Chakram
newsletter #16, 2001
I
Just Want To Sit In An Office and Speak With Real Clothes On
by
Sharon Delaney
I've
described how I set up for these interviews, but neither Lucy nor
Reneé has ever seen me do it. The one other time I conducted
in-person interviews with them in New Zealand, it was on the spur
of a moment and I just had some scribbled notes on a pad.
But if you've been in the club since the beginning, I once described
how I lay out heaps of cut-up questions on a table. Then, like a jigsaw
puzzle, I spend an hour or so arranging them in what I hope will be
lines of questioning that will follow each other.
The reason for me putting this picture in your mind is that this interview
was conducted with Reneé the Tuesday after she and Lucy filmed
the last scenes on Xena they would do together. Each had some
pickup shots to do later that week, but they wouldn't be working together
again.
Reneé came over to the hotel where I was staying in Auckland
and settled herself onto the chair opposite me. There was a glass-topped
table between us upon which I had spread out all my notes and the
tape recorder.
We
were mainly going to talk about "To Helicon And Back." I
started in: "Gabrielle
really went through some changes in this episode," I stated seriously.
Reneé started to giggle.
I couldn't figure out what I had said, but I carried on as if I hadn't
noticed.
"There was all kinds of death and destruction and Gabrielle was
in charge," I added.
The giggle turned into a laugh and Reneé tried to hide it by
putting her hand over her mouth.
"Okay," I gave in. "What did I do? What did I do?"
I said, mimicking Katherine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby.
Reneé pointed to the table and said, "I love all the notes."
"You're watching me work," I told her, blushing. "You've
never seen me do this before."
"It's great!" she chuckled.
"Pages and pages of them -- all cut up," I explained.
"Jeez," she said, sounding a bit astounded.
"It works great," I went on. "While you're giving your
answer, I can let my eyes roam over them and see if I have a follow-up
question related to what you're saying."
She pulled herself together, missing the twitch around the corner
of her mouth that kept threatening to burst into laughter again, and
we plowed on.
"'To Helicon And Back' was Rob's take on Saving Private Ryan?"
I asked.
"Actually," Reneé responded, "the way it was originally
written, it was more Gabrielle being Patton."
I nodded. "Liz Friedman, who wrote the script with Vanessa
Place, is a Patton fan."
"That definitely came through in the first version of the script,"
Reneé added. "But what Rob initially wanted, in the sixth
season, was to balance Gabrielle by showing her more sensitive side.
Especially after the fifth season where she was trying to be the warrior
protecting the pregnant Xena. We needed to find the original Gabrielle
and link those two parts of her life together. That was my goal after
speaking with Rob on what his plans were for the character during
the sixth season."
"There was a trilogy of episodes dealing ith Gabrielle
and what she was feeling about killing and violence, wasn't there?"
I said thinking back over the sixth season.
"'Abyss,' 'Legacy' and 'Who's Gurkhan' all dealt
with that," Reneé explained. "When the script came
for 'Helicon,' I felt this Patton-like character was too far
like the Gabrielle we were trying to stay away from. And, it was even
more extreme than the warrior she had been during the fifth season.
So we worked on the script to find a way to bring the sentimental
quality of Gabrielle into the story."
I had interviewed Liz and Vanessa earlier and they described
some scenes that didn't make the final cut of the episode. I brought
them up with Reneé.
"Liz mentioned a scene with one of Bellerophon's men in a forest?"
I reminded Reneé.
"We actually did film that scene," she said. "The man is
about to find Xena and Gabrielle and he would have given their position
away. Gabrielle pulls out her sais and is about to kill him. Xena
stops her and says, 'Don't - we can take care of him without having
to kill him.' She puts a version of the pinch on him to keep him quiet."
"We filmed quite a bit of this episode that didn't make the show,"
Reneé said ruefully. "There was more of the supporting
characters, too, so you really had a personal relationship with them.
You cared when they were dying and experienced the regret and loss
that Gabrielle and Xena felt."
One of the toughest and most surprising moments for me in the
episode was when Gabrielle essentially had to order an Amazon to do
something that would result in her death. They needed someone to make
a run for it on the beach and draw the fire of the catapults while
the rest of the Amazons ran for cover on the beach. I asked Reneé
about this scene.
"In the original version," she started, "Gabrielle orders
her to go out and be a target. Then it was changed to Gabrielle asking
if anyone will volonteer. That's the way we shot it. Then, in the
final version, Rob recut it so we went back to the first version.
He thought after seeing the final cut, that he needed to have something
quite strong, a moment where Gabrielle realizes the situation she's
in. She has to give that order."
"Michael Hurst, the director, said on stage at a convention
that the two of you didn't really want to do it that way," I
told her.
"It was difficult," Reneé said thoughtfully. "We
were trying to put a character into Patton and Saving Private
Ryan that wouldn't function as heroically as they did."
