'Outlander' Star Tobias Menzies on Frank's Death 

After a time jump to the future in last season\'s finale,

viewers knew they\'d have to deal with Frank Randall\'s death at some point in Season 3. As Claire\'s first husband, Frank, played by Tobias Menzies, is a divisive character simply because he is not Jamie Fraser. Yet the circumstances surrounding Frank\'s death make it impossible not to sympathize with him—even for diehard fans of Jamie and Claire\'s relationship. After his wife returned following a three-year disappearance pregnant with another man\'s child, Frank chose to remain married to Claire and raise her daughter as his own. The ensuing 20-year breakdown of their marriage received a three-episode arc this season and, in that short period, managed to provide a realistic portrait of two good, flawed people trying and failing to save a broken relationship. As Menzies himself puts it, "there are no winners, really," a point tragically emphasized when Frank dies in a car accident hours after asking Claire for a divorce.

Amidst the emotional wreckage of Frank\'s death, it\'s easy to momentarily forget Menzies\'

also died earlier this season. For the 18th-century storyline, Menzies played Frank\'s depraved ancestor Black Jack Randall, who died after a final showdown with Jamie at Culloden in the Season 3 premiere. Despite living centuries apart, both Frank and Black Jack complicated—and often came between—Jamie and Claire\'s relationship, providing antagonism both barbaric (Black Jack) and, more abstractly, manifested through Claire\'s guilt (Frank). Though both characters\' storylines have come to an end, Menzies\' dynamism will be sorely missed. But as the actor points out, "with a show that can travel anywhere in time, you never know" whether Frank and Black Jack could return. Below, the actor opens up about bringing Claire and Frank\'s marriage turmoil to the screen, finding the similarities between Frank and Black Jack, and where you\'ll see him onscreen next.

Frank has been a peripheral character for so long. What are the challenges of jumping into his day-to-day life, especially after playing Black Jack Randall, too?

"The challenge is the stuff they\'re trying to work out—what\'s the realism of it? He has some quite extraordinary events that contributed to the situation, the supposed time travel and all that stuff. The main job with the Frank and Claire stuff is to make the marriage feel fleshed out and understandable. Hopefully when you\'re watching, people can really feel the layers of that relationship and see those things pay off, and see disappointments and compromises build up and try to get the truth of what that is. It\'s antagonistic and there\'s lots of sadness and softness, as well."

Menzies as Frank Randall with Caitriona Balfe as Claire Randall in

Was it difficult to work within such a compressed timeline? Did you find yourself wanting more from Frank and Claire\'s story?

"Yes, we did have to tell quite a lot of story in the three episodes, [which] span about 20 years of marriage. I think it would\'ve definitely been interesting to give that storyline more time and investigate it a bit more, but the decision\'s sort of above my pay grade [laughs]. I imagine it\'s a constant balance to be struck for the showrunners and the writers, for how much of that stuff to put in, but I\'m really pleased with what we\'ve done. I think it\'s a really good contribution to this part of the show."

We know what\'s going on inside Claire\'s head thanks to the voiceover. What\'s it like inside Frank\'s?

"I would say the main sort of \'planks\' of these three episodes is, we start with a man who is trying to rebuild a relationship with a woman who has come back, but I think he knows in his gut she isn\'t entirely in love with him—not in the same way he\'s in love with her. There\'s that core inequality, but he chooses to proceed anyway, to make the sacrifice to father this child that she\'s had by someone else. Then I think over the course of those three episodes—there\'s 20 years that we span—we see he hadn\'t anticipated the feelings he had for this child. They\'re much more powerful and much more overwhelming. Ultimately, I think this fierce love for Brianna comes to replace his affections for Claire. I think he outgrows Claire and it\'s weirdly contradictory, the way the relationship with this child gives him the perspective and the strength to move on from what is essentially a mismatched, pretty loveless marriage."

"The relationship with this child gives him the perspective and the strength to move on from what is essentially a mismatched, pretty loveless marriage."

And then, when he\'s ready to move on, he doesn\'t actually get that chance.

"I know. He\'s finally breaking free, and he doesn\'t live to see it."

Frank references Jamie several times during his fights with Claire. Has Frank thought about what he\'d say to Jamie if he ever met him?

"No, I haven\'t actually thought about what he would say to Jamie. I don\'t even know whether he would say his name out loud. I don\'t know if Frank really believes the time travel story. I think he chooses to take Claire at her word, but does he believe in that? As the rationalist and academic, I\'m not sure how he can entirely. It\'s just part of the burden he\'ll have to carry when he takes her back. That line in front of the fire, when he goes, \'When I\'m with you, I\'m with you. You\'re with him.\' That\'s as close as he gets to addressing, directly, this other person. Those few times they [do] address it are therefore pretty explosive."

The show departs from Diana Gabaldon\'s book in this episode by making it explicit that Frank has taken a mistress. How did you feel about that storytelling choice?

