Outlander: Why Sam Heughan strayed from the book to become four-eyed Jamie 

, called “A. Malcolm,” Jamie (Sam Heughan) sports a pair of Benjamin Franklin-like bifocals while working the press in his print shop. While his need for magnification wasn’t specified in

, Diana Gabaldon’s best-selling novel on which the show’s third season is based, Heughan thought it would be a good idea to incorporate eyeglasses to help change his image.

“It was my idea,” Heughan tells EW proudly. “They [the producers] will claim it is

. But I sent an email to Ron Moore last year saying, ‘How about glasses?’ It’s not something in the books but I thought it would be a nice surprise. It’s a weakness of Jamie’s. He doesn’t have many. It’s nice, and it’s something we can play off. It’s kind of a disguise as well. He plays so many different characters and I felt when we first see Jamie, it would nice to see him as a completely different character, a gentrified Edinburgh man who has his own business.”

Fortunately, the writers agreed that making Jamie into a four-eyed man of the 18th century helped to age the comely actor.

“Sam, as you know, is fairly attractive guy,” says executive producer Matthew D. Roberts. “He has a youthful look about him so it’s hard to make him look older. He and Ron talked about the glasses so that was added to the script.”

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