"I mean, I'd love to play Patton," she laughed. "I
think that would be so much fun. But it's not Gabrielle. I understand
they wanted to put Gabrielle in a situation that made her uncomfortable
and see how she would react to it. But she's not Xena. We had to find
a balance between what she's been through in the beginning of the
season up until this point."
"Gabrielle's not a general," I said, "a battle
leader who's used to making that kind of decision."
"There was a scene where she was supposed to rally the troops,"
Reneé explained. "That was really a Patton speech. It
was changed to make it more of an uplifting beat rather than cheering
the Amazons on into battle. Thay took out the 'Kill 'em all' attitude.
The aired version showed the Amazons realizing the loss they'd shared
and brought them dignity. 'The Amazon Nation will continue even if
we all die. Like our sisters, we'll go in and do our best.' That was
the feeling we were trying to convey."
"I read that speech in the script," I told her, "and
it was very gung ho. The way it was rewritten and the way you played
it was..."
"...more somber," Reneé finished my thought. "I don't
know if that was the best call. It could have gone either way,"
she thought out loud. "I think maybe there should have been a
moment when Gabrielle was tougher. But it was so hard with the character."
There was a really emotional scene between Xena and Gabrielle
right after the speech. Xena sees the pain this is causing Gabrielle
and comes up to her. Gabrielle says, "Xena, don't. Don't try
to make me feel better about this. Half of my tribe lies dead on the
beach. Now I have to be as cold and ruthless as I can be."
"I remember Michael really wanted Gabrielle on the verge of breaking,"
Reneé remembered. "She's trying to hold it together. If
Xena comes up and tries to comfort her, she would feel the loss too
much."
"Did you break down during that scene?" I asked.
Reneé chuckled. "Oh, we just do the scene and go on to
lunch afterwards."
It was an amazing image. Xena and Gabrielle raw with pain, the
wounded souls of both open for us to see -- someone yells, "Cut,"
and Lucy and Reneé return to themselves and toddle off to lunch.
If I hadn't seen it myself while filming "Who's Gurkhan,"
I wouldn't believe it was possible. I will never cease to be enthralled
by this facet of the acting profession.
"The Amazons didn't seem to be the warriors we've come to expect
them to be," I commented. "I wonder if, faced with fitting
Saving Private Ryan into a Xena story, they had
to play the part of boys just off the boat who had never been in battle
before?"
Reneé laughed. "This was the extinction of the Amazon
race," she began. "These were the last few Amazons in the
world. Maybe that affected them. Maybe only the young, inexperienced
ones were left."
Okay, I thought. I can buy that. Teenage Amazons, yeah, that'll
do it. Nah, they still seemed wussy. Oh, well, that's Hollywood --
can't keep their Amazons straight.
Now we get to the sticky part. I had not read the scripts before doing
this interview and had no idea what was going to happen in the finale.
I thought it was a simple question when I asked, "If someone
asked you what Gabrielle's life would be like in the future, what
would you say? You know, the stuff we're not going too see because
the series is over."
Reneé looked at me a moment. "Do you know what happens
in Japan?" she asked.
"No, I haven't asked and no one has told me," I answered.
She thought for a moment. "Let's just say Gabrielle has some
newfound skills I'm sure she'll want to play with. 'Wow, I didn't
know I could do that!'" she chuckled. "I think she's going
to keep traveling and righting wrongs."
"She'll stay out and be an adventurer? She hasn't had enough?"
I queried wondering what Reneé wasn't telling me.
"No she hasn't. I think Xena has rubbed off on her too much. I can't
imagine her sitting back and not getting involved," Reneé
explained without giving anything away. Drat!
I thought I'd dig a litle more. "Geoff Short told me about
some interesting photos dealing with the 'waters of life'" I
said slyly.
"'Waters od life,' ha!" Reneé chortled.
"He said something about you not having a cup," I
tried again.
"No cup, right. There was a funny moment during that scene. The
take was actually quite wide, so you really couldn't see the detail
on Lucy's face. I went up to her and I had a bit of water in my mouth
I was supposed to put into her mouth. I went to put it on her lips
and she started making this grimace and turning away from me,"
Reneé laughed.
"I'm trying to pull her face back, forcing her, so I can put
the water on her lips. And she's squirming and squinting and blinking
- trying to stay away from me."
The laughter increases.
"Finally I just started laughing. She didn't realize we were
filming."
"What did she think you were doing!" I asked in amazement.
"Just trying to drool on her, I guess." Reneé laughed
harder. "She finally looked toward the camera and said, 'Oh,
are we rolling?' It was hilarious."
"She didn't remember the kiss between the two of you in
'Return Of The Valkyrie,'" I told her.
"She didn't remember the kiss!" Reneé said, outraged,
eyebrows heading for the ceiling.
"No," I said.
Reneé burst into laughter. "I love it."