"It felt like a natural progression from where they are. They made that arrangement. She gives him this tacit permission, which he takes, I don\'t think, with a great deal of joy.... Inevitably, he does actually meet someone and he starts to experience what it is to have someone who loves him for who he is, without caveat. I think it\'s through need. He needs intimacy, as I suppose everyone does, but Claire finds it very difficult to give that to him. I liked it because it seems real, and there are probably lots of marriages which have variations on that theme—they\'ve been going on for many years, and the ability to provide all the different things that a partner needs becomes either stunted or mixed up. Even if the particulars are rather extraordinary in this story, I think those things are quite universal. What do you do when you\'ve stopped loving someone and you have children? That\'s a very real, complicated, compromised thing to deal with."

"What do you do when you\'ve stopped loving someone and you have children? That\'s a very real, complicated, compromised thing to deal with."

That moment when Claire calls Frank\'s girlfriend a harlot and Frank snaps at her—she struck a nerve. It felt like that\'s the first time he\'s lost his patience in a long time.

"To be honest, I think there are no winners, really. If Frank was entirely honest, he probably won\'t love the woman he was going to divorce Claire for as much as he loves Claire. The purity of that feeling they had back then will probably never be recovered and that\'s the everyday tragedy of people\'s lives. It\'s mixed up in the bitterness and disappointments, and in that moment, that rage is also about her accusation. He doesn\'t

to look elsewhere. He sort of had to, and for her to accuse him feels quite unjust. That scene had rich stuff to act with Caitriona, when they sort of go toe-to-toe. That stuff is very suppressed for lots of [this season], so when the lid comes off, I think it\'s quite satisfying."

What\'s more enjoyable for you as an actor—rolling in the mud at Culloden, or delving into these intense domestic scenes?

"It\'s hard to compare, it is very different. I think the domestic scenes are more challenging. I think rolling around in the mud is inherently more physical and fun, but getting those sort of domestic fights right and a very particular kind of language there—you know when you see it, but it\'s hard to articulate. They\'re harder to find, I think."

A scene from Outlander Season 3 Episode 3, "All Debts Paid"

you said you always try to bring parts of yourself to your characters. Can you expand on that?

"I guess it goes back to what one\'s feeling about acting in general is. It\'s the training mind. Maybe the job is that you have a fictional set of events [around] a relationship. To make it real and bring likeness to it, you reference the feelings and the ideas that fill up those situations with stuff that is personal to you. I\'m not literally doing stuff from my own life, but you\'re remembering and relating it to real feelings and real things that you\'ve experienced. Adopting those two things hopefully gives it a realness that isn\'t purely just about imagination."

Your situation is particularly unusual because you\'re playing two wildly different characters on the show. How do delineate between the two, especially when one is as morally corrupt as Black Jack Randall?

"The inside of these people are not that different, it\'s just how they express those insides. They both still have needs and wants and drives and they both also have damage in them. One, obviously, acts out on those urges in a much more extreme way than the other person. [But] I think the way the fleshing out or the feeling out of the inside is still the same sort of material. You\'re still building it out of anger and rage and disappointment and longing and desire and passion and all those universal human feelings and instincts. Then [with] the behavior and how it manifests, you adjust the way the feeling is portrayed for both of them.

That was obviously harder to find with a character as extreme as Jack is at times, but you have to do that in order to make him real. You have to find some rationale for why he\'s doing what he\'s doing. If you do that, it means they can\'t just discount him, because they go, \'Oh, there\'s need and there are reasons why he\'s doing this.\' He\'s human, he\'s not just a monster. If you don\'t have a sense or any understanding for what\'s going on, you can go, \'Oh, he\'s just a monster, therefore I don\'t have to engage.\'"

Menzies as Black Jack Randall in Outlander Season 3 Episode 1, "The Battle Joined"

Your last day on set was spent filming the final scene between Frank and Claire in last week\'s episode, when we see them in separate beds. What was that like for you?

"I don\'t really like goodbyes, and obviously it was big goodbye because we\'ve been doing it for three or four years now. I mean, it\'s so emotional. I\'ve made a lot of good friends on that show and it\'s been a really interesting journey. They were very sweet to me, I entered the room and everyone clapped and they gave me a present and I still wanted to crawl into the ground. Not because I didn\'t want to be there, but just the business of saying goodbye is always inherently icky. But who knows, they may have me back. I have no news of that, but I suppose with a show that can travel anywhere in time, you never know."

Did you have any idea of the furor surrounding the show before you started working on it? How do you look back on your time on

"I knew the books has sold a lot of copies and it had a huge following. I don\'t think I knew what that meant and I look back on it with great fondness. It\'s been a really great journey and I think we\'ve made some really good TV out of it, I\'m really proud of what we\'ve done. The whole thing has a pretty dear place in my heart and will continue to do so."

What\'s next for you? What are you shooting right now?

, which is an independent feature we\'re shooting here in England down in the countryside. I think it could be really interesting. Then next month I\'m going into a film of

with Anthony Hopkins. I\'m playing Cornwall, who is the husband of Regan, who puts Gloucester\'s eyes out. It\'s part of the family from hell, that sort of descent into darkness. Then

I was doing last winter is coming out next year in April. It will be a show for AMC, which I think could be spectacular. A few things coming along to fill the

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