Chakram newsletter #2, 1997

Conversing with Reneé O'Connor
by Sharon Delaney

Talking to Reneé O'Connor on the phone is like talking to Gabrielle - the voice is the same. There is a difference, though. And I realize it is the voice of Gabrielle from "The Deliverer," "Gabrielle's Hope" and "The Debt". Not the voice of the naive young village girl who followed a Warrior Princess into what she hoped would be a journey of adventure and became a journey of discovery - about the Warrior, herself and her beliefs. The voice of an adult, not the innocent and guileless young peasant girl Reneé did such an extraordinary job of portraying when Xena first went on the air.


As it was with my phone interview with Lucy, it is another early Saturday morning in New Zealand. It looks like this will be the pattern. Nice of these folks to give over a part of their weekend. I'm thinking that maybe New Zealand is like Camelot and "by 8 AM, the fog must disappear." Maybe that's why they don't mind chattering to a Los Angeleno bathed in smog when they know that in a couple hours they can be out and about in clear Auckland air.

My initial series of questions for this interview were of the "let's learn about Reneé" variety. And then the Rift episodes began to air. The internet exploded in excitement, confusion and consternation for the friendship between Xena and Gabrielle and my questions went into the shredder.


It started with "The Deliverer" and Gabrielle being used as a vessel to bring Dahak, the Dark One, into the world. Reneé explained,
"The whole idea was that Gabrielle was set up to kill to bring Dahak into the world by losing her Blood Innocence. She was the angelic person who could finally bring the devil into the world. Because I was such a virtuous person when it came to shedding someone else's blood, to do it allowed him to be born."

One of the points of contention among the fans was that they would have preferred that Gabrielle lose her Blood Innocence saving Xena.
"Oh, that's quite good, isn't it!" she said.

But you can't change what's already been written.
"No, we can't," she said quickly.

Ah-ha - I think I sense a pragmatist. No use crying over spilt milk or alternative story ideas.

And was it really murder? Gabrielle was being attacked by a person with a sword and she had a knife in her hand. How could it have been a choice? Was there time? I had been caught off guard by Khrafstar and his calm face and sweet voice. I knew that someday Gabrielle was going to kill, but there hadn't been a single leak that it would happen in this episode. When the knife went in, my body jerked with the realization that Gabrielle had just stabbed somebody to death.
"I was trying to keep that undecided and as ambiguous as possible whether it was defensive or strategic with Gabrielle killing her. So that she questions whether she has the evil within her," Reneé explained.

I was struck by the scream that occured during the stabbing - a keening sound that froze my body as it seemed to last forever. Something irredeemable had just happened. I realized one of the reasons it was so shocking was that I had never heard Gabrielle do anything like that before. The expression on her face was heartbreaking.
"Well, I don't like to let Gabrielle scream," Reneé said. "I always hate seeing damsels in distress and from the very beginning I said 'Gabrielle will not be like that. She's gonna stand up and try to be as courageous as possible in every aspect.' And I didn't want her to scream. But this time I thought, 'I'll go along with the script'. Usually the director will say, 'Okay, you're going to scream here,' and I'd always just make it Gabrielle-light. But this time, definitely, there was something that was so horrific to her it just came out of the moment. It was much bigger than I thought it would be," she concluded, sounding rather in awe.

And speaking of horrific -how about that tavern feast Gabrielle indulged in. What was it and how much did she have to eat?
"It was pretty disgusting actually. They did have chicken livers there that were cooked. But they fried some tofu for me, made it look like the liver and put it in this soy sauce so that it looked dark. But then I had to dip it in heavy cheese sauce and eat a cherry and beef jerky and the combination of the three was challenging to try not to toss my cookies after a couple of takes. They always make you do those scenes about five or six times," she said, laughing.

And then it was time to give birth! We talked about preparing for the birth of the baby in "Gabrielle's Hope".
"I asked my mom to send me some videos on women giving birth and she sent me The Miracle of Life. It showed three different women delivering. One was a caesarian, the second had an epidural and the last was a natural birth. From all three you saw what these women were going through and how they dealt with the pain. I talked to women who have given birth. A lot of my friends have had their first child within the last two years. I started to get clucky for the first time in my life."

