonna be on a ship with her and that they’re gonna be family. Um. Now this is great, this is, I love this cause it’s so badass of Claire. It’s like, “Jump! (chuckles)If you really want to save your husband jump into the ocean.” I remember reading the book and being like, gobsmacked by this. Like, “She’s what?! She’s jumping off the boat into the middle of the ocean in the middle of the night?” And um

[53:29] Matt: This uh, the height of this, when we, we got up there and we actually looked down um, one of the, one of the things we, you know, you look at, we definitely wanted to show how high it is, but it’s easily a three, three story building, if not more it’s, off the water. It’s a very very tall uh, uh, or the, the, the drop is significant. So um, we uh, we did this a couple of times uh, on the tall, in, in the, in the deep tank, we brought, we built a, we put a crane out there and we dropped things off of it to see…

Toni: Oh yeah, that’s cool

Matt: ...um, see what it looked like

Toni: Before we dropped our actress off it (laughs)

Matt: Well we didn’t drop our actress off uh, Caitriona did not jump, uh

Toni: But I remember in the editing room going, no, but it was like, “Where do we end it? Do we end it as she just jumps? Do we end it in the water? Do we end it in, you know, what would be the most dramatic, you know, ending?” But I just think that it’s so cool that she just takes this, quote, leap of faith

Matt: Well that’s what it is

Toni: I know. Cause she would, they would do anything to, to find each other, save each other. And I, I just think this is like a superhero moment. I mean I would put her up against any, you know, any of the superhero women in any show, any, any

Matt: So what we did here is we went out um, onto the deep tank and we built, we built the, like a three story high platform and we, and we had uh, a stunt double jump

Toni: Jesus Roosevelt Christ!

Matt: And they held the camera, and that's what they did, so

Toni: I love it. I love, I love going all the way. All the way to hit the water

Matt: I do too, I do too, because it’s

Toni: You couldn’t just have her jump it would look like, I don't know. But I love it. You're Imagining her, until next week, you have to imagine her floating in that dark water. I think it’s awesome

Matt: But we also did a point of view shot. So we brought the audience with us, with her, into that water and said, “This is what it would have looked like for her to go into that water.” Anyway, uh, thank you everybody for uh, being with the

Toni: Thank you, and um, we’re talking to the opening, through the closing credits. The opening credits, too much whisky. Um, take a moment to look at all the closing credits, all the people that work on this show, you know, um, there’s so many people I, I don’t even know, two hundred plus people that work on this show. But you see all the names here and all of them contribute and we couldn’t do what we do without them so, um, here’s to everyone that’s made Outlanderseason three what it is. We’re very proud of it. Thank you for being with us. Cheers!

Matt: Cheers!

Transcribed 3/22/18 by Shelsy J.