For six years, he's been a thorn in the side of both Xena and Hercules, but now it seems to be his twilight. Ian Spelling kept an eye out for lightning bolts as he spoke to Kevin Smith, also known as the nastier son of Zeus, Ares.
Mean, but still cuddly somehow
KEVIN Smith, aka Ares of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess and Young Hercules fame, spends a good while chatting before taking to the stage at a typically well-attended Herc/Xena con in New York City.
"There are only a few shows that get the convention treatment, so it's a little strange. For me, it's actually many things. It's great that people care enough to come out and support us. I've done enough of the conventions now that I'm starting to see the same faces at them. And I think, 'My God, this is the length of the country.' I've covered the length and breadth of America and many of these fans have, too.
"So I am very mindful of people's commitment to the show and to us, the actors and the writers and producers. I don't take it for granted. The fans are great. Back home, people seem to want to know more about the inner workings of the show. 'How do you do that?' In the States, probably because they've had the show longer and they're more aware of the mechanics of a television show, they're more interested in me as a person, in what I do outside of the show. They want to know about what else I've done, about what I like, about my family.
"For me," he continues, "curiosity was the motivating factor in first doing the conventions. Now there is another dimension to it for me, the musical side of it. We've got a band, Joel Tobeck and I. We rehearse on different sides of the world and we come together, have a bit of a knockaround and perform at night. It's just a lot of fun. It's fun for us and it's fun for the fans. They get to see a different side of us and what it is we can do. I said to Joel today, 'We are playing New York. It's just a trip.' I used to do only one convention a year. I've done a few more than that lately - I think four or five of them since September - and it's been fun, but I never want to cheapen the experience for the fans or myself by doing too many of them. I want to keep the convention experience fresh for myself and the fans."
"Know this Xena, I am your father..." The fans, of course, love to hate Ares. After all, he's among the baddest of the baddies. What makes him interesting, however, are the chinks in the armor. This guy - or god as it were - really seems to possess a soft spot for Xena (Lucy Lawless). He's practical. He can think and speak at least as well as he fights. He's a villain's villain, one that Smith has gotten to explore in tremendous depth over more than half a decade. "All bad characters are popular because they can access things that regular people don't get a chance to, that good characters can't," the actor opines, speaking in his thick Kiwi accent. "Liking a bad guy is permission to live a wicked life vicariously. Ares has been on several shows now, so if you're a fan of those shows, you've seen a lot of Ares and me. That's nice. It's rare to play one character for so long."
So who exactly is Ares these days? Is he a god in a world soon to be without gods? Is he going soft or growing more formidable or somehow both? And, come on now, what does he really want from Xena? From baby Eve? "There's a lot going on, isn't there?" Smith says, simultaneously making a statement and posing a question. "It has suddenly gotten quite busy for me. It used to be very simple: Ares wanted to kill Hercules [Kevin Sorbo], at least once he got past that pesky complication of not being allowed to kill him. He also wanted to woo Xena back to the dark side. So it was pretty simple at one point; Ares had two things to do. Actually there was that dual mission statement and one more task: make war. So that was his day. He'd get up late in the morning, take a two-hour lunch and be done by 3:30 or 4:00 in the afternoon.
"Now, obviously, it is way more complicated than that. Ares has always been one of the great pragmatists. In the last season, we've sort of explored the wane of the gods, the advent of monotheism. Whereas the other gods are in denial, Ares is thinking, 'You know what? There is an inevitability to this.' Ares is the one trying to cut a deal. He's the one making preparations and getting ready to jump ship. All of the other gods are railing against the storm. Quite apart from his genuine feelings for Xena, and I think his feelings are genuine, at the end of the day, his survival is paramount."
Given that Smith didn't sign a contract to appear as a regular on Hercules or Xena for the 1999-2000 season of either show, he certainly made his presence felt on both series. He appeared in several episodes of Hercules' abbreviated sixth season and has been a major force in Xena's fifth year. The end of Hercules was not unexpected, and the actor is sanguine about its exit from the airwaves. "While there was a sadness that the show had finished, if that was its time, that was its time," he notes. "We had a good run. Kevin's emotions must have been several times more powerful than mine.