"Clucky?" I asked.
"It's a New Zealand term," she explained. "Clucky like a hen. It means that you're wanting to cuddle babies and have one of your own. It was the first time that's ever happened to me. But as soon as I filmed the actual birth scene, just going through the pretense of it was so exhausting that I came home saying never, ever will I have a child," she laughed. "We had to reshoot it about three weeks later. It just wasn't quite scary enough (for the birth of the Dark One). We reshot it with all the animals the second time around and that was an experience unto itself having goats and sheep around you and you're screaming for murder. We shot in a different studio completely and panned from the animals' reactions to Gabrielle's screams while giving birth. They wanted more of a horrific experience from me."

I had often wondered how giving birth in a scene might affect an actress who hadn't done it herself.
"Now that I've seen the show, I've sort of laughed and said 'oh that was fun'. It was pretty exhausting. When they film, we shoot for about thirty seconds or a minute and then they cut and you have maybe a thirty-second break before you do another take. So it almost felt like contractions -you have to scream and then breathe."

I guessed she had a lot of sympathy from the mothers on the set. How about advice?
"The best mom was Lucy," she said. "She was funny cuz after two hours of doing this, it was sort of frustrating. There were so many people trying to give me direction and telling me to try this and do that and by the time Lucy came around to offering suggestions, I was at the point where 'No more!' It was the classic 'woman giving birth blaming the husband'-type of situation - 'This is all your fault!'" she laughed. "She was the one I could be frustrated with and she knew exactly what I was talking about."

How was it working with the kids?
"We had three different pairs. The baby they used on the day we filmed the birth was about two weeks old and she was premature," Reneé explained. "Then we had a couple of ten-month-old twins for the scenes where the baby grows up. Boy, they were hard. I think children are used to having activity and noise around them, but whenever thay would come on set, everyone would become completely still and quiet and the children thought something was wrong and thay would start to cry. Which actually worked against what we wanted. So everyone became more quiet and they would cry harder. It was a definite challenge trying to get a scene where they looked like an angel of Gabrielle and not the devil."

As we were having this conversation, I realized that I had asked her if she did research on giving birth, but it never occured to me to ask if she did research on killing someone which is what she had to do in the previous episode. Both are actions that she has never done. Does this mean that we take it for granted that we know how to kill and what it feels like to kill. Ming T'ien says about Xena in "The Debt," 'Murder is in her blood, Gabrielle, her soul. It is more natural to her than love.' Certainly left me with something to ponder.

"The Debt" -the most ambitious Xena episode to date. And a major stepping stone in the Rift. As the disclaimer to this episode notes, "Xena and Gabrielle's relationship suffered another blow (although Gabrielle doesn't know it yet) during the production of this motion picture".
"They wanted to challenge the friendship," Reneé explained. "To see if it is stronger than the circumstances around it. They normally tell me when things are coming up. I knew about the birth of the child long before I received a script. And I'd heard about the China episodes, but I didn't realize to what extreme she betrayed her best friend. So I was a bit shocked by it all and then I thought, 'okay now, wait a minute, this is Gabrielle, it's not me'. I had to remind myself of that. And I saw that, surely enough, she had just killed someone for the first time and she went to the other extreme saying that nobody should die for whatever reason. That's why it's justified at all. For Gabrielle the killing was truly one of the most traumatic times in her life."

Some fans have expressed the opinion that Reneé disagreed with what the writers were doing. So I wondered, if Lucy was going off to murder somebody, would she have done what Gabrielle did?
"No, I wouldn't. That's where I disagreed with Gabrielle. She has such high moral beliefs and she had just killed someone and all she could think about was the good of mankind. That no one (including Ming T'ien) should be executed against their will. Her friendship came second to that. If it had been my mother and something tragic like that would happen, I would try to rationalize into her thinking and justify what she had to do. Whereas Gabrielle just couldn't do that because her morals are so strong. And she's become this independent thinker because of being with Xena - to Xena's detriment. Xena's created this person who's an individual thinker. I was trying to warn everyone to keep an open mind and to look at Gabrielle thinking, 'well, this is not what you would do'. Including myself - I wouldn't do this either. But you have to believe that this is Gabrielle and she's not like us who are jaded by seeing death on the news all the time. She sees it but she doesn't believe that it's right and she's still affected by every single person who dies in her world."

