But now Xena will end after filming of the 6th series, Lawless and husband Rob Tapert, the shows executive producer, are considering another child. "I think we'll run off and think about expanding the family" she said.

The Kiwi Actress, giving her first New Zealand interview since the announcement last week that Xena would end, said the show should have gone out with a bigger bang. "It deserves to go out on way more of a high" said Lawless, 32, from New York. Most American networks had moved Xena, filmed on Auckland's west coast, to time slots which were "all over the place" said Lawless.

The fantasy adventure casts Lawless as butt-kicking heroine Xena, who triumphs over the forces of evil while maintaining a special relationship with friend Gabrielle (Renee O'Connor). The show, a spinoff from Hercules: The Legendary Journey, premiered in 1995 and reigned supreme in US prime time for its first few seasons, making Lawless a star and an icon of the lesbian community. It still holds a prime time slot in New York but has less favourable scheduling elsewhere says Lawless.

The final series of Xena - which screens in more than 115 countries - begins filming in April. Its axing means up to 200 New Zealand production crew and actors will lose regular work. Lawless said New Zealanders never took to Xena with the passion of Americans. She wondered if we let 0ourselves laugh at it enough. "We're a little bit embarrassed about our own product. I think it was roundly ignored and people maybe took it too seriously, I don't know. I'm sorry they missed the point" TV3 has not screened Xena for the past year although the show does run on Sky1 on Saturdays at 6.30pm.

Lawless, one of our richest women, has an estimated fortune of NZ$11 Million. The money rolled in after she was spotted in a NZ TV commercial and given the Xena role. "I never even thought about it" she said of her wealth. {"Its a whole lot better than being without a brass razoo"

And the lesbian following? Lawless said its no different to being a sex symbol to the heterosexual community. "Nobody relates to themselves as a sex symbol. If they do they're in trouble" Lawless is the public face of a New Zealand campaign against child abuse and launched Auckland Starship Hospital's third appeal this year.

Apart from meeting Tapert "the man of her dreams" Lawless rates the Xena crew as her greatest memory from the show. She calls them her "mates" and said the crew was like "crazy kids running an asylum" "We've always been very tight. The crew knew weeks ago that it was ending and its testament to the familiar nature of our crew that you guys didn't hear about it" "They weren't even told to keep it quiet They just didn't feel like blabbing it"

The end of Xena also means the end of 60 - 70 hour working weeks for the actress. She plans to do "a whole lot of nothing" and will spend more time at her Auckland home with Tapert, their one year old Julius and Lawless' 12 year old daughter Daisy - and maybe an addition.

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