By
Robert Weisbrot. From the Hercules & Xena Yearbook, Official
Collector's Edition, ©1998(in the eye of the storm)
In
the Eye of the Storm
Lucy
Lawless reflects on the new season
By
Robert Weisbrot
Hercules
& Xena Yearbook
Official Collector's Edition
Lucy
Lawless often gently reminds people, "I'm not Xena," though she'll add
only half in jest, "Except when I'm tired." By late July 1998 Lawless
was, by her own admission, exhausted, "simply at the end of my tether"
after shooting "four extremely grueling episodes" in a row. And her
always candid comments gained added force and urgency as she reflected on a
growing "crisis of faith":
"I
have become aware that I'm changing, I'm becoming a different sort of actress.
I'm not a method actress by any stretch of the imagination but the nature of the
episodes that we've been doing, in which Xena is very torn and very much in
pain, has been wearing on me, has been telling on me in my personal life, in my
free time. And that never happened before."
Of
course, Xena from her first appearance in 1995 has been a character in turmoil
"but," Lawless said, "I never felt anything afterwards.
I'd just go back to laughing and mucking around with my mates. It was never a
problem, but it's become a problem." Lawless laughingly denied that
she was becoming Xena, then added, "But you carry over the emotion. You
know, you can't dredge up that kind of emotion from thin air. I guess before, it
always felt like that, but nowadays it comes out of somewhere in me and it
doesn't [simply] vanish back into thin air. It leaves a scar in my chi -- my
energy is dissipated for quite some time afterwards."
Was
Lawless feeling more vulnerable because her character is moving into new
emotional realms? "Yes and no," she replied. "I think I
am. I have fewer defenses than ever before. And somewhere in me, I'm wiped out
in a way I never have felt before. But curiously I think that may make my acting
better. Because there is no bravado, so perhaps my acting will be more raw, more
interesting. And to improve is the whole point of life, isn't it? To
improve in every way?"
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Lawless
may have been reacting at least in part to the deepening angst, moral ambiguity,
and sheer horror that have gripped Xena: Warrior Princess since early in
the third season. Even a selective roll call of that season's traumatic
conflicts reveals a withering of the show's hopeful tone: Gabrielle's loss of
"blood innocence" by killing a woman, her violation by the god Dahak's
fiery spirit, and her delivery of a demon daughter, Hope; Xena's attempt to kill
Gabrielle in revenge for Hope's murder of her son Solan; and Gabrielle's harshly
penitent bid to kill her own daughter, through poison and later by plunging with
her into an abyss The wrenching legacies of these and other grim acts will
extend into the new season.
Lawless
at first disclaimed any larger vision of the direction of the series, saying,
"I'm too close to it, indeed I'm within it. I'm at the heart of the story
and it ain't calm, nobody can tell me the eye of the storm is a calm place to
be! I'm handed a script and I go, 'Oh. my God!' How do I make these lines
work?!'" But while Lawless seldom reads more than a few scripts ahead, she
acknowledged having picked up something of the upcoming storylines from
"having heard interviews with Rob," referring to her husband and
executive producer Rob Tapert. "The 'official blurb' for the new
season," she said, "is that Gabrielle and Xena travel to
Although
death has claimed countless soldiers and villagers in Xena, its hold over
recurring characters once again proves more porous than permanent. Despite
Gabrielle's apparent demise last season, "she of course returns,"
Lawless said, though only after Xena spends several episodes searching for her.
Also "Hope comes back, and she's bigger and 'better' than ever
before." But Callisto, having been stabbed by Xena with a knife dipped in
hind's blood, is not likely to return, according to Lawless. Callisto of course
has cheated death before, escaping entombments by rock slides, lava flows, and
"vortexes" between parallel universes. But, said Lawless, "I
don't think the writers feel there is much more they can do with her
[dramatically]. Callisto absolutely has been the most effective foe but I think
she may have run her course."
Lao
Ma, Xena's wondrous but ill-fated guardian and tutor in last season's riveting
two-part story, "The Debt," is gone but not forgotten. "I've seen
her name mentioned in the scripts recently," Lawless explained, "but
you'll see in a flashback in the [new] season opener that Xena went right on
being rotten after that. She saw what Lao Ma had and she's looking for it, but
in all the wrong places. She's getting a lot of gurus to try to conjure up that
[spiritual] force in her life again but she doesn't find gurus who have an
uplifting message -- she finds some 'baddies.'" Lawless said that she'd
love to work again with the "lovely, fabulous actress" who played Lao
Ma, Jacqueline Kim, adding, "Lao Ma should be an angel for Xena the rest of
her life."
Although
Xena and Gabrielle rediscover each other, Lawless said, "the rift between
the friends actually hardens a little. The friendship will always be under
threat. And as often happens after someone goes away and comes back, one says,
'Aw, terrific, let's carry on just as we did before!' But the other person has
undergone such a change that she can't reconcile her old life with her new self.
And it's very difficult for the [first] person to digest that."Gabrielle
has been through such a time of personal and emotional turmoil, just a huge
spiritual crisis, that she is forever changed. It's almost imperceptible but she
knows it's there. And she's grown up in some ways. You know, every now and again
in life, the scales fall from your eyes and you are a sadder but wiser person,
and you still laugh, but yon laugh in a different way after that. And
Gabrielle's disappearance and all her experiences with Hope have matured her.
While Xena thinks that everything's hunky-dory, she's got her friend back, she
doesn't realize that her friend isn't the little buddy that she left. So they're
going to travel on [together], but Gabrielle has evolved quite substantially in
the last season. They're more equal than ever, as women."
Lawless
recognizes that the past season tried to challenge rather than comfort viewers.
She explained, "l think that's because Rob [Tapert], the iconoclast that he
is, has been going through a phase of 'deconstructing' the heroes,
deconstructing [the relationship between] the best friends." Lawless
marveled not only at the harsh events surrounding the rift between Xena and
Gabrielle, but also at the rift this has caused with some long-time fans:
"Wow, yeah, the two [characters] have really gone through a lot! And it
wasn't so popular, was it? It wasn't a popular move to deconstruct the
relationship."
While
Lawless commiserated with viewers who felt alienated by the horrors befalling
Xena, Gabrielle, and their once inviolate bond, she insisted that the show's
change in direction was inevitable.
"[Some
people] want the show to be friendly, the show they can depend on for
friendship. They might well be the "Angel" crowd [a wry reference to
the spiritually upbeat TV series Touched by an Angel]. But you've just
got to keep your show evolving so that everybody that makes it stays fresh and
interested, the writers in particular. Otherwise it becomes too formulaic. This
show will [dare to] lose its heart. it will lose its center. just to keep
moving, keep changing, keep the conflict going." Asked whether Xena was
like a shark that must forever swim or sink, Lawless replied. "Yeah, this
particular shark [if it stops moving] will give up the ghost altogether."
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Lawless
offered a parting wish for viewers who recoiled from the shocks and iconoclasm
of the last season. "What I hope for them is that what we're doing in the
next season brings them back. I hope they feel comforted. And in another way,
too, Rob and I realize the cyclic nature of the world. It's the nature of the
beast that the first few years [interest] will grow at a fever pitch, and there
has to be some sort of drop away in enthusiasm. And then, with any luck, people
will come back stronger. And I hope it's the same with me. I'm very committed to
the show but I've got to slow down!"