I brought up the subject that we've seen no one die from the effects of Gabrielle's fights with the staff even if in real life they might have.
"But she hasn't killed anyone. If we're part of the story, the story is that no one has died," Reneé stated emphatically. "I would like to try and get across to people that we love what the writers are doing because they're challenging us as actresses. And they're challenging the characters, too. Gabrielle can't be the same Gabrielle forever. She's going to be affected by the world around her and she's going to change and become a strong woman. Whatever decisions she makes are hers."

Does she think Gabrielle still looks up to Xena?
"Very much so. She understands Xena more than anyone. She knows that Xena has this evil side that she's still struggling with and she can forgive her. And she believes that Xena can rise above all the violence. And I think she's more disappointed that Xena lets them both down when she gives in to her darker side, but she still respects her. She knows that there's a goodness in her and there's a purpose for Xena in the world. She's still fighting with her darker side, but she is the strong woman who's fighting for the greater good."

I realize that the ground we're covering is treading a fine line because Reneé has already filmed the two final episodes of the story arc. But I wondered if she could tell me how Xena's feelings toward Gabrielle are changing?
"It's funny because I'm looking at it after the Rift is over. I think there's always going to be a respect between the two women because they each have their cause and they're both justified in their own beliefs. I think Xena will respect Gabrielle once it's all over. They'll both come to an understanding and a sense of forgiveness for all that's happened, but with a newfound respect."

When I began to hear about the upcoming Rift story arc, it brought to mind Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart who had political beliefs that were polar opposites and yet remained the best of friends for fifty years. Could Reneé be friends with someone who had different beliefs than her own?
"I could definitely. I think you can be friends with someone and look beyond their political or religious beliefs and get to know them as a person. You don't have to agree on everything. Sometimes it makes for a better friendship because maybe you'll have an open mind that there's more out there. More so than political, I relate to religious beliefs. I have a lot of different friends who believe in other creators and we're all compatible and best of friends without even getting into those issues."
"I was raised a Baptist, but I don't practice that. It's almost too conservative for me. Thay don't believe in enjoying life."

And what would we do without the Gabby Dance!
"Exactly," she said laughing.

"You got bitten by the stuffed rabbit?" I asked, incredulously.
"Yeah. That was the running joke that day. The fight scene was so frenetic the teeth ended up cutting me."

And singing - harmonizing with "Joxer the Mighty" - I have a feeling I'd rather know about Reneés taste in music than Gabrielle's, I mentioned; tongue firmly in cheek.
"I love music and I love to sing. Not that I can carry a note at all. I've been making a compilation of different things to take on to set," she said, plucking the tape out of her machine and reading off some of the titles she was copying. "'Movies Go to the Opera.' From Moonstruck they have 'La Boheme,' 'Turandot' from The Witches of Eastwick, 'The Barber of Seville' from Dark Eyes. I have the soundtrack to The Lost Boys, the musical 'Rent,' 'Les Miz' and anything with Andrew Lloyd Webber. 'The Best of Rod Stewart.' 'The Glory of Gershwin' which has contemporary artists like Elton John, Sting, Carly Simon, Sinead O'Connor and Sharon and Kate Bush singing their versions of Gershwin musical numbers."

How about country and rock?
"Not country so much - anything but country really. I don't mind it, it's just not something I would buy a CD of."

Heavy metal, rap?
"No, no. I can listen to some rap, but I don't buy the music and I don't like heavy metal at all. That's something I can't listen to. I'd rather listen to country. I like 60s and 70s, definitely. Going into the eighties."

When you were a teenager.
"There you go," she said laughing.

She mentioned that she wants very much to learn about directing and try her hand at that some day.
"I like to look at every scene and every script with an overview in mind. What's the idea of the story more so than the individual characters. I usually approach a script like that. That's the way a director looks at things. And it's always been an interest of mine. Right now, Xena's so consuming, there's no time to baby that at all. But I think I'm learning a lot more than I realize just from being on the set every day."

