Chakram
newsletter #14, 2000
Dancing
In the Aisles
by
Sharon Delaney
Reneé's
on her lunch break when I call her down in New Zealand and the first
question on my list concerned the maggots in the food during the opening
scenes of "The Haunting Of Amphipolis." I didn't
plan it that way. I never know beforehand just what time these interviews
will take place. Once she was actually eating a salad during an interview.
Should I go ahead and ask the question?
There probably weren't any actual maggots in the scene. Must
have been computer generated or maybe the second unit body double
was used. Nah -- they wouldn't actually feed creepycrawlies to Reneé.
Reneé starts chuckling. "They did have some maggots on
the plate. They had a piece of pumpkin that was clean and a piece
that was covered with worms. I had to make sure I picked up the right
one."
Suppressing a shudder, I asked, "Just one take, right?"
"Oh no," Reneé laughed. "More than one. You try to
cheat and glance down to make sure none have fallen on the piece you're
about to bite into. It was pretty safe."
My face was so scrunched up as she was describing this and Reneé
just kept piling it on.
"How about the worm crawling out of the skin on Gabrielle's
hand?" she said gleefully. "Wasn't that disgusting! That
wasn't me."
I don't know. For a clean cut young Texas gal, she sure seemed to
be reveling in all this goopy stuff. "When Gabrielle was pulled
into the underworld water pit -- how was that done?" I asked.
"We filmed in a little tank with a couple of stuntmen dressed as ghouls.
And there were some featured extras that had spent hours in the KNB
prosthetic department before being thrown into the water." She
paused. "I guess you could just call it another one of our hot
tub scenes," she teased.
I remembered seeing Gabrielle's face in the water screaming.
"Is it scary filming a scene underwater like that?" I wondered.
"Especially with people pulling at you."
"Oh, it's not scary at all," she said easily. "But you do
try to make the shots work as quickly as possible. We were having
problems because the camera was actually on the outside of the tank
shooting through a pane of glass. It was looking into this murky water
and the cameraman could barely see me. They kept asking me to come
closer to the glass, but it was a challenge to do that without pressing
yourself up against it."
"I guess having Gabrielle's nose pressed flat against the
glass would have been a bit of a giveaway," I said, as I pictured
what Reneé was describing.
She laughed. "Yeah. Lucy told you I was covered in crushed asparagus,
didn't she?"
"Mixed with KY jelly and vegemite," I added.
"Yeah, yum. It was so nice," she said sarcastically. "I
think everyone steered clear of me for that hour. Luckily, I didn't
have to have it on for very long."
And then Gabrielle had a shower scene where she was covered
in blood. It's as if they decided to baste Reneé with every
concoction they could think of all in the same episode. Quite a physical
challenge.
"I think it came together well, though," Reneé said. "There
were so many shock gags."
One of the best was when Xena's and Gabrielle's arms and legs
merged together. I told Reneé that really looked good when
the CGI effect was added.
"We used some panty hose and tied it around our knees. They also
had some stretchy fabric that looked like panty hose as well, but
it was more opaque and they put our arms in that," she explained.
"How long did you have to stay hooked together?" I
asked.
"For a few hours over a couple of days," Reneé said. Then
she started to laugh. "It was quite funny because there's an
obvious height difference between Lucy and I. I had trouble trying
to keep up with the stride of her long legs when we were walking."
"Xena was in a bit of a hurry in that scene," I chuckled.
"Yeah," Reneé laughed. "I thought I'd better pick
it up a bit unless I wanted her to carry me."
"Could you get apart easily?"
"As soon as we finished a take, we were able to slip out of the little
pieces of hose," she said. "It was actually fun. Quite hilarious
really. I enjoyed it."
"The Haunting Of Amphipolis" had a bit of "The
Evil Dead" mixed with "The Exorcist" in it.
And Reneé got to do her best Linda Blair rotating head imitation.
Reneé described how it came about.
"I had no idea what we were going to be doing in that section. We
just played around with different things. Garth Maxwell, the director,
said I should roll my head more and that released all these weird
noices, grunts and animal sounds out of me."
