written by Steven L. Sears
The Chakram Newsletter: Issue 22
SD: This is the first script you wrote for Xena, but it was the third episode written and aired. Was it the first one in which you had any input? Were you part of the writing staff when the first two episodes, “Sins Of The Past” and “Chariots Of War,” were being written?
Steve: I came on pretty close to the beginning, so I did have input into all the episodes, including “Chariots” and, to a much lesser extent, “Sins.” “Sins” had already been written and the input I had there was mostly during the final polish drafts before shooting and the post production. The story about how I was hired revolves around the “Dreamworker” script. The co-executive producer of Xena was R.J. Stewart and the original supervising producer was Babs Greyhosky. I met her in 1984 when she was the executive producer of Riptide and gave me my first job. Babs had also written for Magnum PI and Greatest American Hero among other shows. She called and asked if I would take a look at an episode of Hercules to get the flavor of the show. Renaissance was preparing a spinoff series called Xena and she wanted to know if I would like to come in and meet everyone.
I watched it. I liked it. I said I'd like to come in. As I remember, Rob, R.J. and Babs were there. On the way into the meeting, I think I walked past either Renee or someone else who was up for the part of Gabrielle.
SD: They were still casting the show?
Steve: They were just finishing up. Nothing had been filmed yet. For me, this was a meet and greet - a time for them to get to know me and if I had some ideas for the series, they'd love to hear them.
I started asking questions. I wanted to be clear what the series was going to be about. One of the questions I asked is that I had seen the Hercules episode with Zeus and Ares - although Ares was still a big fluffy Chia pet - and I said, “It's obvious you deal with gods, but do you deal with demi-gods?” Rob asked me what I meant. I said, “As an example, say that you had a god like Morpheus.” On the spot, I was making something up to pose my question. I said, “If the God of Dreams were to ensnare Gabrielle…”
I went on making this up as I was sitting there. When I was done, Rob looked at me and said, “That's a great idea!” They asked me to come back with more potential stories for the show. Next time I had five different story ideas and they still liked the original plot the best. That became “Dreamworker.” I was hired to write that one script.
The story of that script from when I first made it up in the room until it was shot didn't change very much. There were a lot of small detail changes, but the actual flow of the story pretty much stayed intact.
SD: Was Xena being split into two personalities part of your original pitch?
Steve: Yeah, that was in there. I wrote that script as a freelancer. I wasn't on staff yet. Everyone loved it and they asked Babs if I would be interested in working on staff. But, as a new show, they didn't have a lot of money. I'd already had producing credits on other shows. They could not afford to hire me as a producer. I was asked if I wanted to be a creative consultant. And I thought, “Okay, it's not much money, but I can work on this show and still be developing other things. A little steady income.” So I agreed to do that.
Babs' agreement with Renaissance, I believe, was for 6 episodes. When she left, I thought, “There’s a position here.” I went to Rob, Sam and R.J. and said, “You know my credits. You know I’ve produced before. Now there's a slot open.” That's how I became the supervising producer and later on moved up to co-executive producer.
SD: Do you remember what they told you about who the characters were? How they presented them to you?
Steve: I can't remember exactly what was said. Xena's character was 50% established in the three-episode arc on Hercules. And “Sins Of The Past” had already been written. I was able to read that and pick up where R.J. launched Xena at that point.
Gabrielle was less firm because it was a brand new character. She was the one most up in the air. R.J. created Gabrielle. He wrote the basic structure of her character. With any character on a TV series that's just been created, the original writer creates the original character, then the character begins to take on a life of its own as others come in contact with it: the actress, the directors and, of course, the other writers. As that character was the newest, to me, that was the one that was fun to explore because there were a lot more question marks. No matter what I did, I was going to be laying groundwork for future developments.
SD: Why did you split Xena in “Dreamworker”?
Steve: What had been set up very nicely was the fact that this was a character in conflict with herself. Xena had all this evil in her past and she didn't know she was going to be following a good path. The audience knew this, but she didn’t. All Xena knew was that she was evil and that was something that disturbed her.
In “Sins,” R.J. basically saved the character. Xena, in my opinion, was suicidal in that first episode. Giving her a cause - saving Gabrielle and her village - saved her from that fate. With a purpose, if not a direction, Xena had a mission.
The problem with the mission, though, is that it was still in conflict with Xena's past. One of the things that seemed obvious to me when I was working on “Dreamworker,” was the fact that this particular character has a light and a dark side. One of Xena's problems was that she hadn’t come to an understanding of her own nature. And if she didn’t understand this dichotomy about herself, she couldn't utilize either part. Unless she understands the difference between her good and evil and understood it, it would be way too easy for her to fall back into evil.
