The Singapore Press -October 22 1997
Hit
With A Fish, Left In A Coffin
by Michelle Ang
The
stars of the hit US TV show, Xena: Warrior Princess, trooped
out to meet their fans in New York and Valley Forge earlier this month.
MICHELLE ANG battled her way through the horde for an exclusive interview
with Reneé O'Connor, who plays Gabrielle, Xena's sidekick.
As Gabrielle, Xena's sidekick on the hit TV series Xena: Warrior
Princess, Reneé O'Connor has been hit by dead fish, eaten raw
octopus and nearly suffocated in a smoking casket.
In one episode, a playful Xena (Lucy Lawless) was catching fish with
her bare hands and flinging them at her sidekick. "It was terrible,
I was trying to keep a straight face, but by the end, I had scales
in my hair, my eyebrows, and my teeth, it was g-r-o-s-s!" said O'Connor,
26, in an interview with The New Paper in Philadelphia earlier this
month. Then came the raw octopus, in the Lost Mariner episode.
"They marinated it for me. It was the worst! It was so bad, it took
me months to try to eat calamari after that. I am not kidding," she
said with a laugh.
In another episode, the crew forgot about her while filming the last
scene in Blind Faith. She said: "I am in the coffin, and there's
all this smoking there. And they closed the lid and they had to change
the lights, rework some of the scene, and in the meantime I am in
this coffin you know (cough, cough), just can't breath in here, and
they go 'Oh yeah, oh yeah, Reneé!'"
Like her feisty but gentle character on the show, O'Connor takes it
all in her stride. "Stuff like that happens," she grinned. All that
hard work -and her boyfriend, Steve Muir, who manages a bar and restaurant
in Auckland, New Zealand, didn't even know who she was when they first
met a year ago. O'Connor told him that she worked the set of Xena.
He had never seen the show, and so did not know she was a main star.
But a few nights later, the body double for Kevin Sorbo on Hercules
who also used to be Muir's employee, told Muir what O'Connor did for
a living. "He told Steve, 'Oh yeah, that's Gabrielle,' and Steve said,
'No, no, her name's Reneé!'" she recalled.
On her co-star, O'Connor says that unlike their screen characters,
Lawless is actually the madcap one, and she the quiet one. "She's
actually really, really funny when she's not playing Xena, and she's
the one who will crack a joke and give me a hard time and I am usually
quieter when I am not filming," said O'Connor.
The stars' friendship is very real. "She's one of my best friends.
She's amazing, she's a wonderful person... you can tell her anything,
and she usually takes the lighter, optimistic point of view in any
situation... she has this sense of humour she uses to approach everything."
The sentiments are returned. At the Xena convention in New
York, Lawless told fans: "I can't do without Reneé."
More Than A Sidekick
Reneé O'Connor was no sidekick at the Sheraton Valley Forge Convention
Centre in Pennsylvania earlier this month.
The actress, famous for her role as Xena's sidekick, Gabrielle, in
the hit TV series, Xena: Warrior Princess handled the adoration
of the 2,000 fans present like a trouper. She answered questions,
danced and rapped for her audience and still had enough energy to
sign hundreds of autographs at the Xena/Hercules Convention.
This despite being nervous a few hours earlier. "It's my first one
so I am thinking oh, what is it going to be like, tossing and turning,"
she told The New Paper. She admitted she was still trying to adjust
to fame. "I 'm still trying to get used to it all. But it's not too
bad. People are so nice. Most people say, 'Hey I love the show, great
job'!" she added. Fans also got a pleasant surprise at the convention.
While she was answering questions, O'Connor suddenly got a call from
Lucy Lawless, Xena herself, who was performing in the musical Grease
in New York. The call was put on speakers. "When are you coming to
see me? Tuesday?" Lawless asked gaily. O'Connor, who had been hoping
to see Grease without any fuss, tried to avoid answering. "Soon,
soon," she said. But Lawless was persistent, and sounded eager to
see her co-star. Fans soon heard that the two would be at the Eugene
O'Neill Theatre on Broadway two days later.
The fans were thrilled.
So, when the day came, the crowd outside the theatre started forming
at 4 p.m. By 7 p.m., about 150 people were squashed against the theatre's
backstage door.
As Lawless signed autographs before the show, she growled in a big
sister way: "Reneé is in New York! Y'all be good to her, you hear?!"
At the end of the show, the crowd stood at least eight deep. The stars
obligingly signed autographs. O'Connor looked a little bewildered
at the attention. Lawless, by now an old hand, leaped onto the roof
of her waiting car, and signed anything that was thrust to her.
Then, together with Lawless' daughter, Daisy, nine, and other family
members, they sped into New York's busy night.
Both women will return to New Zealand in a few weeks. Lawless' stint
as Betty Rizzo in Grease ended on Sunday.
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