Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan preview 'Outlander' season 3

"Drought-lander" is over everyone because the new season of "Outlander" premieres this weekend! To whet everyone's appetite, it's main stars Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan dropped by BUILD Series to chat about the upcoming third season which is based on the third Outlander novel Voyager by Diana Gabaldon.

Balfe and Heughan's characters Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser respectively are separated from each other for quite a few episodes this season and it's proving to be another emotional roller coaster ride for the two. So have those tissue boxes on hand everyone!

"The first episode, you know, we say goodbye to a lot of our regular characters. It's a new beginning for the show. We obviously end up in 'Jamaica,' which we were shooting in South Africa. There's a lot of new faces and a new look to the show. But yeah, the first few episodes are very sad. It was hard to say goodbye to a lot of our favorite people," said Heughan.

With the characters separated from each other for awhile, Balfe and Heughan too were shooting their respective scenes in different locations. So when they finally did get to shoot scenes back together on-set later in the season, it was quite serendipitous as Balfe revealed during the interview.

"We were working on very different worlds. I was doing the 40s, 50s, 60s. A lot of my stuff was studio-based, Glasgow city-based, which is Boston of course. And Sam's stuff, they were at fields that was really wet and mucky. So we didn't see a lot of each other. We did shoot a little bit out of sequence. So it wasn't like we were separated completely and then we started with the "reunion." But there was a couple of times when we would run into each other and be like, 'Oh my God! What have you been doing?!? HOW ARE YOU!?!' So it was really nice when we got into the proper gritty stuff...meaty...steamy stuff."

On the subject of those steamy scenes, both Balfe and Heughan weighed in on the increasing number of female directors this season and if they had a preference for male directors or female directors.

"There should be more female directors purely because it should represent the population distribution. But no there's some women [who] are very sensitive and come from more of a romantic viewpoint but some of our male directors have been more like that. Some of our female directors are much more technical and you know, it just runs the gamut and that's how it should be. It's not 'Oh, you're woman and you're going to look at it EXACTLY this way,' no there's many different opinions and different aspects to it all," explained Balfe.

"I think we got the right people for the job. It is fun to work with different directors. The first few we have, Brendan [Maher]...it was kind of amazing to start with him. We had a great mix of directors and each one brings something different to the show," added Heughan.

"I love that Maril [Davis, executive producer] really fought hard to try and get as many female directors as possible but also I loved that it doesn't become a cliché that like 'the woman are good at this thing, and the men are good at this,' no...it's great to see that there's such variety among everybody," Balfe says.

"I think the show has this strength, you know, and sensitivity and I think that's really important. It's not a show for women. No, it's for everyone. It's got so much more to it," concluded Heughan.

So it's safe to say that having both sexes represented on-set made for an enjoyable work environment for Balfe and Heughan.

Be sure to tune in to the season 3 premiere of "Outlander" starring Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan starting this Sunday, September 10th at 8pm only on STARZ.