Aricles Annex - Xena: Warrior Princess Magazine Articles

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Science Fiction Explorer (Starlog)

December 1995, #10
pages 28-33







Savage, strong & sexy, the warrior woman Xena begins her own incredible journey

by Joe Nazzaro

This is a story from a time long ago. A time of myth and legend, when the ancient gods were petty and cruel, and they plagued mankind with suffering. Only one woman dared to challenge their power: Xena, the Warrior Princess!

A reformed villain, Xena is set to give up her violent ways, but events foce her to take arms again - on the side of good.

After exploding onto the small screen in three episodes of the syndicated adventure-fantasy series, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena (Lucy Lawless) is spinning off into her own one-hour series this fall. Combining the same exciting action, mythological elements and lush New Zealand locations that made Hercules an unexpected cult hit, the producers of Xena: Warrior Princess are hoping that lightning will strike again for their new series.

Joining executive producers Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert, the men behind Darkman and Evil Dead is co-executive producer R.J. Stewart, who's writing several scripts for the series, including "Sins of the Past", the premiere episode.

"Much of the groundwork was already laid for me before I started work." says Stewart, whose previous credits include Remington Steele, The Great Defender and The End of Eternity, considered one of Hollywood's best unproduced screenplays. "Rob Tapert had written the series bible as well as a beat sheet for the pilot, but I was still there to write the pilot and make the characters work.

"We called Lucy at the last minute and she turned out to be perfect," says John Schulian, who wrote and produced Xena's debut in the Hercules series.

"I don't know if everyone knows this, but Xena was a villain in her three-episode arc on Hercules, although in the third episode she turns toward good. Basically Rob's idea was that we have this show about a former bad girl warrior who's now fighting for good, and nobody appreciates what she's doing because they still judge her by her old reputation. I really related to that character twist and jumped in, and came up with a neat sidekick for her named Gabrielle. That's how it all evolved."

Bad Girl

According to Stewart, the "reformed" Xena hasn't lost any of her fighting edge in the new series, although she has acquired a new traveling companion. "At the pilot's beginning, Xena is actually burying her weapons; it's a symbol that she's turning away from this past life of violence. Into that scene come some villains who are rounding up girls who they plan to take as slaves, and one of them is a young woman named Gabrielle. Xena realizes a way that she can use her weaponry to combat evil rather than perform it, so she jumps in and saves the day.

"She's then introduced to Gabrielle, who's in love with the Greek myths. One of the things we did was have Gabrielle run into an old man, and she says, 'I recite poetry,` and she starts reciting the story of Oedipus. The old man says, 'You're going to tell me about Oedipus? I knew Oedipus!" The idea is that she's an expert on the Greek myths, but those myths are actually very recent history, contemporary rumor or things that are happening in our episodes. She's the enthusiastic chronicler. One of the things we're playing with, and this may or may not happen, is that Gabrielle is really Homer, but Homer got the credit for it.

"I would like Gabrielle to be the audience. She's the young person watching the show who would love to travel with Hercules or Xena, and she now gets to travel with this great warrior. Xena likes to have her around because she's great company, she's very knowledgeable and she says she has the gift of prophecy - we're playing with just how much of a gift she has. Gabrielle is an idealist, she's full of hope and innocence - all the things that Xena has misplaced and hopes to get back.

"When Xena arrives, they say, 'lt's Xena, the warrior princess, what does she want? Is she going to loot us?' There is a somewhat darker tone to the series, but there's still a lot of humor in it. Gabrielle brings the potential for comedy, in her idealism, hope and enthusiasm. She's also somewhat misguided, and that creates many humorous situations.

"We have a scene in the pilot where Xena and Gabrielle have to pass the same cyclops to get over a bridge. Xena does it through combat, but Gabrielle does it through fast talking. First of all, she tries threatening him by saying, 'I know Xena, the warrior princess!' The cyclops says, 'I hate Xena. the warrior princess! I love to tear apart anyone who knows her, and I would love to tear apart one of her friends!' Gabrielle replies, 'Who said anything about friends? I hate the bitch: let me go and I'll bring you back her eyeballs!' "

Since the series is set in the same mythological milieu as Hercules, viewers can expect all sorts of cool-looking characters to pop up in various episodes. "In one episode. Gabrielle is convinced by a priest of a temple that if she does a certain chant at a certain time, she can bring back the Golden Age of Man. She does that chant, but what she has done is re-awaken the Titans.