She continued. "Garth is a wonderful director. He has incredible
images that he gives you and hopefully you can take them and run in
different directions. Some of them are bizarre, but wonderful to use
as an actor. I love working with him."
"Can you remember any other images he's suggested?"
I queried.
Reneé thought for a moment. "He told Alexis Arquette (playing
Caligula in 'The God You Know') to think of himself sucking
like an insect when being lecherous.," she laughed. "It's
fun to have a director who throws stuff at you that's out of your
comfort zone. Something you would never dream of doing yourself. It
creates a whole new environment."
With Reneé having just directed her second episode of
Xena, "Dangerous Prey", I wondered if she
had adopted this tool in Garth's directorial arsenal.
"Not with that episode," Reneé explained. "It wouldn't
work with that story or the actors I was working with. You have to
know if an actor likes to play in that way because not everyone does.
Besides, Lucy is so solid and strong as Xena, you wouldn't want to
do anything weird or bizarre. Especially with the hero character."
"Some actors don't like to have any dialogue about a scene. They
just want to go into it with what they've brought from their homework.
And others come in and want to workshop and experiment with different
layers of a scene. As the director, you have to figure out how they
work best when you start with someone for the first time."
"Heart Of Darkness" had a Gabrielle whose heart seemed
to be taken over by evil. I didn't know if the character was just
playing along with Xena's game to trap Lucifer or if she really had
gone over to the dark side. I wondered how Reneé saw it in
her mind.
"I think what Mark Beesley, the director, wanted to capture was that
Gabrielle was drawn into the sinfulness of the environment around
her," Reneé said with conviction. "I don't think
she was dark. We didn't see a cruel side to her at all."
"She was having a lot of fun with Virgil," I teased.
"Yeah! Mark wanted to create this sexy environment and Gabrielle is
thrown into it with glee."
"Did Shona McCullagh coreograph that dance between Xena
and Gabrielle?" I asked.
"Yeah," Reneé confirmed. "She did all the choreography
for that episode."
"That was quite a dance," I chuckled.
Reneé laughs. "Wasn't it!"
"What was Gabrielle thinking?" I asked casually.
"Oh, I don't know," she laughed again. "What was Gabrielle
thinking? It is what it was, eh? It was very sexy." More laughter.
"Was it fun to do?"
"I love dancing so any opportunity I get, I just jump at it,"
Reneé said enthusiastically. "From that aspect, absolutely,
it was great fun."
If you haven't seen this episode yet, the dance between Xena
and Gabrielle is meant to create lust in Lucifer. It began as a tête-à-tête
between Xena and Gabrielle and then expanded into a mènage
à trois with Virgil joining in. Gabrielle and Virgil go off
together and Xena beckons Lucifer to join her.
"It was a very sensual dance," I said to Reneé. "We've
talked about being comfortable with the actor you're working with
and I wondered if this dance would have been harder to do if it had
been with someone other than Lucy?"
"I think dancing is a completely different form of expression
for med," Reneé said thoughtfully. "I really do think
about it as movements and having a spatial quality rather than as
an expression of dialogue. I'm sure dancers don't feel that way at
all because every move they create is an expression of words. It's
just different for me. I don't think it would be hard to work with
other women or men in a dance because there's just something so fluid
about it all. It seems so natural to me."
"Who's Gurkhan," "Legacy" and "The
Abyss" all had a thread running through them that dealt
with Gabrielle coming to grips with the killing she was forced to
do in her life with Xena. I asked Reneé how she viewed Gabrielle
now in terms of the violence in her life.
"I know Rob (Tapert) wanted to have an arc that addressed
Gabrielle's trying to find a balance between knowing how to fight
like a warrior and yet being a bard with a pacifist nature,"
Reneé explained. "I don't personally believe she is more
of a warrior than a bard, but there are some episodes where she is.
We're doing one right now where she's just a fighter."
"What episode are you working on today?" I queried.
