Here’s a new interview with Ron D.Moore and Sam Heughan from Zap2it

From Zap2It:

Diana Gabaldon published the novel “Outlander” in 1991, which means fans have had 14 years to prepare for the events that finally aired on TV during the Starz series’ Season 1 finale.

That didn’t make the watching of them any easier.

“It’s intense stuff,” showrunner Ron Moore tells Zap2it of the May 31 episode. In it, viewers watched hero Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan) be emotionally and sexually tortured by villain Black Jack Randall (Tobias Menzies), and then struggle with the ramifications of those events after he’s saved by his wife/the show’s main character, Claire (Caitriona Balfe).

Read more after the jump!

–

The Jamie and Black Jack scenes — which are shown through a series of flashbacks that parallel the earlier, much happier episode “The Wedding” (also directed by Anna Foerster) — are the darkest “Outlander” has ever shown. They’re also the scenes that stars Heughan and Menzies have been anticipating all season.

“It’s a gift for an actor to play. It’s something I relished, and I know Tobias did as well,” Heughan says. “Honestly it’s some of the most challenging, rewarding yet intense work I’ve ever done. I’m so proud of what we’ve done.”

The dark climax of “Outlander’s” first season started in episode 15 and then stretched into the finale. Moore made sure he gave Foerster, who directed both episodes, and his stars extra rehearsal time so that everyone involved felt they were in a safe and welcoming environment. When they finally did film, Moore wanted them to be “fearless in performance and try out different things” to end up with the best recreation of Gabaldon’s story. 

While in the book Jamie tells Claire about what happens after the fact, the TV series would have to show the abuse. That presented the obvious question of how much should “Outlander” actually reveal to the audience, and it wasn’t a simple one to answer.

“I felt that what was important was to make it as truthful as possible,” Moore says. “OK, this is the story. Let’s not blink and let’s not look away, but you didn’t want to be gratuitous either. You wanted to play what it was and be truthful to it, but you didn’t want to revel in the pornography of it or something or the vulgarity of it. Just because you are on Starz doesn’t mean that you have to show everything or that you want to. You’re not trying to sort of shove it in the audience’s face but at the same time, you don’t want to shy away from it because it’s such an important moment in the life of the show and in the life of particularly Jamie’s character.”

Read the rest of the article here