Thundering out of the world of myth like a female Ben Hur is Xena (Lucy Lawless), and her faithful friend Gabrielle (Renee O'Connor) beside her.

"According to mythology, it was the Golden Age when the Titans ruled. Many people think the bygone years were the Golden Age because they were in power then, but it doesn't mean it was the Golden Age for everybody. Now that the Titans are back, these three huge giants. it's not such a 'Golden Age' for mankind after all.''

Warrior Woman

When the producers of Hercules created the character of Xena for an episode called "The Warrior Princess" midway through the first season, no one had the slightest idea she would prove popular enough to spin off into her own series.

"I created her with nothing more in mind than getting to the season's end!" laughs John Schulian, Stewart's counterpart on Hercules, who wrote the first and third episodes in the Xena trilogy. "Once again, it's just one of those happy accidents.

"As soon as we saw the first one, we knew we liked her, and then we did the two-parter to end the season, as the arc of her character goes from bad girl to reformed girl. I wasn't thinking about her in terms of creating another series; it just worked for us. Everybody liked her - the brass at Universal, Rob and Sam - and around January or February, the talk of perhaps spinning her off into her own series started. When Vanishing Son got cancelled, she was the next batter on deck."

Ironically, the role of Xena wasn't written with Lawless in mind. Explains Schulian, "The actress we originally cast got sick and we couldn't find a replacement for her over the New Year's weekend, so we called Lucy at the last moment, and she turned out to be absolutely perfect.

"She does the action convincingly and she's beautiful," raves executive producer R.J. Stewart.

"The funny thing is, Lucy had a part in our centaur episode ["As Darkness Falls' as Lyla] as well as one of the two-hour movies [ Hercules and the Amazon Women ]. As soon as I saw her in dailies, I said, 'She should have been Xena!' She's a remarkably good-looking woman, and then when I saw her in dailies for the 'Warrior Princess" episode, and saw the way she rode a horse and swung a sword, I thought, 'This is money in the bank!' She was fun to watch, she got into it and I was pleased with all three episodes."

Schulian isn't the only one who thinks Lawless is headed for stardom. "I'll tell you something: she's really found herself in this series," says Stewart. "Going into dailies, even though you may like the actor, you never really know until you see your words being said by them. I was so pleased when I saw Lucy doing this part. She does the action so convincingly and she's beautiful."

Joining Lawless as Xena's ever-present sidekick Gabrielle is fellow Hercules alumnus Renee O'Connor, who appeared as the young Deianeira in the TV movie Hercules and the Lost Kingdom. Stewart is quick to point out that O'Connor's current role is far from the run-of-the-mill damsel in distress.

"In the pilot, Gabrielle actually saves Xena at one point by fast talking. Xena goes home to see her mother and try to start over again, and of course when she goes back to her village, there isn't much sympathy for her because of her notorious past. At one point, the crowd wants to stone her, and Xena has given up; she just doesn't care, and Gabrielle leaps to the foreground and talks the crowd out of it. By and large, Xena is the hero, and there are times when Gabrielle is in jeopardy, but she's not just a character to stick in jeopardy. She's Xena's friend."

Savage Princess

The pilot also features one of Xena 's most potentially exciting villains, the evil warlord Draco (played by Jay Laga'aia). Reported elsewhere under the name Khan the Great, the character went through a few changes before shooting started. "I changed that villain's name to Draco, and he has turned out so well in the dailies that we're bringing him back. He wasn't intended that wav, but he's terrific. He'll be a recurring character, Iike certain villains from Star Trek or The Wild Wild West. "

As for other supporting characters, Stewart says it's still too early to say, although there's the strong possibility of a recurring character named Pan. "That's something that we're talking about down the road, but we haven't introduced the character yet.

