(Compliments of Leah from the Merwolf Pack List)
November 2003
By Gillian Rodgerson
She's tall, but not as tall as I expected. The trademark black hair is gone replaced by her natural dark-blonde color, but I would
know those blue eyes anywhere. Lucy Lawless isn't Xena anymore, but there's still a hint of the Warrior Princess in the laid-back
New Zealand actress and mother-of-three.
Lucy is visiting London from her home in Los Angeles to do publicity for Warrior Women, a new series she's presenting for the
Discovery Channel. Spanning 2000 years, the programmers examine the lives of five very different women: our own Boudicca,
Wang Cong'er, a kung fu warrior who led a rebellion against the Chinese emperor; Joan of Arc; the Irish pirate, Grace O'Malley;
Lozen, an apache warrior who fought alongside Geronimo.
She describes the women as "amazing characters, awesome women; women that I truly think I would love and respect",
although she questions whether Joan of Arc should really be called a Warrior Woman. "Joan of Arc was really a girl", she says,
"In the context of the times, she was a fully grown woman - most of them would have had
several kids by the time they were 19 - but to me, she never really got the chance to become a woman. She didn't even live into
her 20's. How can she really be a woman?"
Her favorite character is Grace O'Malley. She tells a story in which Grace was in labor in the hold of her ship when a skirmish
broke out with an enemy ship. The sailors came down and told her they couldn't hold them off any more. Grace, apparently,
went on deck, finished the fight, and then went below and gave birth. "She was such an inspirational figure to her men" says
Lucy. "At the time, women were second class citizens, but she was sexually liberated. She was a tough woman Grace really has
resonance with me."
Lucy discovered that her family came from just south of Grace's stomping ground in County Mayo, where they were involved
"in the same business", plundering shipwrecks. She describes Grace as a "real-life Xena", and I ask if she misses her most
famous character. "No I don't", she says. "She doesn't miss me either. She and Gabrielle are off doing whatever they do."
She still sees her former co-star, Renee O'Connor, and others from the program but she has moved on. "I don't miss the lifestyle
at all", she says, which is why, in spite of offers, she wouldn't commit to another TV series. "It's a mega-commitment. You have
to give your heart and soul to it. I'd never see my kids. That?s the main reason why it's not worth it to me. All three of them
would feel the loss of mummy."
So now she only takes short term work. When we met she was two weeks into a five-week filming and promotional tour and,
although she was enjoying the time to herself, she admitted, "By the time I have done this, I'll be dying to get bank to them."
As well as having her third child ("My proudest achievement in recent months!" she laughs), Lucy has toured with a rock show
and done The Vagina Monologues. "I do get a lot of Lesbian roles," she says laughing again, explaining that her character gives a
very graphic description of lesbian sex. "We just kicked back; it wasn't
drama, it was pure porn. The reason it was theatre was because it left the audience squirming with discomfort. It's quite
hardcore. But my proudest moment when I did that was I came out, and there was my dad. My good old Catholic dad and he's
so proud of me. He so loves me that he was going to support me 100%, no matter what I do. It was one of the best moments of
my life, actually, and it can't have been easy for him..."
She gives me a sample of the dialogue: "I take my fingers out of her c**t....and more!" I mention another lesbian role of hers, in
the film Peach. "I wasn't very good in that", she says, "I was so young. Only my first lesbian role!" I observe that she was a little
overshadowed by the big truck her character drives.
I have to ask: does Lucy think Xena and Gabrielle were lovers? She does think they loved each other, but it's a little more
complicated than saying 'Xena was a lesbian'.
"I didn't care", she says. "It was so irrelevant. It was quite fun to have that kind of sub-text with another straighter read on top,
because children don't need to know whether it's heterosexual or lesbian. It was quite fun to have that layer always bubbling
around underneath. It didn't bother me, one way or another. She did have
three boyfriends that I can count. The writers never planned that from the beginning, it just kind of seemed like a good idea. But
by the end, I think that it was quite clear that she is."
Lucy did get a lot of fan letters, some "terrific" and some "untoward" ones from stalkers, but she "long ago stopped reading
them".
"A lot of them are terribly sad, and I'm an empathizer by nature," she explains, "I just go through the day wearing other people?s
pain. I couldn't do that."
Xena gave Lucy "everything" from "quicker reflexes" to her second husband, producer Rob Tapert, but now she wants to move
on. "At some point it'll have to stop, I'm conscious of milking it." Her fans have been very generous with contributions to
charities she supports, but she wants to encourage them to take action in their own communities rather than sending the money
to New Zealand. "I'm keenly aware that people watch what I do, and make efforts to help out, so I have to be responsible. It's
quite humbling, actually."
Her next project is a million miles away from the action heroine. She's writing a screenplay, tentatively titled 'Anatomy of a
Marriage', that she hopes will eventually be produced. But her old alter-ego doesn't let go that easily. When we finish our
conversation, she's off to pose with a sword....
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