SD: She needs to take a good hard look at who she is inside?
Steve: Pretty much. I also wanted Xena to understand that, on a much higher level, it's okay. It’s not okay to be evil and kill a lot of people. But, for you to move on, you have to accept what you are. If you sit around regretting what you’ve been, you can’t move forward. You can be regretful for the things you've done and the choices you've made, but you can't move forward if you don't find a way to deal with it.
Xena had to be able to have a moment where she could look at herself and say, “The bad part of me is also a part of me, so anything that I do from this point on, if you consider it good, you have to remember that it was all a part of what made me who I am - good and bad.”
SD: There was no episode where we see Xena decide to lead the villagers against Cortese. What was inside her that made her lead the villagers? Was she a rebellious teenager who found an acceptable outlet for her mischief and mayham?
Steve: We did touch on who Xena was back then in “Remember Nothing.” R.J., Rob, Chris and I had long conversations about what Xena's mindset was when she was growing up in Amphipolis.
Xena became evil for the best of intentions. Whatever her future would normally have been was interrupted by the attacks of Cortese. Xena managed to step forward, organize her village and throw the invaders out. Once she had done that, Xena, being as smart as she was, intuitively realized that just protecting the village wasn’t enough. You need to make alliances with other villages to create a buffer zone. Those villages that agreed and entered into an alliance, they were your friends. There were some villages she needed that didn’t want to join with her. So she had to conquer them. And, after a certain point, it turned from being powerful for the sake of defense to powerful for the sake of being powerful.
The funny thing is that R.J. and I modeled this after the Soviet Union. Mother Russia has been one of the most invaded countries in history. You have to understand that mindset to understand the Russians. They are paranoid with good reason. After WWII, especially considering what Germany did, they created all these buffer states of countries they absorbed and countries they had pseudo-alliances with but they really controlled. Communism aside, the real intention for the Soviet people was just protecting themselves. Which is just fine.
It’s just the extent to which they went to protect themselves that we defined as being evil.
SD: We touched on Gabrielle's blood innocence in the interview about “Hooves And Harlots.” Did that term just pop into your head during the initial pitch?
Steve: I was playing two storylines at the same time. You and I just talked about what I was trying to establish when I split Xena. At the same time. I was doing something almost completely different with Gabrielle, but still connected by the sense that it involved violence and harming people - it involved an evil side of Gabrielle.
Gabrielle has chosen to follow this woman. She doesn’t know a lot about Xena except the legends she’s heard. Gabrielle tells stories, she knows how legends are embellished. And there's also a distance we have if we're not directly connected to evil events.
For example, most people in this country are now thinking about war. American citizens - as opposed to soldiers - have not had to fight a face to face war. As much as we want to understand what happened in Europe, in WWII or Cambodia, we can only understand it intellectually. We cannot understand it on a personal basis. Hopefully we never will. But that is a distance we have. And I felt Gabrielle had that same distance from Xena's past deeds.
To her, Xena's life was a great adventure. What fun! She didn't realize there are responsibilities and consequences. I set that up at the beginning when Xena says to Gabrielle, “The moment you pick up a sword, you become a target.” Xena then laid out her rules for survival.
SD: And what did Gabrielle do right after Xena cautioned her about weapons? She went into the nearest shop and bought the breast dagger.
Steve: It’s like listening to your parents telling you, “Don't do that, it will harm you.” And you think, “There go my parents again. I'm sure it's not as bad as they say.”
It was immature of Gabrielle to buy that dagger. But it was based on the fact that even though, in her village, Gabrielle considered herself to be the worldly one, she never had been. She'd never been out in the world. I really thought it was pretty obvious Gabrielle needed to have the rules spelled out for her - and the consequences. This needs to hit her full in the face so she knows there are things at risk here. There are things that mean something. You can’t just toss them off in a story.
Obviously, setting up her desire to have a weapon was part of it. If you've never had to use a weapon, if you've never killed anyone and if you've never had anyone try to kill you, you don't understand the value of a weapon - it's a toy. So, for Gabrielle, the breast dagger was a toy for the adventure she was going on with Xena.
Here's where the blood innocence comes in. Gabrielle was a virgin to the world. She had no idea what it was like to be involved with anything that involved death or killing. Her innocence was truly a blood innocence. And I still go back to that reference that unless you've experienced it, you do not understand what it's like to kill someone. I've never killed anyone. All I can do is pretend I understand it. My father was in the military and he did kill people. I've tried my best to understand that and I cannot.
