The Chakram Newsletter: Issue 18
There’s a lot of mourning to do, but I’m mainly concerned about Kevin’s family. I’m not concerned about me or the fans. The only thing that means anything is that his family will be able to continue on.
This guy had a full life and the only shame is that more people didn’t get to know who he was. But, artistically, he was able to sing, he had a band, he did TV, theatre, film. He did action and comedy. He could do it all. If you watch the course of Hercules and Xena, you can see that. Every time I directed him as Ares, he was game to do anything.
When he was in “Stranger In A Strange World,” the parallel universe of Hercules, he was in his white Ares outfit and I had him play it as a full-on gay character. That was the opposite of Ares.
It was nice doing “Full Circle,” the very last episode of Hercules, with Kevin. I wanted Ares to be defeated. I said, “He’s got to lose and I’m going to give you a big, fat closeup and I want you to show me you've finally, finally lost.” And he milked it so perfectly. He had no problem with that. He didn’t say, “Oh, you can’t defeat Ares.” He was all for doing it. So I miss him not only as a person, but as a talent. As a director I could say, “Hey, Kevin, try this,” and he would just do it. He made my job easy.
Kevin’s been a part of some interesting things in my life. His band played at the best cast party I ever went to. I’m not a dancer, but every single person was out on that dance floor when his band played. He just kicked ass! I have some private performances of his like that that I’ll always cherish. Live stuff.
In one of the last Hercules episodes, he had to pretend to be a god of light, I think. It all worked out serendipitously. By the time it came to shoot him up on this wall, the sun was directly behind him. In New Zealand, the weather is so tentative. There are always clouds coming in. But at this moment, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. We were able to get a scene that we couldn't have planned any better. There’s a tragedy to what happened to him, but I think Kevin has had his angels, too.
Here’s my wife's favorite image of Kevin. I was in New Zealand by myself directing. Kevin Sorbo came and asked Kevin Smith and I, “Hey, what are we going to do Saturday night?” None of us had anything to do. So the three of us sat around playing poker and smoking cigars at Sorbo's house. My wife just cracked up saying, “If women only knew that Kevin Sorbo and Kevin Smith have nothing to do on a Saturday night except play poker.” But that was the reality of it. And at the end of the night, Kevin hopped in his car and went home to his family. He was a very regular guy.
In one way, his family is fortunate. His kids will be able to watch their father doing what he loved. There's a lot of his work on film. Many kids have photographs or videos, but they can see their father at work. They can watch and enjoy what he did. I hope that's of some consolation to them.