Before Sam Raimi became one of the hottest movie directors because of Spider-Man, he produced Xena: Warrior Princess. That show garnered a huge following in syndication, and its ratings soon surpassed the show from which it spun off, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Xena's second season is now on DVD, and I got a chance to talk with its star, Lucy Lawless, between makeup sessions on her new WB series, Tarzan.

UGO: What are you up to right now?

Lucy Lawless: I'm propped up at the table shoving olives down my neck, and someone is holding the phone up to my ear.

UGO: What is your best memory from season 2 of Xena?

LL: I think that Callisto is pretty good. When you meet a really good foe that is also a good actress, it makes you do better work. You're only as good as your villains. It's a symbiotic relationship.

UGO: Obviously, Xena became a bigger hit with season two. How did things change? Did budgets go up, better sets, was there better food?

LL: None of the above [laughs]. At some point, we did switch from 16mm film to 35mm. All the extra money went to film stock.

UGO: How was Bruce Campbell as a director?

LL: He's excellent and really prepared. He's not malleable [laughs], but he would make adjustments as things came up because he thinks fast on his feet. Also, we really locked that little comic quartet we had with me, Renee [O'Connor], Ted [Raimi] and Bruce. That was such a great game, when we came together.

UGO: Did Robert Tapert fall in love with you by this point?

LL: Oh, gosh. I think we were already planning to be married.

UGO: Probably from the first time he saw you in the costume. I know you had a small part in Spider-Man. Will you be working with Sam Raimi more in the future?

LL: I just did a bit part in Boogeyman, which Sam produced. But I don't factor that into my future. I don't go asking my husband for jobs. Wait, that's not true [laughs]. It would be lovely to work with Sam again when it's right. But I have my own thing going on, because I want to generate my own work.

UGO: Could Xena beat up Tarzan?

LL: Absolutely, but I don't think Lucy could beat up Travis [Fimmel, star of Tarzan]. He's phenomenal. The things he has mastered, I've never seen. It's a style of physicality that's different than Capoeira, dancing or anything. It's right out of Cirque du Soleil.

UGO: Are you going to be on more than the first season of Tarzan?

LL: There's a possibility I could come back for the second season. We're working on a show specific for me, but I don't think I will be sick of this by the end of the first season. I'm really just enjoying myself right now, and I like the people I'm working with.

UGO: What was it like watching Xena again for the commentary?

LL: I remember coming away humbled and really charmed by it. I usually never want to watch myself, but when I do, it's always charming. I get all these warm feelings and memories from the behind the scenes.

UGO: Do you ever meet people who have no idea what Xena is?

LL: No, most people seem to know what it is, but they don't recognize me, which I am totally fine with.

UGO: Do you get a lot of fan mail from homosexual women?

LL: You can say lesbian [laughs]. Be brave. Just listen to the way you skirted around that question. Xena is a huge lesbian icon, and in the end, she probably was a lesbian. I turned to my husband and said, "You just outted my character." Until that point, it had always been, is she or isn't she? By the end, she was just gay, for god's sakes. Stop beating around the bush.

UGO: Good pun.

LL: I don't know what you are talking about.

UGO: Are you the only New Zealand actress that wasn't in the Lord to the Rings movies?

LL: Yeah [laughs]. I was pregnant.

UGO: Did they offer anything to you?

LL: They asked me to come down and do a test for it. But I was pregnant, and hadn't quite finished Xena yet. I kind of couldn't be bothered with it, because I was totally overstretched.

UGO: I would imagine you are a huge Peter Jackson fan.

LL: Yes, and I love him as a person as well, him and his wife. When I saw the movie, I was just guttered to not have been part of it. It was so phenomenal.

UGO: I heard you turned down an appearance in Playboy.

LL: I've worn costumes that left me half nude, but I think, again, I was also having a baby when they offered it to me. But I'm not interested in that either. When I'm fifty and I need to reinvigorate my career, I'll beg Hef to do a pictorial [laughs].

UGO: What superpower would you want to have?

LL: X-ray vision, because I remember in the back of comic books when you used to be able to order x-ray glasses. But it's only good for looking at people naked.

UGO: What's your favorite movie franchise out of Lord of the Rings, The Matrix or Star Wars?

LL: Lord of the Rings, because it's so seamless. I love Star Wars, too, and in its place in time, it was state of the art, and it blew our minds. I thought the first Matrix was incredibly clever, but it didn't move me in any way. I love the special effects, but I had to walk out in the middle, because they lost me story-wise. The script didn't make any sense. Everything Laurence Fishburne said in the white room was rubbish. What a load of drivel.

UGO: What do you think of the idea of a digital actor in the future?

LL: It's terrifying. What the hell will they need actors for after that? We'll all be out of a job. Watching Gollum, he made me feel something, and that was the first time ever that a digital character tugged at my heart strings. My son has those same crazy blue eyes.

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