"When I started Xena," she reflects, "people were disappointed when they saw me driving around in an old car. They were slightly bummed that I was ordinary. And now I have all the trappings of success they like the fact that I'm ordinary. Not exactly accessible, but ordinary."

Lawless has a blunt turn of phrase to match her down-to-earth image. On gossip columnists, for example, she says: "You don't expect a weasel not to act like a weasel. And you don't expect a gossip columnist not to act like a gossip columnist."

Daniell's interview with Lawless is in today's Magazine section, starting on page 9.

Wellington's Evening Post 4 July 1998

Lucy - A Law Unto Herself

Lucy Lawless is making a mint out of mythology. Sarah Daniell talks to the star of the hit TV series, Xena, Warrior Princess.

The name's Lawless. Lucy Lawless. Lucy Frances Lawless, actually. Lucy FLawless? A bold name but, as they say, if the cap fits.....

She needs no introduction - the startling blue eyes, the raven mane and striking physical presence are legendary qualities in themselves. But what is most startling is that when Lawless drops her warrior shield, she blows the myth of the staunch defender.

This mellow, self-effacing 30-year-old who once seemed, with her pre-Mycenaean alter ego, to give the two-finger salute to convention and patriarchy seems to be revisiting her conservative origins. Once the "recovering Catholic", Lawless was happy to walk up the aisle earlier this year as a Catholic bride, and is happy to play the role model if that is what the public want.

This might be at odds with modern mythology, but right now Lawless doesn't have to give a damn, frankly. She has gone where few NZ actors have gone before, and without the affectations of many of her Hollywood counterparts.

As she warmly chats on the phone from her Auckland home, it's hard to imagine this actor throwing a wobbly on set because she has the wrong brand of mineral water in her trailer. Lawless gets on with the job. She describes as "precious" the people who work with her 12 hours a day, six days a week, and insists she is merely one part of a dedicated team.

"If I'm a crumb-bum and make their lives miserable, for God's sake they'll leave. I know my mood affects so many people's work and that the staff set the tone on the set. They may not set the pace but they certainly set the tone."

She breaks off to tell the dog, Lucky - "a crazy mutt" - not to be sick on the carpet ("I'm not really a huge pet person") and laughs when confronted with questions of fame and icon-ism.

Two years ago, she reeled when American magazine Ms saddled her with leading a mass-culture movement. "I feel they [feminists] are objectifying me .... they think I'm a counter Barbie Barbie," she said at the time. "Well f... you. Don't set me up as television's gladiator Roseanne..." And: "I don't wanna be anyone's role model. Go away. I have enough trouble being my daughter's role model."

Now she seems to shrink from such impassioned responses. "It's just that I was terrified. I mean, you're a bloody girl from Mt Albert [in middle-class Auckland suburbia] and all of a sudden they're hailing you as an icon. And that's hard to deal with. Now I can take it all with a grain of salt. I know it's not me, it's just some media spectre they've helped conjure up. They need it. People need that sort of thing. When I started Xena," she reflects, "people were disappointed when they saw me driving around in an old car. They were slightly bummed that I was ordinary. And now I have all the trappings of success they like the fact that I'm ordinary. Not exactly accessible, but ordinary."

It's probably just as well she's more relaxed about being a role model, because her massive following would be hard to ignore. Young men and women identify with this "bloody girl from Mt Albert". She is strikingly beautiful but about as far from bimbo as it's possible to get. She's tall (1.8m) and she's not likely to blow over in a gust. And there has never been a female character like Xena on television. Wonder Woman? The Bionic Woman? They were, well, just too nice and besides, Xena's strength comes naturally - she hasn't been tampered with electronically (at least, not that we know of....). The closest Xena gets to enhancing nature is a Wonder bra. "Real women wear padding, they don't get plastic surgery," says Lawless.

While 18-year-olds get Xena, thirtysomethings TV viewers get Ally McBeal - she who teeters about in a state of perpetual uncertainty. Where McBeal teeters, Xena just saddles up and gallops into the fray.

So close is she to the character, has Lawless ever slipped into Xena mode, forgetting who she is? Perhaps letting slip a blood-curdling battle cry in a supermarket queue? American actor Kevin Sorbo, of that other legendary series, Hercules, once said Lucy *was* Xena: "Who else but a mythical warrior woman would look like that?" Does she ever forget where Xena ends and Lucy begins? "I'm always Lucy. I never feel any pressure to be anyone else. I mean, who else can you be?"

