Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan on Season 3 

Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe know they\'ve got something special: From the complicated, passionate characters Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall they get to play on-screen, to the close friendship they\'ve developed off-screen,

has changed their lives. And they\'re not alone: Since the Starz hit premiered in 2014, fans have been rabid for all things

—Heughligans debate the merits of Sam\'s man bun, shippers argue they\'re a couple in real life, and dedicated social media accounts document every last detail of Jamie and Claire\'s saga.

So when Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe decided to visit the ELLE.com offices, I knew I needed the help of someone whose fandom went beyond my own appreciation for the show to an expert-bordering-on-obsessive level—the kind of person who would know Claire should be referred to as "Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser," not "Claire Randall," in the above paragraph, and be mad about the mistake. I needed a super fan, and lucky for me, I happen to be related to one of the biggest out there: Pat Holmes, my mother.

super fan (and her daughter) talk to the show\'s stars about their friendship, Jamie and Claire\'s evolutions, and how love can survive a 20-year separation.

Warning: This post contains mild spoilers for season three of

I just watched the first episode of this season—it\'s amazing, very emotional.

Caitriona: It is very sad. All of the Culloden stuff is just so brilliant.

For the first time, you weren’t in the episodes together. So what it was like when you saw it, for you, Sam, to watch Caitriona—and Caitriona, to watch how Sam did?

C: It was great, because I think we both purposely didn’t read those parts of the script. It’s nice to be able to remove yourself from it, because normally you’re in it so much, and it’s hard to be objective and look at something from the perspective of a viewer. There was a lot of surprise, because I didn’t realize that they would shoot it that way—it\'s so much darker, and Sam\'s performance was so amazing. I loved it, and it was really heartbreaking. The way they edited it, going back and forth and bringing it to where Jamie doesn’t really know what’s happening, he doesn’t know whether he’s alive or dead, and interspersing that with moments that happened before and after, I thought was really beautiful.

S: I only recently saw it and it was just remarkable. I think that Caitriona and Tobias [Menzies] are amazing together, and it\'s just so grown up and

. They’re doing everything for their daughter and trying to work through it, but there’s heartache there. It was a great script and Ron [D. Moore] did wonderful with the writing. It’s really the beginning—we say goodbye to Scotland and a lot of the characters there.

You’re talking about the 20 years your characters spend apart, and they change a lot. What did those 20 years do to them?

C: One of the huge things I played with Claire is that she shelved a side of herself for 20 years. The way we worked it out with the writers is that initially Claire tries to have a relationship with Frank, but after a year and a half, they make an arrangement and they live separate lives within the same house. Claire has always been a very sexual person, a very passionate person, and losing the person that means the most to you is one thing, but losing a part of her DNA or a part of who makes her who she is had a real effect on how she carries herself and interacts with people. She became focused on her career and daughter but there’s a rigidity to her, and I think she’s lost some of that freedom and joy she has when she\'s around Jamie.

S: He obviously loses the love of his life and he expects to die. And when he doesn’t, he goes through this process of all the phases of grief and mourning: Ultimately, why is he there and what does he have to live for? He regresses into a shell of who he is and it takes him a long time to rediscover himself; he doesn’t want to be Jamie Fraser anymore. He wants to hide in the shadows, not because he’s an outlaw or a prisoner, but he wants to live in the memory of her.

Time is probably the best healer and it does take a long time for him to come to terms with the fact that she\'s actually gone. He goes on an insane journey to see if she’s still alive or possibly has come back into his life, and when he really finds out that she hasn’t, he can move on. And he does—he creates a new life for himself.

S: Of course he’s not. He’s always loved her and always had a space in his heart for her, but he rebuilds himself.

S: He’s still there, but he has to go through a lot of growing up. Not giving away too many spoilers, but he becomes a father, he gains his liberty, and finds peace within himself with who he is without her. I think that’s important, actually. He finds himself.

C: I think what I love about her is that she is a survivor, so even though there’s a part of her that has been shelved—her heart is definitely hardened and broken—but that she does figure out a way to create a successful life. That’s important about both these characters: Even though this relationship and this love that they experienced are bigger than any of us could hope to have, I suppose, that they don’t make it their single defining characteristic. To honor that relationship and the people that they are, they make the best of the lives they have.

S: They’re at their best when they’re together. They’re a team, they’re a couple. And that’s when they have the most life-affirming moments.

Are they still in love 20 years later? How do you keep a love going for 20 years when you don\'t even see each other?

C: Yes, because I think when you experience something that strong, it doesn’t fade away. You can keep it in a certain place, but it doesn’t diminish.

S: That’s what they do. They eventually sort of come to terms with each other passing, but there’s always that part of them that they keep dear to them. So when they do reunite it’s like, Oh wow, you’re back, and they fall back into their own routine until they realize that they have changed and have become different people.