"We're filming a story based around Saving Private Ryan
called 'To Helicon And Back,'" Reneé said. "It
was written by Liz Friedman and Vanessa Place."
"And you're working on a saturday?" I asked.
Reneé chuckled. "It always happens around this
time of year because we're going on our Christmas break and things
have to get done."
"What part of the episode are you working on after we finish
this interview?"
"We just shot the landing on the beach scene with lots of
Amazons. Michael Hurst is directing so there are explosions going
off everywhere and blood flying around," Reneé laughed.
"But the core of the episode is centered around Gabrielle. She's
trying to figure out how to lead people she loves into battle where
they face imminent death."
"Can you tell me a bit more about the story?" I asked.
"We're off to save one of the Amazons and, of course, no one
believes they're ever going to die," Reneé said sadly.
"We just think we're going to get in and get out. But things
take a turn for the worse. This is one of those episodes where Gabrielle
is forced against her will to be more of a warrior than a bard. And
that's the struggle she has - trying to be something she isn't."
"And this afternoon...?" I prompted.
"We'll be filming scenes in the interior of the boat where
the Amazons are preparing to hit the beach. These scenes will establish
the relationships between all the girls. I love the people we're working
with," Reneé added excitedly.
"New Amazons?" I asked.
"Yes," Reneé responded. "One young woman
named Madelaine Sami just finished a one-woman show in Edinborough.
She received rave reviews there and she'll be bringing the show to
New Zealand. She's about twenty years old and plays about eight or
nine characters. There's another girl named Morgan Reese Fairhead
who's been on a New Zealand television series called Jackson's
Warf. She was in 'Kindred Spirits' playing an Amazon named
Eris. She just gets better and better. I'm loving working with these
young, talented New Zealand actresses."
During a sandstorm in "Legacy," Gabrielle
thought Xena was being attacked and wound up killing a young boy who
was simply bringing them news. His raised scroll looked like a knife
to Gabrielle and she stabbed him.
"We wanted to show how Gabrielle would feel if she killed
a complete innocent," Reneé explained.
"And this was someone she knew," I added. "There
was a strong build-up of the relationship between Gabrielle and Korah.
It wasn't a random innocent young man. He had a name."
"Plus he adored Gabrielle and wanted her to teach him about
weaponry," Reneé added sadly as she recalled the story.
"Rob came up with that idea of putting Gabrielle in such a painful
situation. I thought it was strong. She is trying to figure out who
she is after all these seasons going back and forth."
The ending of that episode had Gabrielle saving Korah's father
in battle. They talk at the end and he says to her, "That evens
the scales between us." Gabrielle responds, "It doesn't
really, does it?" And the look on her face was so grown up and
heartbreaking.
"Abyss" was the next episode on my list of things to talk
about. More cold, wet scenes and they tried to barbeque Gabrielle!
"There was a scene where Xena rescues Gabrielle from a river,"
I reminded her. "Where was that filmed?"
"That was in a man-made lagoon built on one of our outdoor
sets. They turned fire hoses on us," Reneé laughed ruefully.
"They added a cliff wall and we pretended that was part of the
river."
But tossing them into churning white water turned out to be
minor compared to what the cannibals did to gabrielle. She was smeared
in goo, had her hands tied to her feet and a round tube was stuck
in her mouth. They turned her into a corn dog!
"That was mud, mud! It's very good for the complexion or so
they told me," Reneé laughed. "that was cold."
"Was that physically the worst episode you've done?"
I queried.
"It's that balance of being a professional and having to tell
the story when you're in a situation that you can't get out of,"
she stated. "Absolutely feeling every single emotion the character
would go through and knowing Gabrielle would fight to get out of it.
But I couldn't because it wouldn't benefit the plot. That was just
absolute cruelty and having to endure it was pretty profound."
The part of this episode that touched me the most was in the
cave where a delirious Gabrielle is talking to Xena as if she were
Hope. Telling her daughter they needed to run away because Xena wanted
to kill Hope. Hearing this just tore Xena apart.
