“We were like, ‘Oh my god, there’s a face under there!'” executive producer Maril Davis tells The Hollywood Reporter with a laugh about seeing Rankin clean-shaven for the first time. “But unfortunately the head of our hair and makeup department has told us since she started working with us that beards were not common back in this time. I thought, well John Quincy Myers [Kyle Rees] had a beard! We’re always fighting for beards, but she’s always telling us that it’s not historically accurate. This time, we bowed to pressure.”
And according to Davis, making Roger shed his facial hair made sense for the character as he prepared to follow Bree through the stones. “Roger is a historian, so he’d probably know this,” she adds. “He’s not a mountain man like Myers, so the beard had to go.”
She pauses before adding, “It might be back though! Poor Roger’s beard. I’m surprised there’s not a Twitter account already. I’m sure there will be now.”
I loved this episode! Without the beard, I almost thought that Roger was played by someone else – but thankfully I was wrong. Richard Rankin was amazing in this episode. Yes, Frank was unfaithful to Claire, and she mentally and emotionally was unfaithful to him, but under all that there was a tiny bond because of Brianna. Tobias Menzies was brilliant – it was heartbreaking to watch his downward spiral when he realized that Claire would go back to Jamie. The bond between JAmie and Claire was something that Frank couldn’t understand. So this episode was heartbreaking to watch and amazing as well. Thank you for sharing.