As She Leicks It
As Callisto she’s formidable, but in person, Hudson Leick is a pussy-cat, as Paul Simpson and Ruth Thomas found out…
Official Xena Magazine: Issue 14
It doesn’t quite seem possible. The dainty blonde actress who’s walked into the interview room at the Starfury Chariots of War convention on this wet and windy day in September is Hudson Leick, renowned the world over for her fiery portrayal of Xena's would-be nemesis, Callisto. Adorned in a golden outfit, she sits neatly in the chair opposite us - but you half expect her to be wielding a sword and chopping off the head of anyone who dares to ask the wrong questions!
However, appearances can be deceptive - and, as Hudson herself says, the wonderful aspect of being an actor is that you get paid to play.
Whether it's the psychotic Callisto, out for revenge on Lucy Lawless’ Xena for destroying her family and her village, or Celeste, the angel she played in Touched by an Angel, it doesn’t really matter. So, as an auditorium full of fans wait to greet her in person, we ask her when her love of acting first developed.
“It started out when I was five,” Hudson Leick recalls, “and I loved [US singing star and actress] Cher. She was extremely glamorous, and I didn't know she was an actress. At the time I don’t think she really was an actress, just a sort of 1970s icon, and when I see those Cher TV shows now, Sonny and Cher, they are so horrible! But to a little five year old, they sparkled! That's what I wanted to be when I grew older. I think that’s when I got the bug.”
Hudson was raised in New York, where she attended a Catholic school for two years before she turned seven. “I remember in the second grade begging to be either Mary or Jesus because they were the best roles,” she laughs. “Other than that, I would be there in a costume, and I'd find that exciting.” So did she get a kick out of performing in front of a live audience even at that early age? “I don’t remember that so much about it,” she admits. “I just remember the bright lights and the starry costumes.”
When she graduated from high school, Leick was given the chance to do some modelling in Japan. “That gave me the opportunity to travel a great deal, which I appreciated, although it wasn’t necessarily that stimulating for me,” she adds. “But it was fun. It was fun to travel; it was fun to be part of that. I had a very Jackie Collins life for the whole time I was a model. Even when I was in the Porsche with all the girls, listening to INXS, I was thinking, 'This is a Kodak moment!' It was just something to tell your kids about.”
However, modelling wasn't enough for Leick. She felt she wasn't being as creative as she could be, so she quit the profession, dividing her time for a while between acting classes and a psychology class entitled, ‘In Search of Self'. The latter she found stuffy and equally unstimulating; the acting, however, fascinated her.
Has she ever got the buzz from acting that she got from modelling? “It’s very different,” she says immediately, indicating the glamorous outfit she’s wearing for her appearance on stage. “This is the shiny part. This is the 'Cher' part, because this isn't the everyday stuff. When I'm on the set, it's not like that at all. It’s a lot of work, and it’s a lot of waiting. It teaches you patience because you have to wait a great deal. But I think that when I'm connected to someone when I'm acting, the magic happens.”
Leick freely admits that she finds it difficult to recall all the emotions she felt while she was playing Callisto. “It's been three years since I played her,” she points out, “and even then it wasn't actually Callisto; I was an angel. So it was a long time ago. While it was happening, I loved it. Playing her was like eating a piece of cake. She was smooth as silk. I knew her in all her moods. I could just put her on. Now, going back to look at her, I think she's fascinating. But it’s not the only thing I want to accomplish in this life.”
Of all the semi-regular characters, it can easily be argued that Callisto has developed the most fully over the course of her appearances on both Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess. But when Hudson first became involved, did she have any inkling as to where the journey would take her? Clearly not. “They gave me one script, just one episode,” she recalls. “I didn't know anything about the show. They gave me two tapes to watch so I could get an idea about it, and this script. I had no idea it would be what it was, or that my character would be so popular.
“I auditioned just like everybody else,” she reveals. “I remember that I really, really wanted it. because they were going to New Zealand. I loved travelling, and I’d never been there. I didn’t even know where it was. I was like, ‘Is it near Greenland?’ So I auditioned for it, and afterwards I was walking round the block and I kept praying, 'Give it to me; I really want this; I really want this.’” She laughs as an unlikely mental picture appears. “It doesn’t always work, of course - you’d be walking round the block with all these actors going, ‘God I’ll do anything you want!’ It’s not like this big machine where you just press a button and you get what you want.”
Leick displayed a very Callisto-like attitude during her audition: having seen that the actors waiting didn't appear to be getting any respect from the staff present, she vented her annoyance on the waiting producers, making them introduce themselves and shake hands with her before answering their questions. Despite the role obviously involving a minimum of clothing, she completely covered herself in a shirt and long skirt - although she was able to demonstrate her physicality more than adequately when she was asked to. Apparently she so intimidated the producers that they decided they had to give her the part!