With Gabrielle, I thought, I want to have a stake here for her that's much higher than her own life. When I put her into this dangerous situation, the usual thing for someone to do would have the character be concerned they’re going to be killed. And have that alone be the threat. I thought, for this character, there's got to be a little bit of a higher calling. She's obviously worried about dying herself, but maybe, at a certain point, she realizes what the cost would be to herself if she killed someone.
In most series, the person realizes it after the fact. They kill someone and then they go, “Oh my God, what have I done?” I thought it would be interesting if Gabrielle realized it beforehand. That would make her smarter. It would also show she's growing up. She's got a maturity about her we haven't seen yet.
When I added the aspect of blood innocence for Gabrielle, I did it for that one episode. I didn't consider what the repercussions were going to be later on. Any time you write an episode, you can put in a thousand things and five of them might continue on through the series. You can't tell which five they are going to be.
SD: I made a note to myself to ask Renee what she thought of the blood innocence facet of the character and did she, at the time, want it to continue. I'm curious to hear her take on it. Where did Xena’s Rules of Survival come from?
Steve: You know what they’re based on? Exactly what they are: How you survive. The first thing is, you do not confront. It has nothing to do with ego. Young Xena was filled with pride and greed. A lot of that led to her becoming evil. This Xena, now, is able to look back as objectively as she can and realize what her failings were. When she’s asked how to survive, she strips away all the things she knows brought out her dark side. A lot of people do not run when threatened because they consider that the coward's way out. That's not the point. The point is how do you survive. Not how do you retain your dignity. So I started off with that. Really, if you take a look at the Rules, they’re totally supplicative. You run. That shows you're a coward. You surrender. That shows you've succumbed to their will. Everything is designed to survive. It’s not designed to dominate. It's not designed to show off how great you are. It's just to survive. The third Rule…
SD: … “If you’re outnumbered, let them fight each other and then run.”
Steve: Exactly. Try to find a way to get them to fight each other and use that as a distraction. If they're determined to go ahead and kill you anyway, then use the distraction to run.
The fourth one is talking your way out of it. That's when you have your back against the wall and you can't run. All you have left is talking. Xena knows full well that of the two things you have left, one is talking and the other is using physical action - the physical action will get you killed.
SD: Did you have the rules laying around or were you writing the script and realized you needed them.
Steve: When I write my first outline, there's very rarely any dialogue in there. If I think of something that might be interesting to say, I'll write it in the margins.
SD: Is that the beat sheet?
Steve: Yeah. The first pass is a skeleton of the story. I'll throw in a few things the character needs to say just to service the plot. I then take that and proceed to writing the script. Just basic stuff, the essentials. Nobody sees that draft. Then I go back and start layering in the different characters and their attitudes. Chances are, in my zero draft - the one nobody sees - it's quite possible the original Rules of Survival Xena gave Gabrielle might have been one word - “If you can run, run.” Then when I was looking for character dialogue to bring out their personalities I had Gabrielle interrupting Xena on the fourth rule. Everything Xena had said for rules 1, 2 and 3 was run, run. run. The childish part of Gabrielle would have interrupted when Xena said, “Number four…” and shouted out, “Wait, wait, I know, more running.” At that point, I was trying to service the characters. Trying to make the rules come across in a way that expressed their personalities.
SD: Gabrielle's been dying to go into battle. During Morpheus’ first challenge, she had an opportunity to fight, but she didn't. How come?
Steve: Up until that point, it had been a game for Gabrielle. It’s easy for you to swagger onto the schoolyard and pretend you’re the bully if you have the big bully next to you. Once Gabrielle was captured, that was a different situation. Xena's not there for her to turn to. This was part of Gabrielle's growth. She's sensing the seriousness of the situation. The first time Gabrielle's given one of the tests, she's not trying to protect her blood innocence because she doesn't know Morpheus' plan. She’s trying to remember what Xena said because she wants to survive! “I want to go home!”
Xena had put emphasis on the word survival. When Manus is telling Gabrielle about the tests, I specifically made sure he used the word “survive.” So that, subliminally, the audience would think, “Right, this is about survival,” and they would project that onto Gabrielle. Gabrielle also picked up on the word and realized, “Xena's already told me how to get out of this. All I have to do is survive. If I follow the rules. I'm okay.” That's why I had Gabrielle repeat it, “Hold on, back to that part again, ‘if you survive.’”
SD: Was Gabrielle a chatty character from the start? Was everyone thinking of her that way?
Steve: She was supposed to be very chatty. We were also aware, however, that, in the arc of her character, she would have to go from being chatty, which is very superficial, to being a character that was much more introspective. Otherwise, the audience would get tired of her.