"At this point, we know we might want to introduce other characters who could be recurring - maybe an auxiliary sidekick, or maybe another superhero who might work with Xena from time to time. The neat thing about a series is that you can experiment with something, see if it works and decide whether or not you want to go with it."

As with HercuIes, the scripts for Xena are written in LA, and then sent down to New Zealand, where the series is filmed. "I'm writing three of the first seven, and that includes the pilot," says Stewart. "I won't be able to keep up that pace, because there will be a lot more rewriting as we go along. I would guess I'll be writing five or six over the season. It's hard to say.

"There will probably be freelancers working on both shows, but the staffs are completely independent. Right now, we have a terrific writer named Steve Sears, who wrote a wonderful episode for us about Morpheus, the god of sleep. Steve is now our supervising producer. We're going to be hiring another person very soon, and we have some excellent candidates for that.''

Is there any good-natured competition between the two shows? lt's interesting, because I am, at this very moment, outlining a Hercules crossover show, and I just wrote a scene where I say in the outline, 'Hercules and Xena get into a competition of who is the greater hero. It's starts friendly enough...' It's going to be a great scene. They don't actually fight each other, but there is a fun competition. Only on that level has there been anything so far, of who can be the best hero. Of course, when the [ratings] numbers start coming in, that might change! At the moment, we have so much to do that it's really hard to look at the other guy."

Although the series began as a Hercules spinoff, Stewart says Xena is starting to take on a life of its own. 'As a matter of fact, some of the things we were doing in the first five or six scripts, we're now moving. Not because they didn't work - I think those scripts are great - but now we've set the stage and we're moving into a whole new area. In the earlier scripts, we were really interested in exploring Xena's past and the ramifications of that on the present. Now, we're getting more into her present,her future, her quests and her goals. It's an exciting process.''

As Xena: Warrior Princess debuts, R.J. Stewart promises viewers a unique combination of action and humor, with lots of mythological elements thrown in for good measure. "I'm very happy and very optimistic about it,'' he enthuses. ''I love Lucy Lawless in this series, and I think she's going to be a big star.

"I'm also really happy to be following Hercules, because I think it's a terrific show. Our show is different enough - it's not just a female Hercules. There are many different themes we're playing with, and yet we're still very much in the same world, so I think we can keep the same audience from Hercules, and maybe even expand on it."

