New Zealand's most famous actor is not Sam Neill, Anna Paquin or even the very busy Russel Crowe. She's the star of the incredibly popular action TV series Xena. Harold von Hursk meets a princess
Lucy Lawless is big, beautiful and provocative. She invests her Amazon-like sex appeal with equal doses of charm and ironic humour. She laughs at the notion that she's become a post-feminist icon for the masses, claiming that New Zealand women like her have long enjoyed a great measure of sexual equality. But she's proud of her work in the three-year-old series, happy to have a found a perfect place for her in-your-face attitude and powerful screen presence.
The cult of Xena: Warrior Princess is upon us. The internationally syndicated TV series has developed a cult-like following that rivals even that of The X-Files. By midway through its second season, the Universal Television fantasy-adventure had surpassed the popularity of such other globally syndicated TV programmes as Baywatch and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, not to mention the sister show from which it was spun off, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.
Xena was first introduced in a Hercules episode as the leader of a rapacious army, who sets out to kill Hercules in her quest for power. Now, with feisty Gabrielle by her side, Xena is determined to make amends for the sins of her past as she travels the countryside fighting for good. In real life, Lucy Lawless is smart and vivacious brunette with a fair complexion that the series' make-up staff has to turn bronze for each day's filming.
At 1.80cm tall (5ft 11), with piercing blue eyes, Lawless, is the daughter of a former mayor of Mount Albert - the fifth of seven children. It's not surprising that she was quite the tomboy as a young girl, following her four oldest brothers around.
After graduating from high school at 17, she studied opera as a mezzo-soprano while at Auckland University. That led her to a European adventure where she travelled through Germany and Switzerland. When her money ran out, Lucy headed for Australia and signed on as a miner with a gold-mining company in Kalgoorlie, a small town in the outback about 800 kilometres from Perth.
One of the very few women miners, she did the same gruelling work as the men - digging, mapping and driving trucks. Lawless quit the mining company when she found out she was expecting a baby. She married and returned to Auckland, where her nine-year-old daughter Daisy was born. Later, she pursued work in commercials and won the role as co-host for Air New Zealand Holiday. Adept at yoga, she was also an experienced horsewoman when she landed the role of Xena in 1994 - Lawless's brawny physique was always perfectly suited for the rigours of the role of Xena.
SIGNATURE: What's it like to be a post-feminist icon?
LAWLESS: I'm quite proud to present a strong image for women. But it's not a political thing for me. I like the fact that Xena doesn't back down; she likes to get in the face of creeps, monsters, men, whoever.
Why do you think people are so attracted to Xena?
I think the main reason is that Xena upsets the traditional, conventional images of a womants personality. Xena has a very strong masculine bent to her and she doesn't rely on a man to fight her battles for her. A lot of women, and even men, find [that] attractive because it's so different from what most TV shows and films say about women.Part of the hook of the show is the fact that its plots are as campy as they are action-packed. Is Xena constantly teasing the audience? We're trying to provide a different kind of entertainment. It's not Baywatch, it's not Star Trek, it's more of a tongue-in-cheek kind of show where we're obviously taking shots at the Bruce Lee chop-socky type of films with all the crazy fight sequences. Xena is mostly about attitude and getting on with it.
Your physique is quite different from the way most women are portrayed in film and TV. Is that important for you?
It's ridiculous how much attention the media pays to supermodels and silicon-inflated women. They aren't real - they're terrible male fantasies. Girls who look up to Xena can at least see that they don't have to correspond to the preposterous fashion magazine images that make girls anorexic.What contact do you have with fans of Xena ? Do people write you a lot of letters and come up to you on the street?
I get a lot of letters. Most of the ones I read are really interesting. One woman wrote to me saying that because of the series she went out and bought herself a Harley-Davidson. That kind of thing makes me proud, because I feel that whatever kind of aura I give off as Xena has a way of inspiring or rubbing off onto people. For me, it's important to have a positive effect on fans, and if it makes people take charge of their lives - more power to them.What kinds of things do people say to you on the street when they come up to you?
Most people tell me I look smaller, younger, and prettier in person. Which is a way of telling me that on TV I look older, fatter, and uglier. Right? [Laughs ]In Xena , you speak with a much flatter, American accent, instead of your normal New Zealand accent. Why is that?
The idea was to sell the series all over the world and that means you can't go around using New Zealand expressions and the accent because no one would understand you, except in New Zealand. But it's not too hard for me to flatten out the tones, Xena's yelling and grunting a lot anyway. [Laughs ]Do you consciously try to project a more masculine kind of sexuality as Xena?
The idea is to present a supremely confident woman and everything follows from that. Xena is a natural-born liberator, and I've given her the kind of independent, anti-colonialist spirit that New Zealanders and Australians have always had. But I think the overriding character trait that Xena has is her work ethic - she likes to get the job done, no arguments.Having a name like Lucy Lawless is a publicist's dream, isn't it?
It's perfect for a female action hero, and the funniest thing is that it's my real name. Lawless is my ex-husband's name, and I got to like it so much that I decided to keep it. The only problem I ever had with it was on my wedding day. I sat down with my mum and I remember bawling my head off because I thought that everyone would laugh at a girl named Lucy Lawless. But eventually I got used to it and of course when I had the chance to audition for Xena, the producers couldn't believe that it was my real name. I guess I was destined to play Xena.You married the producer of Xena and Hercules, Rob Tapert, an American. Did you worry about getting involved so intimately with the man who runs the show?
Not really. I realise it's a total cliché - the producer and the actress. But we fell in love and once that happens there's nothing much either person can do about it. We've been so happy together that we've never even worried about keeping our private and professional lives separate. In a way, it's normal for people who work together to wind up together, and working 14 hours a day, six days a week on a TV series is a pretty easy way to get to know someone. Rob has so much energy and such a great attitude towards life, I couldn't resist being with him. I'm also the first actress he ever became involved with, so it was never a case of him as a producer trying to hit on his female star again.How does your daughter Daisy handle her mother being a TV star?
She's not that keen on mum being famous. But she likes Xena and she really loves it when I pick her up after school when I'm able to, because all her classmates get pretty excited about it. There was a time, though, that she didn't like all the attention I would get if we were together in public. So I try to stick close to her in a crowd, keep a hand on her shoulder so she knows she's my pride and joy and that she doesn't get ignored by her mum.Let's get back to business. What about the rumours of a Xena film?
I'm really not anxious to do one. I'm exhausted as it is from the present pace of working and if I do something with my time off from Xena, I'd want to play other types of roles, like when I went on Broadway in 1996 in Grease. That was great and it allowed me to get back to singing. But with the kind of money that's involved, it's gettng tougher and tougher to fight the offers I've been getting for a Xena movie. My question is: at what cost to my life would I do the film? If I play the same character for 18 months straight, which is what doing a Xena film between each season of filming for TV would involve, what effect would that have on me personally? I'd turn into a very bitchy hag, Rob would find me horrible to live with, and my own daughter would probably begin to resent meRight now, what is the life of the Warrior Princess like?
It's beautiful. Everything I dreamed about is happening for me. I do wonder where my life is headed after we wrap up Xena in the year 2000. That's when we've decided to end the series because we don't want to lose the things that make Xena different from every other TV show. We want to close on a high note. And I am looking forward to moving on to other things.Do you expect to do any other kinds of film roles prior to the end of Xena?
Nah. I don't think so. The life of the Warrior Princess is busy enough as it is!
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