C: When somebody cherishes a memory like that, you put them on a pedestal and nobody else can come close. You’re looking at it through rose-tinted glasses. When they first meet, it’s that first rush of love and it’s like that old time. And then what they have to do is dismantle that pedestal and illusion they’re created and find a way of falling in love with the people they are now.

They have great sex scenes in the book, but they have fights too. Which is more fun?

S: Fights. Always. It’s gotten physical at times.

S: But it’s great. Caitriona is wonderful to work with, so they\'re the scenes we do cherish and enjoy, don\'t we, because we get to go at it.

C: I think the thing about these two people is they love so passionately and they fight so passionately. They live on this really fierce frequency and it’s great, because we do like to go for it. We know each other so well that we know how to push each other’s buttons—it\'s good, it\'s fun.

C: I mean, I’ve landed across the room on my ass this season, which was rather painful. I come away with quite a few injuries.

S: They\'re both very stubborn, and she’s very opinionated.

] Aaand moving on from that! No, I enjoy those scenes. And the sex scenes are what they are. It’s an important part of the story and definitely this season there are a lot more.

I think the fans are happy. They weren\'t too happy with season two, because there weren\'t very many.

C: We were telling a different story then. I do think that the beauty of Diana [Gabaldon]’s books is that they\'re about a relationship that spans decades. It’s important to show every cycle of that relationship and not to just repeat one over and over again. What we set out to do is not to just have sex for sex’s sake, but have it tell something about the couple and where they are in the relationship and the point to the story. And if you’re just having sex scenes thrown in everywhere, then they lose their impact. So last season it was about two people who weren’t in a groove with each other and were feeling off-kilter. So other things became their focus, like changing history, which is a big thing.

It doesn’t look like you aged that much in the end of season two.

C: I have some grey in my hair. It\'s funny, I think we all assumed that we would do a bit more. But she’s only 50. He’s only in his mid-40s.

C: It\'s not like they’re so much older. The difference between 30, when we last saw her, and 50 is not that huge when you look around. We looked around at our makeup department and the women who were 47, 48, 49 looked great. I think the decision was to play with the hair and more about how time has changed them internally rather than externally. The \'60s makeup and \'60s costume definitely help give her more authority—she just feels a little bit older in that way. But it’s hard then when you go back to the no-makeup look of the 1700s to tie that in. I was just really tired and haggard myself, so they’re all just mine, those wrinkles.

I thought in the promo, in the shot when you were in Edinburgh, about to go into the print shop, you looked so vulnerable and so luminous, but it’s a different Claire. You’ve left the \'60s and the Jackie Kennedy look. I have to say, you are both great in this, you do a lot with the emotion in your faces.

S: Well, in that moment, she\'s just put everything on the line, hasn\'t she? She doesn’t know how he’s going to react.

C: For me, one of the hardest things to wrap my head around this season was Claire leaving her daughter. And that was such a huge part. Initially when we got our scripts, it was Claire with Roger. And I remember saying to the writers: "Hold on a minute, it has to be with Brianna, because that’s the relationship, that’s the price that she’s paying." To make that sacrifice—you could poll a hundred mothers, and how many mothers would be able to do that? That’s the ultimate price that she pays.

You guys are really close friends. So what do you like about each other? And you can also tell me what you dislike...

C: I mean, Sam’s just so kind. He’s a really good friend. He always checks in. I don’t know, he has one of the biggest hearts and smallest egos that I know.

S: No, she’s not only a great actress, she\'s a great friend and a great advice giver, too. And we have each other\'s backs. It’s a remarkable journey that we’ve been on, starting this together, being thrown in the deep end and being like, Okay! We\'re going to do this together. It’s a nice bond and I think people are fascinated by it, in a weird way—I know the fans are. We respect each other and have got each other\'s backs. I’m very fortunate that we have that, it’s great.

How many more will you do? Will you do them all if they want?

C: It depends. If they want, is the big...we’ve signed up for quite a few.

S: We\'ve definitely got this year and then I guess they’ll see.

C: It depends on if they want to keep making them. It depends on if we keep the standard and quality up. I think that\'s important to everyone, you don’t want to just churn something out.

S: I feel this season is possibly the strongest. The first season was amazing; it was the beginning. And the second season, there were things I loved and things I didn\'t. But I think this season—

as an adventure, as a historical romance, it keeps moving forward. Viewers are going to be like,

C: Their heads are going to spin. They’re going to be like, Where are we now?!

It’s challenging for you to be in Africa, in Scotland, in Boston, in Jamaica, in the middle of the ocean.

C: It is challenging, the peripheral stuff, but as long as we keep the relationship at the center, it doesn’t matter, because that’s the anchor.