And, in fact, if you look at some fan response from the early seasons, a lot of people made that comment. That didn’t bother us at the time because we knew it was going to go somewhere.
SD: She's got some great lines in this episode. Must be fun to write.
“You've got the wrong girl. I'm not the wifely type. I sleep late. I don't know a lick about housework. And children? Look at these hipbones - no way!”
Steve: It’s not fun when you just write one-liners to be funny. But when the characters and who they are allow for very natural humor - that's fun. Gabrielle's not trying to do standup comedy. Even the line about the breast dagger. It's a comment that you buy that Gabrielle would say. And Gabrielle, when she said it, was not expecting a laugh. It was truly just a Gabriellism. She was making an observation. “It's not like your breasts aren't dangerous enough.”
SD: Fans were discussing Xena's relationship with Gabrielle. In the first two episodes, it seemed Xena was merely tolerating her. They felt there was a change in Xena's attitude toward Gabrielle at the end of this episode.
Steve: There was supposed to be a change. Most people don’t understand what motivates them. It's not until later that we look back and say, “Oh, that's why I did that.” In many, many ways, Gabrielle represented who Xena was at one time. Back when Xena was in her village and it was attacked, she was the one who stepped forward. What does Xena see when she comes upon Draco’s men attacking Gabrielle's village? She sees Gabrielle fighting back. That sparks something in Xena and, subliminally, she realizes, “There but for the ways of darkness go I.”
When Gabrielle wants to tag along, Xena doesn’t embrace the idea, but she doesn't fight it either. All of this is new to Xena. The thing that tipped the scales to allow Gabrielle to join her, was this spark of recognition. Xena did not logically know what it was. But there was a curiousity, more than anything else, a kinsmanship, something that rang true. At the end of “Dreamworker,” there's a change.
If you notice, everything Xena tells Gabrielle, up until the end, is functional. The Rules; protect your blood innocence, that's what Morpheus is after; don't give him what he wants. It's all functional for Gabrielle's current dilemma.
A lot of what Gabrielle said to Xena through the first two episodes was explaining herself. Gabrielle had no problem saying, “Look, I'm stuck in this village and I've got this lunk for a fiance and I'm unhappy about this and I can do that.” Even though it’s very childlike in its demeanor. Gabrielle has no problem opening up.
It wasn't until the end of this episode you actually heard Xena open up to Gabrielle. Because Xena just learned something about herself. “I am the combination of these two beings. I cannot hide it, I can't disguise it, it will always be buried there.” Normally, Xena would not have talked like that to anyone. Because that's a personal revelation. But Xena sits there and tells this young girl. So, in that sense, the relationship definitely changed. Xena allowed Gabrielle to cross the line into her world.
SD: Xena's act of embracing her evil/strong side was made visible with the rock that was tossed into the lake at the end of the episode.
Steve: That's what it was all about. Xena, up until that point, questioning who she was and where she was from. Part of the question was, “How can I leave behind the evil inside me.” The whole point of the dual Xena scene was to say that you can't. You've got to accept it. And the lake scene was her admitting, “No matter how much I change now, it's always there, under the surface.” And the important thing - let me see how I wrote it - the whole scene was representational: she throws the rock in, the water's rippling and churning. And then, after time, it becomes calm.
That's Gabrielle's observation. If you give it more time, it will be calm. You will come to terms with what you are. But Gabrielle's just looking at the surface. If you decide to go back to Amphipolis, get married and have kids, it will be like it was before. That's Gabrielle’s simplistic way of looking at it.
And Xena's saying, “No, it may look that way, but that evil is still inside me. It's always going to be there.” In other words, the stone is still there. No matter what the appearance on the surface, the stone is still there. I'm forever changed. That was Xena's acknowledgment that, “I can't go back. I am forever changed by what I did in my life.” Which, by the way, was the launching point for “Remember Nothing.” Going back and trying to change things.
SD: Gabrielle really was a child at the beginning of this episode.
Steve: In many, many ways. In her innocence of the world, yes. I tried to set some of that up at the beginning with the attack on the tree stump. To her, this was a great big new world to be played with. One of the interesting things, though, is trying to get across just how innocent she was. In that opening scene, she is using a sword against a tree trunk. Most people in the audience thought it was amusing. But imagine if the opening scene had been a contemporary scene in some series that was set in modern times. If Gabrielle had been holding a gun and saying the same things. The audience wouldn't have been amused, they would have been absolutely horrified. Her using a sword in those times was akin to a child wielding her father's gun in our times.
SD: Boy, you're right!
