Xena first appeared in "The Warrior Princess" episode of HERCULES. Lawless now seems so identified with the role that it seems amazing that she wasn't the producers' first choice when the character was given her own spin-off series. "I was sort of the local backup girl if everybody else fell through," said Lawless. "Which they did. God bless their little hearts." Lawless had previously appeared in two HERCULES shows, first as an Amazon lieutenant in "Hercules and the Amazon Women" and then as the wife of a mythical centaur in "As Darkness Falls." While the producers were impressed with the actress's abilities, distribution factors seemed to demand an American in the role. When the first casting choices became unavailable and with production start fast approaching they decided to cast the New Zealand native.

"I think a lot of people don't turn on our show because they think that it's silly karate fantasy," said Lawless. "But they're missing out on a great show. I'm so blessed to have this role which offers me unlimited challenge in all directions. I've never been bored in the role. As hard as it's been or as pleasurable, it's never been easy. The comedies are a little more rewarding than the dramas for me because they take less out of me and they give me a lot of yuks. I do enjoy them a little more these days. I do know to appreciate this role. There is not an actress alive much less dead who has had such a wide role in any television series ever."

The show was designed as a dark-edged, action-driven hour of television. Although comedy had been sprinkled among some episodes, as Lawless' versatility became apparent, the writers began tapping into her comedic abilities more and more. One of the wackiest episodes of the show was "Warrior...Princess... Tramp." R.J. Stewart penned the farce which has Xena meeting two lookalikes; Diana, the naive princess and the bawdy, dimwitted Meg. A triple role like that would normally call for all the scenes with each character shot at the same time-giving the actress time to get into character and sustain it until all those scenes were shot. "You haven't got time to be shooting like that," laughed Lawless. "That's a luxury we can't afford on our schedule. That's why there aren't that many physical differences between them because I would have to go in one shot from playing Meg to playing Diana to playing Xena all in the same half an hour. It took a bit of mental gymnastics but I loved that. I can't tell you how pleasurable that is.

"I had to method it out a little beforehand. Okay, I'm playing me dressed as the princess who is pretending to be Xena. It's pretty complex. But it's real fun. I'm the sort of actress who can't overprepare. It just steals all my spontaneity. So I set my mind on this character pretending to be this character dressed as this character. I'm playing Meg and at this stage of the episode I only know so much of the plot where another character would be further ahead in their understanding of the world. I map these things out loosely before hand and then I just go and be it. For me that's the most pleasurable and best way to work and seems to get the most laughs."

The gimmick was so successful that it was recycled the following season as "Warrior... Priestess... Tramp." The episode reunites Xena with Meg, now a bartender in a local brothel. The third spoke in this comedic wheel is Leah, a Hestian vestal virgin. Lawless plays the character using her own voice but with a distinctive lisp. In "The Furies" a scheming Ares has the Furies drive Xena mad as punishment for not avenging her father's death. Scripter R. J. Stewart actually mentioned the Three Stooges in the stage direction on his script and Lawless is a delight as the wacked out Warrior Princess. "I'd never seen the Stooges until the night before," she said. "I kind of knew how they acted because I'd seen Bruce Campbell and kids acting like them before. I'd seen a little bit but never a whole picture. I saw one the night before and I sort of went with it. But I'm just basically an extremely silly person anyway. When it works, it works. I think we're going to see a lot more comedy coming up."

All is not just fun and games on the set, especially when you're the focus of attention. For the fourth season two-part opener, the grind finally got to Lawless. Xena is in a desolate region. The shows were filmed three hours south of Auckland on the desert road away from the usual production locations. "Those two episodes were extremely dark," Lawless admitted, "and it nearly killed me. They were exhausting, physically. It was freezing and that was just the beginning of a whole block of episodes, very Lucy-heavy episodes. I was really pushed to my limits. Absolutely to the limit. I really had to change my way of looking at the world after those episodes because otherwise I was just going to become the sort of star that I never want to be. Just somebody who thinks that nobody understands their pain. Just a brat, an adult brat. I so disrespect that in people in my profession. Actors who won't come out of their trailers because they think that they're bigger than anybody else.

"I think I just hit the fourth season slump. Usually it happens in the third season and producers know this. Stars usually go through a time in their third season where they just have a complete conniption and become a pain in the ass to work with. I sort of sailed through my third season but in the fourth I just felt this terrible slump. I managed to sort of hide it to a large degree but there wasn't any of that joie de vivre that I usually have. I really went on a downer. I've come through it and I'm so much better and happier and appreciate all the great things I have in my life. But for a period there I couldn't. I just went through a desolate time. I have the man of my dreams, a great job, a happy healthy daughter and a wonderful home. But I couldn't appreciate it."

Lawless is confronted weekly with the most physical challenges of any woman on television. Riding, running, leaping into the air and, of course, battling Roman legions, vicious bandits, and armies of religious fanatics. "I do all the fighting," said the actress. "I have a stunt double because we don't have time to shoot everybody else's angles. They'll shoot everything that's facing me, they'll shoot all my angles and then they'll fight again on another day with second unit team and my wonderful stunt woman, Zoe."