"That's okay," I said consolingly. "She also
doesn't remember biting Kevin Smith's chest in 'Amphipolis Under
Siege.'"
"She didn't remember that either!" she exclaimed. "Selective
memory. I should try that."
I continued. "I casually asked her 'How was the kiss with
Gabrielle?' There was this puzzled silence. 'Did I kiss Reneé=
When did I kiss Reneé?' she asked me. 'The Valkyrie episodes,'
I said trying to waken her memory. And she just roared with laughter."
"That is so funny," Reneé said, shaking her head
at her absentminded friend.
In an earlier interview with Reneé (issue #10), we talked
about the difference, for an actor, between kissing a stranger and
someone you know.
"Was it easier to do that scene
with Lucy than it might have been with an actress you'd just met?"
I asked.
"To be honest, it wasn't much of a kiss," she said
thinking back. "Wake up Sleeping Beauty. Lucy probably didn't
remember it because we don't make a big deal out of it."
Speaking of big deals -- I pictured the explosions going off
behind Gabrielle as she ran along the beach in "Helicon."
"How close were they?" I queried.
"Close enough so that I could feel the heat," Reneé
laughed. "But I wasn't in danger. They were just big."
"Geoff caught some shots of you diving into a somersault
in front of the explosions," I told her.
"I saw one of those where I look like I'm in midair!"
she said in amazement. "That's hilarious."
"I was wondering what they use to
simulate the bombs?" I asked.
"It's some sort of liq combustible, liquid," Reneé
explained.
"Did you have to do a lot of running?"
"The first time I stayed too far away from the flames,"
she laughed. "The second time I was close enough. It was really
quite exciting. They time the explosions after the speed of my run.
Once I cross a safety line, they set the explosions off."
"So the explosions aren't chasing you, they're going off as you
go past?" I clarified.
"Yeah, otherwise the timing could be disastrous," she
said with the wisdom of six years doing stunts on Xena.
Another traumatic moment in the story for Gabrielle, Xena and
the viewers was Gabrielle arguing to leave the wounded behind. Gabrielle's
battle leader's logic was they would just slow them down. Xena's humane
logic was that Bellerophon would kill them.
As a viewer, I was stunned at the words coming out of Gabrielle's
mouth. As what she was saying registered with Gabrielle, you could
see her confusion. The pain on Xena's face, as she watched this situation
tear apart her kind-hearted soulmate, was heartbreaking.
As I described the scene, Reneé nodded.
"There was so much debate about that scene," she explained.
"Liz and Vanessa had written the dialogue with Gabrielle wanting
to leave them behind. Then it was changed to Xena making that decision.
I can't remember why we changed that back. I had a hard time with
Gabrielle leaving the wounded. That was my stance. But I lost out
on that one because Gabrielle has to keep thinking and moving ahead."
"In my mind, it was so against the character of Gabrielle and
maybe that's what I was having trouble letting go of," she added.
"Gabrielle is a healer. She's the one always nursing the sick.
Why would she leave the wounded behind if they're alive. It just didn't
make sense. And yet, being in the scene, once I went along with the
decision, it seemed to work."
"Was it a hard scene for all three of you?" I asked
curiously.
"We had a hard time filming it," she nodded. "Lucy,
Tsianina and I didn't really figure out what that scene was about
until halfway through. It was really bizarre. Finally we realized
it was Gabrielle in the heat of the moment and Xena realizing how
far Gabrielle has gone. Normally you have an idea how to play a scene.
That one was very strange."
"Gabrielle was furious when she found out Varia had tried
to kill her," I reminded Reneé.
"I didn't see Tsianina's beat as truly being sorry. I was
just so outraged. 'How could you tre to kill me!'" Reneé
laughed. "But when I saw the finished episode, I thought that's
actually quite sweet because she was truly regretful of the incident
and the position she was in. But I didn't pick that up while we were
filming."
Reneé had to head off to do some ADR work on a previously
filmed episode that was still in post production. As I looked at her
curled up on the chair, dressed casually and looking quite relaxed,
I wondered what the past six years had been like for her.
"More than anything, I learned about my own level of tolerance
and perseverance," she said thoughtfully. "How to get through
six years of physically demanding work. It's been a great film school,
but also personal training. I remember telling one of the people who
was there that last day that it was like boot camp," Reneé
laughed. "And in many ways it was. We're out there working in
the rain and mud and cold. It brings out the strength you have within
yourself to keep going. That was really good for me to learn."
"Not something you would have gone through on a sitcom,"
I chuckled.
"No, not even on a drama, which I'm ready for now. I just
want to sit somewhere in an office and speak with real clothes on,"
she laughed. "But I would do the whole thing over again if I
knew then what I was going to be going through for the next six years."
"You would?" I said, somehow feeling good that she'd
said this.
"Definitely," Reneé said with conviction. "Because
it's taught me so much about myself and working with other people.
It's been really good."
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