With reporting by Josh Horowitz

Ask any actor who has ever brought to life the pages of a beloved book series and they'd probably tell you the same thing: one of the hardest parts of their jobs is dealing with insurmountable fan expectation. And when it's Diana Gabaldon's astronomically popular "Outlander" series we're talking about -- whose Starz adaptation largely rests on the shoulder of Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan -- the pressure must be pretty insane, especially for those water cooler book moments like the couple's first time and Jaime's assault.

But according to Balfe, who visited MTV News headquarters at San Diego Comic-Con last weekend, you really can't think of all that without driving yourself insane.

"I think there's definitely some scenes from Diana's books where the fans have already become -- they're very important moments for them," she said. "You kind of know when you're coming up to it, you're like, 'well this is a big moment in the book.'"

"You can't really approach those in any different way than you do anything else," she continued. "I think if you start doing that then it's a disservice to the story as a whole, so you treat it all the same."

Well, judging by the astronomical fan reaction to the series, we'd say Balfe's uber-chill strategy has been working out just fine.