Xena cursed herself for leaving the bathroom door unlocked again Ares found that strong body odour was far more effective than a big sword
"The show was really a journey for him. It changed his life. We actually shot the finale a good seven weeks before we finished. We were on a dune for the last show and it just sort of snuck up on us. You get lost in, 'It's an episode. It's just another day of work.' You don't think about the end until it's the end. We said, 'Oh my God, we just filmed the last scene ever.' I think we all took a moment."The blow was lessened for Smith by the knowledge that more Xena action loomed on the horizon. Thus far into season five, Ares has figured prominently in a good many episodes, most notably Eternal Bonds, Seeds of Faith (the show's 100th episode) and God Fearing Child, the Xena-Hercules crossover that seemed to come out of the blue. "I'm having a ball," the actor states. "Strange as it may sound, I don't actually get to fight too much anymore. The God of War doesn't actually do that much fighting now. Ares puts things in motion. He delegates. He's basically in an overseer capacity now and has busied himself with other activities. It's nice. I'll get a script and it will just fly in the face of what we've done the previous four years. In the past, Ares has tried to kill Xena. He'd be thinking, 'Ah this isn't going to work out. I like you, but you must die.' Now he's plotting to make things work in his favor, and I like that. I dig that. There's always a sense of inner conflict for Ares now, whereas before it was very clear to him.
"The crossover was a strange one. I was with Kevin when we were driven out to this muddy, bumpy area where we had shot the `Hind' trilogy [for Hercules]. They had retired the area several years ago because, I think, we were seeing too much of it on the show. Now we were driving out there again and I said, 'Man, is this freaky?' Previously, we'd had village sets everywhere. When the location had been retired, everything got knocked down. And now it was all bush again. Nature had reclaimed everything. Kevin looked around and he said, 'Freaky for you? I swore I'd never wear these bloody pants again. And now here I am. It's like a total time warp.' It was great that he did it. It was great for me to work with him again. He had some time between Hercules ending and his new show beginning. The story made sense as a way to bring Hercules back. He was the link in the arc, and there wouldn't have been a Xena series if it hadn't been for Hercules. So it was a nice way to tie things up. And it worked. It was a good show."
Kareoke night always drew a large crowd in the ancient world
When it comes to the future of Ares - and Smith's participation in the further adventures of Xena - the actor grows suspiciously less talkative. "There's a lot of twilight of the gods stuff that you'll see in the next few months," he says coyly. "It's going to be a trip." Will he be back next year? "Ah," he says, stalling. "Whatever way I answer that question it will spoil a little bit of what's coming up for people. I'd rather it all be a surprise, so I'm keeping that one close to the chest."
Ares is not much of a fighter these days
Fair enough, but... "Will he go on after Xena and Gabrielle kill off the gods?" Smith asks, anticipating the question. "Ares is the ultimate survivor. He will do whatever it takes to live, I think. He is shark-like in that respect. He is single-minded in his pursuit of things. We've seen him lose his power. We've seen him be vulnerable. If his demise is inevitable, how will he face that? Anyone can be brave if you know you are immortal. I'd like to see the stuff he's made of. That would be very interesting to me. If he has to confront his demise, how will he go to it? It's how you face the firing squad, how you walk to the guillotine that shows what you are made of. We've gotten just little tastes of it, strangely enough, in the comedy episodes of Hercules and Xena, but we could be nearing the real thing now. I hope that when the time comes he faces his demise with nobility."Smith faces his own future with no sense of trepidation or doubt, only excitement about the prospect of life among acting mortals. He recently played an undercover cop in Lawless, a well-received movie produced for New Zealand television, and will reprise the role in two more instalments. "Yes, it's really called Lawless," he says incredulously, laughing out loud. "I just can't escape it. Lucy haunts me wherever I go." Smith has also completed what he refers to as a "friend of the director cameo" in Jubilee, a rugby-themed drama helmed by Hercules co-star Michael Hurst. And beyond that, Smith has his eyes wide open. "I'm available for anything," he says, as the conversation draws to a close. "I've never been able to pursue anything in the States with any vigor because I have been so tied up with all the shows back home. So I guess that I'll finally blow the cobwebs off the phone of my agent in Los Angeles and say, 'Guess what? You can look for something for me if you like.' A friend of mine wants me to do a stage production of Kiss Me, Kate back in New Zealand. I'd really like to do that. It's Shakespeare and music, which is sort of a perfect marriage. I'm trying to make that happen. So life goes on."