Did Lawless get any kind of training? "Are you kidding?" she asked with a big grin. "I didn't have training. I just went to work the first two years and got smacked around until I learned how to do it. You learn pretty quickly that way. Training? There's no molly coddling. The way we shoot this it's almost guerrilla shooting. It's not like shooting in America. We are the wild, wild west and things are generally done for real so what you see is what you get. I do have a riding double. Anything that's too dangerous or that's going to give me a black eye like working with new actors who have never fought before is done with a stunt woman. You can get another stunt woman, but I'm a little harder to replace."

But there was a time when Lawless had to be replaced. There was no stunt woman around when the actress was in Los Angeles for an appearance on the Leno Show. Lawless was supposed to ride a horse on to the show but didn't make it. "I was riding a horse on concrete," she said. "It was a western horse and I need an English horse. It's a completely different set of skills and a completely different set of communication with the horse. Anyway, they got me a western horse and I don't know how to ride western and this horse was just pissed off. We did it a couple of times. It was fine and then they said, 'Okay, one more for safety.' I came trotting in, the horse's feet went swish out on the pavement, I'll never forget the sound of hoofs scrapping on cement, and the horse fell. I was thrown clear and I smashed my pelvis." While their star was laid up, the production cleverly reworked a couple of scripts and suddenly Xena was in Callisto's body, courtesy of Ares, the God of War and Hudson Leick became Xena for a couple of episodes.

With an intense shooting schedule there are times when Lawless needs a break and the focus of an episode falls on Renee O'Connor's character, Gabrielle. "We shoot from late October until March and then we have a bit of a break and then we'll shoot until October again," she said. "Thirty-two weeks of filming, but it's broken up with little breaks because there's so much burn-out from all sorts of departments. The Gabrielle shows are designed to give me a break or when it's convention time or I have to go and do a big thing for the industry somewhere."

For a change of pace, writers Adam Armus and Nora Kay Foster set "The Xena Scrolls" in the 1940's. An archaeologist and her assistant come across the scrolls which tell of the adventures of the Warrior Princess and her friend, Gabrielle. The show gave Lawless and Renee O'Connor a chance to play dual roles. "I loved that," Lawless said. "I loved putting on modern clothes. I got to use a Southern accent. It was a funny story. I loved getting out of the armor. It was my dream. I loosely plan what I want to do, that's my acting style. I've experimented with different ways of working but this really works best for me, the way my brain operates. I just go in there and love it and laugh. Anything that makes the crew laugh is generally a hit so that's what we gauge it on."

The two Greek heroes were also featured in an animated film called appropriately enough, HERCULES AND XENA: THE ANIMATED MOVIE. Kevin Sorbo and Lawless provided the voices for their animated counterparts. Is Lawless now a candidate for Disney? "I'm ready, baby, I'm ready," she said gleefully. "It was quite difficult at the time. I think I was a bit intimidated by the process and I found it difficult to be Xena (a) out of costume and (b) just the sound of my own voice kind of scared me, I think. I found that surprisingly difficult just standing around in the booth. The next time I do one I'll understand how that works a little better so I can imagine things more fully than I could at the time."

One of Xena's trademarks is her warrior scream as she leaps high over the heads of sword wielding ruffians and soldiers. "Rob [Tapert] wanted, for lack of a better word, a gimmick," Lawless explained. "He wanted something like Tarzan's yodel. We were watching CNN and there were those Arabic women who make that sound and he said, 'That's kind of what I want.' But I couldn't do it the way they did so I just bastardized it and made up my own and it seems to have stuck. You don't want to hear that in an enclosed space."

Upcoming episode plots are generally a mystery to Lawless who isn't part of the script process and she wants to keep it that way. "They don't tell me," she said. "It's a big surprise to me and a big surprise to them what they get back. That is how we work. I don't like to hear about a script, to tell the truth, because it just makes me anxious. Things are either far better or far worse then I anticipate so there is no point in me anticipating anything. I'm much better if I just hear about things three or four days before. That's a good time frame for me. We've learned not to discuss that stuff. It's on a need to know basis. Lucy doesn't have to know."

Over the last few years, Lawless has gone from gold mining in the wilderness to international stardom. A process that has radically changed her life. From being a free spirit the actress has found she must come down to earth and face the fame. "It has changed my life, I guess, in every way," she said. "My daughter is the one constant in my life and now my husband. I own one pair of socks from my old life, apart from the people. Everything has changed. I still see my old friends but so rarely. I've had to go into microcosms and to accept also my work as my social life because I spend so much time there. I always look to be happy, so when things are a little bit of a struggle I learn to deal with it. I used to just sail through life. Now I don't sail. It's very rewarding but it's hard work. I've had to become much more responsible. I can't just take a day off work because there are people who depend on me to pay their mortgages. I've had to become more responsible in every sort of way."

Just keeping up with the demands of the role is a major challenge for the 31-year-old actress who must face the cameras for 32 weeks a year. "That's why I don't need to get too far ahead," said Lawless. "I'm always fighting to keep on top of it health-wise, work wise. I've got to have done my homework. I've got to be physically on top of it. And I've got to be happy. I'm the morale officer. I'm in so much of the show that everybody is looking at me all the time and if I behave badly it effects everybody, so I'm very cognizant of the fact of my responsibilities toward everybody and helping them have a good day."

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