Aphrodite, played with shadings of Mae West, bas been a welcome addition to XENA's heroic pantheon. She's a goddess in a bustier; the immortal half-sister of Hercules; sister of Ares the god of war and general tick in the trousers of any male immortal or not who crosses her path.

Noted Tydings, "After I did some research I found out that in a lot of the stories she could be very cruel. And then obviously there was the humor of the script and the anachronistic speech that she uses. That was fun to toy with. I got together with my acting teacher, who coaches me on everything I do and we played with the humor and threw some Mae West in there."

The show's revealing outfits didn't phase the actress, though she admitted, "When I get up at five o'clock in the morning and show up on the set, the last thing I want to do is put on a wig and a Wonderbra, but that's my job.

"I won't make apologies for Aphrodite," said Tydings. "There's nothing wrong with having sexy women portrayed in our culture, it's just what we do with them that gets dangerous. That kind of thing can sell show. People like to look at women's bodies. But the show doesn't do violence to women. It's not exploitative in that way."

It is a pretty exhausting transformation the actress goes through to become her infamous other self. "That's where the work comes in. Getting up every morning as early as 3:30, driving out to the set, sitting in the makeup chair. I actually don't have it as bad as the makeup girls, because they have to get there before I do, and they have to go right to work. I can sit there and zone out and have a cup of tea."

Tydings noted that her role of Aphrodite amounts to a "transformation. Physically it's enormous. I've run into people from the crew, who are looking at me all day long, and they don't recognize me. I'm not a goddess, certainly not Aphrodite."

Tydings termed the role's exposure difficult and not always fun. "I wear a robe on set, except sometimes when it's really super hot. Sometimes the makeup girls have to come over and powder my chest. That's always fun with all the gaffers standing right there!" Tydings laughed, "But they are a respectful group and a respectful production."

The ironic thing about Aphrodite is that, for a Love goddess, she is remarkably antagonistic, and in fact, in some episodes is the harbinger of wars - usually because of her disregard for the consequences her playing with mortal men causes, as in the XENA episode, "For Him the Bell Tolls."

"I never think of her as a bad guy, because I have to empathize with her," said Tydings, "and try to justify it all to myself. She wreaks havoc, but I don't think she means anything by it. Mostly she is just having fun. She can be petty and jealous, and then she just has to do what she has to do to get whatever she thinks she has to have."

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