"There were times when it was difficult and then I kind of got over it. And what amazes me is that your ordinariness all of a sudden makes you unique. So it's really easy to go on being yourself and it's the happiest way to deal with life too. I don't want to be miserable. I know how short this life is, that I'll be 80 one day."

The fearless qualities that sparked such labels as "feminist icon" seem part of Lawless herself, who intermittently throws in statements like, "Feel the fear and do it anyway". It is less a conscious political statement. "It seems totally natural to me that women are equal to but different to men. I never questioned that it was any other way."

Interesting then, that she should choose a most patriarchal institution in which to bond publicly with her second husband. She walked down the aisle with Xena producer Rob Tapert in a style nothing short of fully traditional. Celebrity-ville, white dress in a Catholic church. The Works. She sounds positively dreamy when recalling the pomp and ceremony of her fairy tale day. "It was the best day of my life - the best *arranged* day of my life. I got married in a Catholic church and it was great because culturally, to me and to Rob, who grew up in the same way, it was the most significant way to declare publicly your commitment to another human being, and it was wonderful. If you want to get married in a Catholic church you have to do a six week marriage course. It's not so much religious, but about focusing on what makes marriages go right. And I thought this was such a gift."

Maybe this too was an act of defiance against what is expected of her. Or maybe it was a Mt Albert girl going full circle. Her father is Frank Ryan, former mayor of Mt Albert, and her mother, Juliet, a "tireless community worker". Lawless was the fifth of seven children and decided from an early age to perform. SHe sang at home to her treasured Grease soundtrack and had an affinity with bad girl Rizzo - unwittingly rehearsing for the role she would play 20 or so years later on Broadway. Later she appeared in TV commercials and co-hosted a travel programme. She travelled, worked in Australian gold-mines and got married to Garth Lawless, with whom she has a daughter, Daisy, now 10. The marriage ended, but she is philosophical about that chapter in her life.

"All experience in life should make you a better person..... If you don't accept 50 percent of the responsibility, not blame.... for whatever position you're in, you can't heal yourself. You can't go on and do things because you're playing the victim. It means now that now I'm a far better potential partner, yep."

And then along came Xena, a role she only got because others were sick or turned it down. Since the beginning of the Xenaverse (a frenzied Internet following, a cartoon spinoff and a massive merchandising and licensing campaign) speculation puts her earnings around $34 million. So she must be rubbing shoulders with the million dollar man, Jerry Seinfeld? "No, but it's not that I'm not worth it!"

What if it were all gone tomorrow - the stardom, the glamour, the money?

"Fame was never the end product. I'll bet your bottom dollar I'm still working when I'm 80."

It does seem a lavish life-style doesn't match the income. She is clean living, has given smoking and vegetarianism the boot ("being a vegetarian made me anaemic") and says she's in bed by eight o'clock each night. But she enjoys "killing a few brain cells about once a year".

She has property ("more than I need") including a bach near Taupo, where she goes fly fishing with Tapert, and she has reportedly bought a stately mansion in AUckland for $4.2 million. She is fiercely protective of her privacy and aware of the repercussions of fame for those close to her. And she's more than a little gun-shy after a recent column all but revealed her Auckland address.

"You don't expect a weasel not to act like a weasel. And you don't expect a gossip columnist not to act like a gossip columnist."

Women's magazines get a swipe of the warrior's sword too, and though she has graced the cover of many, she has never granted any an interview.

"It's like making a pact with the devil, you know. If you take the ups from them, you also have to take the downs with them. If they don't keep you rising and falling in popularity in their own personal poll, then they have nothing to fill their pages with."

Credibility is crucial, even when it came to turning down a $60,000 tampon commercial, pre-Xena days, as a single mother. No doubt the money would have come in handy. "Hey, but everybody has their price. For a certain price I could have swallowed my pride."

This Mt Albert girl who cite mega-clever actor Susan Sarandon as a hero, keeps her own counsel. She knows Xena has an expiry date. But right now she's having a hell of a time. "I know that when I'm 80 I'm gonna say 'Wow man, I did Broadway'. And I know that if I die young, I know that I'm sucking the life out of every day. I'm not waiting to be happy later."

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