Hercules' Overseer When producers Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert needed someone to oversee production of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, they enlisted the help of TV veteran John Schulian. Schulian, who has worked on such shows as Wisequy, Midnight Caller, and Reasonable Doubt, came aboard after the original series of two-hour telefilms, and has helped shape Hercules into a critical and ratings winner. "From day one, I knew that we should have the same tone as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, that the dialogue should be contemporary, but not hip. We won't have anybody saying, 'Yo, dude,' or, 'Totally awesome!' or anything like that if we can help it, although God only knows what actors are going to say. "I liked the humor in the two-hour movies, and I wanted that to continue. This is escapist stuff we're doing, and when you use a bit of humor, particularly in a self-deprecating sense, it makes your show more likable. This isn't blood and guts, it isn't film noir and God knows it's not the hardcore myths. The myths are so relentlessly violent and grim that we would never get them on television in Newt Gingrich's America. We wanted to leaven the action with humor, and certainly things must have some emotion or heart. If you don't care about Hercules or the people he's trying to help, we've failed as a creative team. During the first season, we had to make some major changes in terms of Hercules' family. The practical reasons were we just couldn't afford Anthony Quinn to play Zeus on a regular basis, and secondly, Tawny Kitaen had a TV series, America's Most God-Awful Home Videos or whatever it was, so there was a conflict in her schedule. While people like the family values aspect of Hercules, it's also nice not to have him tied down to a wife and kids who he must check in with at the beginning and end of every episode. "What we did, and it was certainly my idea, was to wipe out Hercules' family with a fireball. I know it wasn't a popular decision with the brass at Universal, but it was the only way to free up Hercules, and give him a cause for the rest of his life, that he honors his dead family by doing good on Earth, and trying to fulfill their image of him. I thought it made all the sense in the world, and I think ultimately our audience did too. "One thing that really caught my eye in the movies was Kevin Sorbo, who is immensely likable, and while he's not Robert DeNiro, he's not a lox. He's absolutely wonderful with the emotional moments. We did an episode last year called 'The March to Freedom,' where he visits his family's graves, and I have to tell you, a chill went down my back when I saw him do it. He found something inside himself, and was really able to bring it out. It was very touching, and I don't think there are too many actors in the action genre who are capable of finding that kind of emotion. He also has a wonderful, sly sense of humor that comes across. "Michael Hurst [Iolas] is gold. He's a wonderful Shakespearean actor from New Zealand, and he's lovely guy who takes great joy in doing the fight scenes, which is probably something he has never been asked to do before. He's just great fun, and he really helps bring Kevin up as an actor. The two of them have a real rapport on screen that's so wonderful. They really like each other in real life, which isn't always the case, and it comes across on-screen as well. "Bob Trebor [Salmoneus] is a really funny guy. I would be a liar if I said he was not a handful at times, but he's one of those funny guys, and I was the one who came up with the character, who we introduced in 'Eye of the Beholder.' He's great fun, and we can do things with him that we can't do with Hurst. We have a nice little stock company down there, and we wind up using many of the same New Zealand actors to play different parts. "As far as the first season goes, certainly the centaur episode ["As Darkness Falls"] was one of our absolute best. A writer named Bob Bielak freelanced three episodes for us last year, and that was his first. It had many good things going for it; the centaurs were sensational, and we got to see Salmoneus in a slightly different role than as strict comic relief, because he acts as Hercules' eyes after he has been given this potion and lost his eyesight. There was a real nobility throughout. I liked the Nemesis episode ["Pride Comes Before a Brawl"], which really gave Hurst a chance to shine, and the New Zealand actress who played Lydia in that episode was just wonderful. She was charming and lively, and she and Michael worked great together. "And I think our Xena episodes worked really well, although the second one, 'The Ganntlet,' was a little too dark. It was well-shot and well-directed, but it wasn't Hercules. It was the case of a relatively inexperienced director seeking to make his mark, and what happened was, he made his mark so well that he didn't make the show. There's a way you do Hercules, a certain sensitivity that you must be aware of. This is about action and making your heart beat faster, and yes, people do die and there is violence, but it's all done in a way that doesn't make you cringe. Unfortunately, as wonderful a bit of shooting as 'The Gauntlet' was, it's still not the show. "The one thing we haven't mentioned is that we have New Zealand, which is a startlingly beautiful country. We have some footage in the upcoming season that I think will show it to even better effect than it has been shown in the past. This is stuff that you can't get on any other TV series: the combination of action, monsters and scenery; nobody else has that. "As far as the new season of Hercules, what can I tell you? We have nine scripts in at this point, and we're working on 10-13 right now. The writing on this show is infinitely better than it was last year. Bob Bielak did three episodes for us last season, and his reward is to come in and get punished with me this year. Even though it's just two guys and I feel overwhelmed by the amount of work we have to do some days, I think the scripts are much better so far. There's much more of a consistency in the shape of the show and the sensibility; it's much healthier in that sense this year. 'I'm working on show number three right now. The first is our season opener, called 'The Mother of All Monsters'. In addition to having a terrific monster, it's a yarn about fallen women, lost loves and bad guys, and I hope it's something many people will be able to connect with. Bob has done a wonderful episode about Hercules going to the other side, and being briefly reunited with his family. I know people don't tune in for touching episodes, but it really has a chance to be our most touching and heartfelt episode. I think it's going to be great. "From what I've seen of the dailies for the first few shows, I'm very happy, and I think people are going to love Hercules more than ever," concludes John Schulian. "Kevin is even more comfortble in front of the camera. Michael Hurst and Robert Trebor are wonderful, the action is going to be great and the girls are getting prettier. It's going to be a lot of fun." Joe Nazzaro

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