I suppose some actors, when they're not delivering their lines, don't pay attention to what's going on. But you can probably do to see what you can pick up.
"It depends. Sometimes, if it's a scene that I'm still fiddling with and I haven't quite gotten a sense of what it's about, then I'll go and concentrate on my script a bit more. But otherwise, I always try to listen to what the directors are talking about. This musical episode we're working on now ('The Bitter Suite') is overwhelming. I think we're taking eleven days to film it. It's quite a task to see a directortake on an episode like this because of the limited amount of time they have. Which makes me a bit hesitant to ever try to direct one myself."

Are you a confidant person?
"I'm the kind of person that I have to do all the research so I know I'm going to do the very best I can and that I'm going to have everyone's respect. And when I do make a decision, I can do so with knowledge. From working with different directors, I've learned the best ones are the ones that are able to think on their feet and make a decision right away. It may not be the right decision, but they go with it. And that's what's needed in television - someone who's just going to carry us through without hesitating. The longer you hesitate and the more you backpedal about what you should do trying to please everyone, the harder it is to get a show done."

When you've done a scene, do you sometimes say, "Yes, I nailed that one"?
"Usually Lucy and I know when we've really taken hold of a scene, what we call 'owning' it. You just know what it is, you know what it's about and you play in the moment. There's a definite feeling of relief and enjoyment."

A high-five after it's over?
"No, it's actually very subtle. Lucy or I will say, 'Oh, it was great, it was good.' We only say it when we mean it. If we don't believe it, Lucy or I will say we should do it again. We normally whisper that to each other because everyone else is trying to move on to the next shot."

Can you ask for another shot?
"We don't ask all the time. It's only when we really believe that it wasn't very good and that it didn't come from the heart, do we ask. We try to get it the best we can in the first few takes. So when we ask, they usually oblige."

Both you and Lucy have mentioned that you have different styles of acting. When you started you were more into rehearsing.
"Yeah, but I've become more relaxed. I don't need to rehearse with her as much anymore. I do my own homework by myself so that I know the journey of the character per scene and then when we get together, I adapt to what she's giving me. I think because the characters have such a strong relationship, we don't need much rehearsal anymore. It's like a marriage. You have to give each other space when you need it. You have to nurture each other when that's necessary."
"Lucy and I had a scene recently where it was kind of hard for me to get to the point where I needed to and she just kept repeating the line over and over again until she believed me. Until she believed what I was saying was true. They were filming my angle and I needed extra help that day and she was right there for me."

I know that in movies and tv, when the camera is on one actor, the person they're talking to doesn't necessarily feed you the lines off camera. Sometimes it's one of the crew. I've heard that doesn't happen much on your set.
"Yeah, that's real important. It makes such a difference. The relationship between Lucy and I has come so far it doesn't matter who stands on the other side of the camera and reads her lines, it's not anywhere near the performance I could give if it were her. All she has to do is look at me and you'll get a reaction from the context of the scene. Lucy and I both try to be there so we can give as much as we can to the other person."

I try to get a sneak peek into the future. "The Bitter Suite" is supposed to contain the reconciliation of the Rift between Xena and Gabrielle. And they're going to do it in a musical!
"It's better not to say much about it cuz I think the more cynical you are going into the show, the more you're going to love it. It's best to not know anything and have all your doubts and wonder how in the world we're gonna pull this off and I think it's going to be so much fun."

Reneé seems to be chortling with glee and a "just you wait and see" attitude. Chortling! I didn't know people still did that and I bet Reneé would be surprised to hear me describe it that way. But her warm personality, feeling for people and innate curiosity are also traits that make Gabrielle such an endearing character.

Gabrielle is growing up. Not something we may want to happen, but something that needs to be done - for the characters, for the show, for the audience. While we cheer for the Hottest Warrior and the Sweetest-Smiling, Fiercest-Fighting Bard in the history of television, we also learn -how to be ourselves without apology, how to stand up for what's right, how to find the goodness inside all of us. We learn to do what Reneé and Lucy do for Xena and Gabrielle -look for the thread of love and follow it home.



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