Steve: And what does Xena say to Gabrielle - something totally parent to child - “That is not a plaything.” Gabrielle doesn't know it, but she hasn't just entered the “real” world, she’s entered Xena's real world. One that has evil and aggression as its background. And in that world, you have to think like a warrior. Thinking like a child can get you killed. You have to expect the unexpected and, even harder, you have to plan for it.
SD: Xena throwing the knife in the ground during the opening battle.
Steve: The first thing a good commander realizes is that no matter how well you plan anything, it's going to fall apart the moment things start happening. That was a contingency plan. It would be the equivalent of having a gun up your sleeve. The obvious thing would be to hide the knife in her boot. But, just in case the bad guys would think of that, she did something more imaginative.
SD: And Gabrielle's six toes?
Steve: That comes from my dad.
SD: He has six toes?
Steve: He was born with six toes. My dad said his fell off. I also figured that was something so bizarre and esoteric it would sound like something Gabrielle would be self-conscious about. And Xena could believe there's no way Morpheus would know that about her.
SD: Did you do a backflip in a story meeting?
Steve (laughing): Urban legend. No, I did do that. I've always been physical. Rob was in New Zealand and Sam, myself, R.J., Babs, Mike Levine (director of the episode) and Liz Friedman were in a meeting. When I write my scripts, I tend to choreograph the fights. I make sure the stunt coordinator knows I'm not trying to do his or her job. I just want to give a flow so the reader will understand what I'm trying to do. And the stunt coordinator will be able to read it in context. Our stunt people were very good picking out the important things that had to be kept in the fight and the things they could play with.
When you do certain action sequences, there are points where you have to draw attention to a particular sword or another aspect of the scene. Every now and then I'll come up with a trick. It's something that I know will look cool and will make the audience think, “Oh yeah, that’s a Xena move.”
In this particular case, the basic move I wanted to do was Xena facing the bad guy, the bad guy uses his sword in an overhand way to bring it down on her head, she brings up her hands and claps them together and catches the blade. Then she rolls on to her back and at the same time pulls the blade down and the bad guy forward. As she lands on her back, the blade is heading right toward her face, but she turns her head so the blade digs into the ground next to her head. She kicks the bad guy in the stomach and flips him up into the air and on his back above her. Then she uses her momentum to flip up on top of him. Now she has the sword in the ground right next to his head. She pulls the sword out and she's got him. That was the trick.
SD: Okay, I got it.
Steve (laughing): As I was trying to explain this - apparently doing a worse job than I just did with you - the people in the room couldn't get a handle on it. So I said to Mike, “You're the bad guy standing there, now act like you’re going to bring a sword down on my head.” When he did, I said, “She claps her hands, grabs the blade and then she does this…” I did a back flip and ended up on my feet. There was a moment of stunned silence. Sam scribbled a “10” on a piece of paper and held it up. Everyone began laughing and applauding.
SD: Was the final scene by the lake in your mind when you started or did you work up to it. It seemed like the whole story led up to that discussion between Xena and Gabrielle.
Steve: That scene was not planned out before I wrote it. I think in my original outline, I just wrote something like, “Wrap it up.” It's quite possible I had done all my rewrites and was ready to turn it in to Rob and R.J. before I even thought about what that last scene was going to be.
When I sat down to write, I looked at everything else I had done in the story and said, “Okay, where do all the arrows point? What do I need to resolve?” Many times, when you write an outline, things take on a life of their own. Sometimes you start making points you didn't intend to make and then you realize, “Hey, these are better. I want to go there.” And you do go with them and they take you in a different direction.
When I got to the end, I went back and looked at everything I'd done. I started sketching out where I wanted them to go from that point. I had Xena's realization that the dark side is always going to be a part of her. Then there was the fact that she's opening up to Gabrielle.
And Gabrielle is being a good listener, she's not offering judgment. In fact, her response is a combination of reassurance plus curiosity. “If you sit here long enough, it will go back to being calm.” She's being a friend.
When I began to write, I wanted to find the correct analogies because nobody wants to sit there and listen to psychobabble. I wanted to find symbolism the audience would understand. I had put them by a lake at the end because I thought that would be pretty. Picturing them sitting there, I started thinking, “Okay, what do I have available here? How can I get my point across? What's the easiest way to do it?”
I wish I could say everything led up to that scene and was crafted to get to that magical moment. I'm glad so many people responded to it. I will say this though - and it surprises people - writing that scene took me less than 15 minutes. Once I knew what I wanted to do and where the setting was, I just started typing and everything flowed out. Truth is, I don't know where half this stuff comes from. But when I need it. it always seems to be there. Maybe I've got my own Dreamworker inside me. She gets the credit, not me.