“I got the job. They flew me to New Zealand, and I guess they liked my work,” she says. “They enjoyed it, and they felt that it worked. So they had me back. Then I was supposed to die, but I kept going. So they kept killing me, and I kept going. And they kept on killing me and I kept going!”
Despite her repeated returns to the show, Leick was convinced that none of the fans would really know who she was. “I was really terrified at my first convention,” she recalls. "There were 3,000 people out there and Lucy was there. It's Lucy’s show, and I remember driving to the convention with my boyfriend at the time and saying, ‘They’re not going to know who I am. I don’t want to go out there, and it's going to be horrible. They’re going to want to see the headliner.' You don’t want to see the person who’s filling up the stage. You want to see The Bomb! So I walk out there, thinking, I don’t want to do this; I don’t want to do this.' I kept rehearsing going, 'My-name-is-Hudson-Leick-I-play-Callisto in-Xena-Warrior-Princess'. I kept saying it so I’d have something to say.
“I walked out, the lights were out and the crowd was like, ’WOAH!!!!’” Leick demonstrates waving her hands about and giving a very credible imitation of 3,000 fans going absolutely wild. “I’ve just got this line stuck in my head, so I mumble ‘My-name-is-Hudson-Leick-I-play-Callisto-in-Xena Warrior-Princess', and I think only the first row heard me. Now, these are American fans; they’re not like English fans. And they go, ‘Duh! We know who you are!’ I was just overwhelmed. I was just standing there, just shaking. I had no idea what to say or do - mind you, I have no idea what to say at this one either! Say hello, then do cartwheels maybe?”
So what is it about Callisto that has so fascinated audiences and given the actor a recurring role in the series? “I think in all human beings there is that kind of rage,” Hudson suggests. “And she is funny about it. She’s spoilt and bratty, and I think she acts in a way that other people would like to act but it’s politically incorrect. I think people can relate to her being a victim, because Callisto really is a victim. I don’t mean that in a positive way. But she needs to get over herself.”
Does she think that the producers went too far in maintaining the revenge motive? Should Callisto have become a force for goodness earlier? “No, she says firmly. “No. It was to the death. I think she was obsessed - I think I was obsessed, speaking as the character. I was obsessed with Xena, and that’s why there were those moments where I could have killed her and I didn't. Because without her, I'd be lost. I'd be truly lost. She gives me a focus to hang all that hatred on while she's there. And hate and love are very close. There’s a great deal of emotional energy poured into that. What would she do without that? Where would she go? What would become of her?
“You see that a little bit, I think, when Hope kills Xena’s child. I think Callisto wanted her to feel the pain and when she actually hears Xena’s anguished cries, it’s what she's really craved. It's like, ‘Now it’s you - now you feel it!’ But then it's over and it doesn't feed her. It's like any human being: you want the revenge. You think, ‘I'm going to get them and it's going to be really sweet, and then it's going to be all better’, but it’s not. When you harm another human being, it doesn't make you feel better. It makes you feel worse. It doesn't fill the void in the soul which you think it's going to.”
In Issue 11, Kevin Smith (Ares) revealed that he had told Hudson Leick to go ahead and let loose on him during a fight scene since she wouldn't be able to hurt him when she kicked him - and she nearly lifted him off the floor. Does she enjoy the physical aspect of the role? “I love it,” she enthuses. “But my arms aren't that powerful - when I hit the guys, they don't really let me make contact with them. I don't have to hit them properly. But I still get bruises all up and down my forearm. I sort of remember kicking Kevin. I think I got him sideways as well, standing up and doing a back kick as well as when he was on the ground. He was saying, ‘Kick me! Kick me! Go for it.' I don't remember him showing it hurt; he did this macho thing of, ‘It's fine; it's fine.’”
Did Leick enjoy her time working on the set in New Zealand, particularly in those very intense scenes with Lucy Lawless? “It's very professional,” she says. “For me, it's mostly about work. The chemistry that I have with Lucy makes it very easy to play Callisto. It’s like a spark - when we get on set, our characters spark. It’s just wonderful. It just flows really easily.”
Leick admits that she found it harder working with Renee O’Connor as Gabrielle. “Renee plays such a kind character,” she points out. “I would always be this really overwhelming bad guy. You can’t fight her because she’s like, ‘I’m love’. That was a little bit more difficult. It’s like being a big bully picking on the smallest kid. That’s not true in real life: Renee could really do some damage to both Lucy and I. She’s so strong.”