Ares would be proud.
Ares seems to have a soft spot for Xena...
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A to Error
Jackie Young
Via e-mail
Although any mention of Xena is greatly appreciated, and your efforts in Xposé Special #11 were in good faith, I do take issue with several obvious errors or lack of information therein.
Any 'Hardcore Nutball' fan (HCNB for short, as Lucy Lawless has called us Internet fans) would have noticed these errors or omissions, so the fact that they were in there led me to believe that the writer was not a constant viewer or tended to watch only the earlier seasons of Xena (though there were spolty mentions of later seasons).
First of all, if you are going to do an A-Z of Xena, I would've referred you to Rita Schnepp's The Encyclopedia Xenaica site for a more complete and fan-based listing.
Otherwise, I'll list most of the errors and omissions I found page-by-page below (though I'm sure there are some I missed).
1. p6 - Amazons: you neglected to mention that there are the Northern Amazons (formerly Otere's tribe) amd the Greek Amazons (formerly Melosa's tribe).
Xena with Argo: she's a he! 2. p6 - Argo: major error - Argo's a she, not a he!
3. p7 - Upper left-hand photo caption identifies Borias that Xena's massaging - irs actually Draco!
4. p9 - The photo insert description of Gabrielle says Hope died by her mother's hand. Actually, Gabrielle lured Hope to where her monster son was, then did a switcheroo on him. Hope's son killed his mother unknowingly, thinking it was Gabrielle. Also, you call Gabrielle a 'pacifist at heart. In Seeds of Faith, Gabrielle is accused of being too fast with her sai by Xena (in fact, thats how the episode begins). Gabrielle's definitely no longer the pacifist she once was, and thats a major change in her character!! Also, it's those same sai that are Gabrielle's new weapons (though you say that the staff is her only weapon - wrong!! ).
5. pl2 - You neglect to include a listing for sai.
6. pl4- The Way: you neglect to say that The Way: was re-edited and reinstated in the Xena re-runs and in international distribution by popular (fan) demand. It was not simply banned; it was banned at one point then brought back in a slightly revised form.
7. pl5 - In the photo insert description of Ares, you neglect to say that he was once suspected of being Xena's real father (The Furies ), though that question has never been answered completely or finally by the writers.
8. pl7 - I would disagree with Renee O'Connor about Xena's character not changing much; Xena's an almost totally different person than she was in season one!! But that's Renee's opinion... The caption for the photo in the lower right-hand corner is inaccurate - Xena's not suffering from morning sickness in Little Problems; she's knocked out by Aphroditets spell and has changed bodies with the little girl.
9. p20 - The caption for the photo in the upper left-hand corner is wrong: the bottle Gabrielle is handing Xena is amber to rid an Amazon body of Alti's spirit in Them Bones, Them Bones; it has nothing to do with making babies come out (though in a convoluted sense, Alti has stolen Xena's baby's soul, so the amber will enable Xena to fight Alti in order to get her baby's soul back).
I guess that's it (I'm sure there's something else that another HCNB will catch). Again, I applaud your efforts, but a liffle accuracy would help also.
Oh dear. Firstly, it's worth pointing out that quite a few aspects of Xena were missed out. The A-Z was only meant as a beginner's guide rather than a total documentation of everything that's been in the show, which should answer points one, five, six and seven. Therefore things that simply weren't included were due to space (Ares possibly being Xena's futher is not incredibly important in the grand scheme of things, and indeed, it's a part I myself edited out of Kate's article). In the case of Hope's death, it depends which death you're talking about. Hope's mortal life was taken from her when Gabrielle poisoned her in Maternal Instincts. As to the captions, the ones you mention in points eight and nine were meant to be joke captions. Obviously they didn't come across as such. I'll have to try harder. Aside from that, consider me hanging my head in shame; thanks especially for everyone who wrote in about Argo. I don't know how that got through! See, here's another one.
He-Horse
D Hancock
Rhyl, UK
I have just read issue #11 of Xposé Special on Xena and I would like to point out a mistake in your A-Z article. You say that Argo, horse of Xena, is a he when everyone knows it is a she.
Don't get me wrong; he did start out as a he but for some reason they changed the sex. Otherwise the mag was great.
I feel so stupid...
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