Dead fish, marinated octopi, smoking caskets - who do they plague?
Answer: Renee O'Connor, who plays the bard, Gabrielle, on the immensely popular Xena: Warrior Princess (X:WP). She gets hit by them, eats them, and almost suffocated in one of them. It almost seems as if the heroine of the show, Xena, played by New Zealander Lucy Lawless, 29, has the easier tasks. After all, she just hacks away at warlords, emits her ululating battle cry, defies Greek gods and occasionally saves Gabrielle.
The New Paper caught up with O'Connor, 26, at the Ritz Carlton in Philadelphia earlier this month. Peering over her coffee cup, she said: "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-oss! I thought this was just disgusting!"
It was a scene from an episode called A Day in the Life. Xena, in a playful mood, was catching fish with her bare hands - and flinging them at her sidekick.
Then came the marinated octopus, from the episode Lost Mariner.
"They marinated it for me. Uuuoh! It was the worst! It was so bad, it took me months to try to eat calamari after that. I am not kidding! It was so bad!" she laughed.
Then the crew forgot about her while filming the last scene in Blind Faith.
She said: "I am in this coffin, and there's all this smoke in 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 breathe in here, and they go "Oh yeah, oh yeah, Renee!"
A lesser actress might have bolted from doing such scenes, but O'Connor, like her feisty but gentle character on the show, takes it all in her stride.
"Stuff like that happens," she grinned.
Life off the set of X:WP
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.
They met in a restaurant. O'Connor told him that she worked on the set of Xena. He had heard of the show, but had never seen it, and so did not know she was the other half of the dynamic duo.
"He found out a couple of nights later when we saw him again, because a man that used to be one of his employees, is the body double for Kevin Sorbo on Hercules, so he knew what I did for a living and he told Steve. He said "oh yeah, that's Gabrielle" and he (Steve) said "No, no, her name's Renee". Hmm..."what are you talking about?" So it was a bit confusing, but you know, it all came ahead," she laughed.
O'Connor, whose home is an apartment in Auckland. spends time rock-climbing, rollerblading and reading, with Steve.
Her family still lives in Texas.
"New Zealand is home. My place is where I hang my hat, I work there, Lucy's there, some of my close friends that work on the crew are there," she said.
When O'Connor gets back to New Zealand in a few weeks, she will be taking up scuba diving Š which she first tried in a recent holiday to the Great Barrier Reef.
She said: "I am always making the producers a bit nervous, you know, 'cos I am trying strange things...I remember jumping in the water and my air tank just started bubbling...you start to hyperventilate cos you're scared to death...But once you just relax, it's like the most amazing world."
Life on the set of X:WP
O'Connor works a grueling 12-hour day, Mondays to Fridays. She and Lawless get onto the set in Auckland, New Zealand, between 5.45’am and 6.15’am each day.
Lawless spends 45 minutes in the makeup room. O'Connor takes up to an hour to get ready.
"She (Lawless) gives me a hard time, because she doesn't take nearly as long. But we hit the set, we rehearse, and we work a 12-hour day. And then usually, if we are not going home, Lucy and I will go to our separate gyms to work out, or we have to do soundwork," she said.
The actors go into the studio to dub the dialogue for previous episodes.
"You're watching your lips and you're trying to create the same emotion as you did on set and it's always hard, hard to do," said O'Connor.
Lucy Lawless
Unlike their screen personas, Lawless is actually the madcap one, and O'Connor the quiet one.
She's actually really, really funny when she's not playing Xena, and she's one of the ones who will crack a joke and give me a hard time and I am usually quieter when I am not filming, 'cos Gabrielle's very perky on screen, and I am usually reading, and I am quiet Š so I think!" said O'Connor.
Their friendship is both reel Š and real.
"She's my confidante on the set, 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 sense or point of view in any situation...she has this sense of humour she uses to approach everything.
"And she's intelligent...she's so quick, she's witty, she retains information. And I have found maybe two or three other people like her. They listen and they'll remember information, situations they've heard about," said O'Connor.
The faithful sidekick hopes nothing but the best for her co-star.
"I hope her career goes on into other dimensions besides Xena because there's a lot there that people haven't seen," she said. The sentiments are returned.
At the Xena convention in New York, Lawless told fans: "I can't do without Renee."
Gabrielle's future
In the third season, which premiered in the US two weeks ago, Xena and Gabrielle's friendship is put to the test.
Fans are already protesting the rift loudly on the Internet.
"If you don't have a friendship that's going to fall apart and come back together, then you're never going to grow and you're never going to appreciate each other," said O'Connor.
Gabrielle's costume has also been revamped. Gone are her capped sleeves on her green top. The skirt is also cut differently.
"I was having problems running and fighting. My other skirt kept sliding up to my torso. It was not working, so they lowered it and cut it so it stays put. Phew!" she said.
Gabrielle's boots are also now tennis shoes, covered with leather.
However, she will still be wielding her trusty staff.
"Gabrielle will always keep the staff. Hopefully, she doesn't go around killing people. But you never know," O'Connor teased.
O'Connor's future
O'Connor loves to play with her camcorder, but she's not ready to direct a Xena episode yet.
"I have a lot of learning to do. To learn about the different lenses and how to direct the actors and stuff before I can attempt anything," she said.
Still, she fiddles around with the camcorder.
"I am always playing with my camcorder, so I have a lot of funny footage, of five or six Xenas walking across. So who's the real Lucy? And I took my camcorder to Africa, and I have about 30 hours of monkeys and giraffes and stuff, but nobody would want to sit through it," she laughed.
O'Connor is not sure if she will continue acting.
She said: "I love acting, but I don't know if I'll always want to do it."
More than a sidekick
O'Connor was no sidekick at the Sheraton Valley Forge Convention Center 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 Hercules/Xena Convention.
This despite being nervous a few hours earlier.
"It's my first one so I am thinking oh, what is this 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 the 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 about 4’PM. By 7’PM, 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: "Renee 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 at her.
Then, together with Lawless' daughter, Daisy, nine, and other family members, they sped off into New York's busy night.
Both women will soon return to New Zealand to film more episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess. Lawless' stint as Betty Rizzo in Grease ended on Sunday.
All about Renee O'Connor
Birthday: Feb 15, 1971
Place of birth: Houston, Texas, USA
Hair colour: Blonde
Eye colour: Green
Height: 1.6 m
Home: Auckland, New Zealand
Marital status: Single, but currently seeing Steve Muir
Hobbies: Rock-climbing, rollerblading, reading non-fiction, and soon, scuba-diving
Career: Studied acting at age 12. Did commercials for MacDonald's and Exxon. First role in Disney's Mickey Mouse Club (1989).
Also appeared in Tales from the Crypt (1990), Danielle Steel's Changes (1991), NYPD Blue (1993), Hercules and the Lost
Kingdom (1994), Darkman II (1994), The Rockford Files (1995), amongst other roles. She landed the role of Gabrielle on
Xena:Warrior Princess in 1995.
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