When O'Connor signed on to become a sort of female Dick Grayson, the sidekick/protegee to TV's ultimate wonder woman, she had no way of knowing "Xena: Warrior Princess" would ultimately reign as a worldwide phenomena. Heck, she wasn't sure this weird yet wonderful series, a spinoff of "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys," would be even a blip on TV viewers' radar.
"I had seen the success of 'Hercules,' so I knew we had a chance," she says. "But I had no idea the impact it would have."
O'Connor costars with Lucy Lawless in what has become, since its 1995 premiere, one of TV's top syndicated series. She plays Gabrielle, Xena's through-thick-and-thin companion, a sensitive and intelligent young woman who can bust heads with her fighting stick whenever necessary.
Now in its fourth season, "Xena" usually ranks as syndication's highest-rated first-run drama.
If you have never seen the series, any description probably will be lost on you. It is an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink show that unabashedly mixes Greek and Roman mythology with martial arts, offering storytelling sensibilities that are one part Homer, another part John Woo. It is a show that is better than it has any right to be, a show that literally must be seen to be believed.
"At first, I think there was some apprehension about having a woman action hero carry a show," says O'Connor, a 28-year-old Texan. "But actually that seems to be the draw now."
"At first, I had no idea that people were even watching it. My mom would give me feedback here and there that people were enjoying the show, but you really have no idea back in our little vacuum in New Zealand, just working away."
The show's popularity and the impact Lawless and O'Connor had made started to sink in, however, during a visit back home.
"My parents had an ice-cream social at their restaurant in Austin (a central Texas landmark known as Threadgill's), which some of the children from the area were at," O'Connor recalls. "So then I really had a chance to talk with the different girls and get a feeling for what they liked about the show and the influence it had on them.
"It's pretty exciting, having these girls tell me how they're dressing up as Gabrielle at home, having mock staff fights and mock storytelling wars. Going into the show, I never would have dreamed that it would have that effect on people, on young girls. But now that it is, I'm enjoying every minute of it."
When O'Connor, born and raised in the southeast Texas town of Katy, began studying acting at age 12 at Houston's Alley Theatre, a show like "Xena" was the farthest thing from her mind. She made her professional acting debut in 1989, starring in the "Teen Angel" serial featured on the Disney Channel's "Mickey Mouse Club," and went on to star in "Match Point," another "MMC" serial.
O'Connor first came to the attention of Rob Tapert (husband of "Xena" star Lawless) and Sam Raimi, the executive producers of "Xena," when an audition won her the role of young Deianeria in a 1994 "Herc" movie, "Hercules and the Lost Kingdom." They were so impressed by her performance opposite Kevin Sorbo that they signed her for a starring role in "Darkman II: The Return of Durant," a July 1995 video release, and again called upon her when "Xena" went to series in September '95.
"I never would have dreamed I would be doing something like this," she says. "I love it. But it's beyond my wildest expectations, to be able to have a character who loves poetry and loves storytelling, which is a lot like myself, and yet also have this physical side, where she can be robust and spunky at the same time."
Gabrielle has become an important character on the show, O'Connor theorizes, because "she's the sympathetic one and people can actually feel through her, whereas Xena might be a little more detatched."
It's worth noting, by the way, that O'Connor and Lawless really are the best of friends of the set, in much the same way that their characters have bonded.
"I actually met Lucy before I was cast for the role," O'Connor says. "I was still auditioning for it and she went out of her way to meet with me a couple of days before one of my many auditions and we hit it off right away. She even said, 'I'll see you in New Zealand,' with a laugh. I said, 'Okay, sure. I hope you're right.' I'm glad she was."
The two actresses are such good buddies, in fact, that Lawless chose to attend the 1998 Emmys with O'Connor when her husband, Tapert, couldn't make the trip. "Renee is one of the few excellent friends I have kind of added to my list of my oldest friends," Lawless says. "She's the best."
Their real-life friendship, in fact, might have played a small part in attracting Xena and Gabby's strongly vocal lesbian following. O'Connor admits that occasionally there were deliberately teasing scenes that fed some viewers' suspicions about the characters' sexuality. But mostly, she adds, cast and crew are merely trying to make the most interesting, most exciting, most amusing show they can make.
"We have writers who have written strong, independent female roles and we're taking that off the pages and bringing it to life, going for every positive that we can. In every situation, we're trying to go for the best, trying to find for the good in people, trying to bring that out."
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