Richard Rankin talks through Roger’s traumatic journey in Outlander season 5

The fifth season of Outlander was a tough one for our dear Roger MacKenzie. He was completely out of his element. He literally followed the love of his life to a different time and place and then proceeded to make a life there. It doesn’t sound as easy or fun.

Speaking to Gold Derby, Richard Rankin, who plays Roger in Starz’s time-traveling romance, talked about all the difficulties his character had to face in season 5. “He doesn’t know how to hunt, he doesn’t know how to shoot, he doesn’t know how to do a lot of the things that are taken for granted of a male of his age in that time period. But he’s really intelligent, he’s very much a diplomat, he’s a man who is very good with language, with words, he’s an orator, he’s good at problem-solving [and] that was a lot of fun to play.”

Roger made do with his situation, more or less. But what he couldn’t be prepared for was dealing with a near-death experience. During the Battle of Alamance, Roger is sentenced to death by hanging, and by a stroke of luck is rescued by Jamie, Claire and Brianna. But the trauma he went through doesn’t go away, especially because the experience caused him to lose his voice, the one he used to sing and teach his students.

“It’s a really heartbreaking moment when he can’t sing, but especially when he can’t sing to Jemmy, because that’s something he always did,” Rankin said. “What starts to spiral into his depression is that he starts to question himself with ‘well, what good am I? What do I do if I don’t have my voice and I can’t sing?”

In order to get inside Roger’s head during this difficult time, the Outlander team adopted the style of a silent black-and-white film for the episode “Famous Last Words.” It’s chilling, jarring, and hauntingly beautiful, and helps us understand who Roger is in times of defeat and loss.

"That episode in particular I was extremely anxious about, because when I read the script, it’s such a powerful episode. Off the page, a lot of it tells itself really, as a lot of it is in the stage directions, the feelings, the emotions, what’s happening are all described in words, but no words are actually spoken. But I thought how the hell am I going to translate this on a screen without saying basically saying a word for most of it. I immediately appreciated the challenge of it… I had to be very, very specific about how I wanted to tell the story of his trauma, the PTSD and the depression."

Roger’s journey is far from over as we head into season 6, especially with the Revolutionary War on the horizon. But for now, let’s keep the image of him, Brianna and Jemmy happy together, frolicking in the fields of Fraser’s Ridge.

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