Outlander season 4 is now upon us, with the first couple of episode having aired (on Starz in the States and Amazon Prime on this side of the Atlantic), giving stars Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe plenty to chat about.

Chatting to Collider, Balfe revealed that one of the biggest challenges this season was the increased use of CGI:

“This season, more than any other, we’ve had a lot of blue screen. There’s been a lot more CGI then before. It’s interesting filming in Scotland which has so much rain and so much water. They don’t have the expansive rivers that you would have in North Carolina. So, a lot of the river journey that we took in Episode 1 was CGI, and that’s just a different thing. We’ve never really had that as much, in prior seasons.”

And Heughan added this, on the topic of challenges:

“Also, this season, we’re in America and there are a lot of issues there, politically. The first couple of episodes explore things from slavery to the treatment of Native Americans, which are things that we’ve never really dealt with. We saw slavery last season, but we didn’t really deal with it. You just saw it. So, that’s something that’s different in Season 4.”

They also chatted about the new villain, Stephen Bonnet, who’s played by Ed Speelers. Balfe said this, comparing Bonnet to Black Jack Randall from the early seasons:

“Bonnet is more manipulative. He obviously does incredibly horrible things, but I think he’s much more of an opportunist, where Jack was a sadist. What drives Bonnet is greed, which is very different.”

And Heughan said this about Bonnet:

“He’s another version of a psychopath or sociopath […] He affects the whole Fraser family. He has a dealing with all of them and becomes a real villain. But Ed is amazing.”

The whole interview can be found at Collider.

We’ll bring you more news as we hear it.