"I don't know where that came from actually," Reneé
admitted. "They wanted to address in some way how Gabrielle felt
about her own daughter after all the episodes we'd been doing with
Xena's daughter. I think that's why they brought Hope up again. We
wanted to show Xena learning how much this hurt Gabrielle. It came
about because of the fan comments, I believe. Their questions about
not having Hope mentioned at all throughout the Eve storyline."
"Was that an emotionally tough scene to film?" I asked.
"It was a beautiful scene, wasn't it?" Reneé said
warmly. "We were getting quite cold and that just breaks you
down to be completely present in the scene. Under those circumstances,
you either fight against the physical difficulties and you can't concentrate
because your body's shaking or you are completely thrown into it and
believe every moment quite easily. I think that was one of those moments
where it was quite comforting for Lucy and I to be next to each other."
"I was so caught off guard by Gabrielle's admission and
the strong emotions of that scene, I turned the show off," I
told Reneé. "I just wanted to live with it for a bit."
"Oh, wow!" Reneé exclaimed with what sounded like
a feeling of satisfaction at the response her work had had on me.
"The next day, I turned the episode back on and after a scene
of Virgil and the cannibals, it switched back to Xena and Gabrielle
in the cave. You remember that? Gabrielle tells Xena she wants to
be buried next to her, not with her family. Ripped another piece outta
my heart," I chuckled.
Reneé laughed. "It was so sweet, very sweet actually.
What I loved about that scene is that it shows the love between the
characters."
Reneé was scheduled to do some ADR (looping) work and
I was keeping an eye on the clock. I had two items left on my list.
"In 'The Rheingold,' Xena leaves a note
for Gabrielle. It looked like the last couple of Greek letters spelled
out 'Lucy.' And right after that, there seemed to be a lip mark as
if it were sealed with a kiss. Did you see that?" I asked curiously.
Reneé laughed with glee. "It didn't say Lucy,
but the lip kiss was definitely there. That was a joke from the art
department. Wasn't that funny? I loved it."
"Well, now, Mrs. Muir -- is it okay to confirm that you
and Steve were married in October? I promised I wouldn't say anything
until you gave the okay and I kept my word. Even when the local Austin
paper announced that a flock of Kiwi women had taken over a beauty
parlor to have their nails done," I chuckled.
Reneé laughed heartily. "You can confirm it. We
are married."
"How was the wedding day," I asked.
"It was wonderful. The best day in my life," Reneé
said with warmth and wonder in her voice.
"Are you getting used to being called..."
"...Mrs. Muir?" Reneé chimed in. "It's sweet
because it reminds me of our day. It was incredibly romantic. Every
moment seemed to be full of happiness. It sounds so cliché,
but I could not believe how much love and happiness was around us
with our friends and family and each other. It was a very small wedding
and I think keeping it intimate kept it very relaxed. Steve and I
weren't nervous at all."
"It all worked out as you had planned?" I asked.
"When Steve asked me to marry him," Reneé explained,
"he said he wanted a small wedding. That was his only request.
And we decided it would be private with no publicity. We didn't feel
we needed to announce it because everyone who knows us knew we were
getting married. I love looking at the brides in the newspaper wedding
announcements, but I never wanted to do that for myself."
"Lucy said she was there taking pictures," I chuckled.
"Lucy was the paparazzi!" Reneé laughed gleefully.
"She had a camera and I've never seen her go off in such a way.
She was in every weird contortion she could be in trying to get just
the right angle of the cake and the flowers and Steve and I goofing
off. She was hilarious! It was so great. She got some terribly funny,
candid moments."
"Did you have a regular photographer as well," I queried.
"I did, but if I'd known how good Lucy was, I would have just
hired her," Reneé chuckled. "The composition of some
of her stuff was really good. She was having a great time."
The egg timer I had sitting next to the phone went off signaling
the end of our interview. Reneé went off to tackle the Amazon
D-Day landing and I was left with a head filled with images of Reneé
and Steve exchanging vows and a mischievous Lucy popping up with her
camera behind the wedding cake capturing precious moments in her friend's
life.
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