by Sharon Delaney
The Chakram Newsletter: Issue 08
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays this interviewer from the swift completion of her appointed interview. Neither barking dogs nor mechanical sanders nor buzz saws stays this Interviewer from the swift completion of her - buzz saws!!
“Can you hear the ruckus around the house?” Renee starts off our conversation.
“Yeah, are you adding a new wing?” I joked.
“They're sanding,” she explained. “I’ll give you the whole story. A girlfriend of mine from California who’s an artist was visiting and she was helping me design a painting scheme for our house. She took three different colors and made a mural on the wall. She had to leave and I thought I could finish it just by connecting the dots, but it looked just awful. Steve and I then painted over the whole thing with one color and, of course, we didn't do a very good job and it came out to be a color we weren’t expecting!” she laughed. “Now we’re having someone do it properly.”
“At least you got to play for a while,” I said. “I wish I could do that to my apartment.”
“It’s quite satisfying to be able to have your own home and paint it whatever color you want it to be,” she added.
“It’s quite satisfying to be able to have your home and paint it whatever color you want it to be,” she added.
“Is that a dog I hear barking?” I asked.
“Sorry about that. I have a foster dog,” Renee laughed.
“A foster dog? Can you keep it?” I queried.
“My boyfriend and I already have one dog, but Sandi Rayner, the horse wrangler on the show, found this dog and no one seems to want him. We’re keeping him for the moment, but he’s too much of a young boy,” she laughed. “Chewing on everything.”
“Speaking of youngsters, are you starting to feel ‘clucky’ again with Lucy being pregnant? The way you were during ‘Maternal Instincts’ when there were babies on set?” I teased.
“Oh, no,” she came back immediately. “The dog has taken care of that completely. I'm very happy to live vicariously through Lucy,” she laughed. “I think maybe I was feeling clucky, so I adopted a whole bunch of animals. I now have two dogs, a cat and a cockateel, I feel I've nested myself out.”
“When you finally got to see the finished version of ‘Deja Vu,’ were you pleased?” I asked.
Renee laughed. “I was relieved, I think. Before it was done, I was quite worried I wasn’t going to be able to show my face. When I do see it, I see all the mistakes I made, so, of course, I cringe. But I’m pleased I made it through alive!”
“How was it directing yourself?” I asked.
“I was the hardest director I’ve ever worked with!” Renee laughed. “Gave myself no guidance whatsoever. I only gave myself one take on most scenes, except for when I had the luxury of working on a Saturday with the second unit and I had a bit more time to give myself two takes as an option.
“If I were to do it again, I would take the time to put more energy into preparing myself actingwise. I didn’t realize that with the time constraints, I would only have one or two chances to nail a scene. And, obviously, during the first take I was still thinking about everything else around me. So I couldn't quite get into the scene. It took me a while to relax into acting.”
I wondered if she preferred directing over acting and which she would pursue after Xena ended.
“It's hard for me to say what my career will be after Xena,” she pondered. “But I definitely found directing exciting.”
“Do you think you'll direct another Xena episode?”
“Not at the moment. It’s quite busy having Lucy expecting,” she laughed. “We’re all just trying to make sure Lucy gets as much rest as possible. It’s been more challenging this season for sure.”
“One of the things Rob (Tapert) told me in the interview I did with him for the last newsletter was that he was going to make Gabrielle a warrior,” I told her. “Was that because he knew Lucy was pregnant?”
She paused to think. “I’m not sure which came first - Lucy’s pregnancy or wanting Gabrielle to go through another growth phase as she has every season.”
“The inside cover of this newsletter will have a photo of Gabrielle's new weapon,” I said.
“I love it!” she said gleefully. “And it’s not nearly as vicious as it appears to be. I don’t stab people with it. I don't become some psychopath Gabrielle uses it mainly as a defensive weapon.”
“I noticed in the slides, that she’s holding them the way Amarice holds her knives, with the blade flush against her wrist and pointing down,” I told her.
“Actually, that has nothing to do with being offensive or defensive,” she explained. “It's the way the sais are used. It's a Japanese weapon. I've heard different stories, but the one I'm tending to believe is that the farmers were looking for farming instruments they could use as weapons against samurai warriors and the sais were what became of a pitchfork. The man who was teaching me the weapon has told me this and he's studied them extensively.”
“Minus the handle,” I added.
“Right. I've been using it as a back scratcher,” Renee laughed.
“Did they bring in someone to train you?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “Actually, many of our stuntmen are trained in martial arts and quite a few of them worked with this weapon.”
“Was this a weapon Rob wanted to use?”
“Actually, Rob wanted to go back with the staff. But I said to him I'd love for the character to move forward. Next thing I knew, Rob came up to me and said, ‘I’ve got just the weapon for Gabrielle.’ He gave me the weapons in a box with a videotape to take home. I had no idea what they were!” she laughed.
“You took them home, took them out of the box and Steve said, ‘I’ll be in the other room.’ Right?” I teased.
“Yeah, he did,” she laughed. “After I received them, I went to Texas for a couple weeks and demonstrated what I'd learned thus far to my mom and Eddie. And they wondered what kind of a lethal weapon I was becoming. When, in fact, I’m useless with them.” This story was told with a great deal of enthusiasm which let me know Renee was obviously getting a kick out of her new toys.
Now, let's see if I can catch her off guard with this question!
“And who, pray tell, taught Gabrielle to use these tools of mayhem?” I asked slyly.
“Ummm, er, well,” Renee waffled.
It was clear I'd caught her out!
“Actually, Gabrielle bought them for Xena and then decided to keep them for herself. She started playing with them until she acquired the skill rather quickly by using them against warlords,” Renee finished in a rush.
I'd been ruminating about the pacifist traveling with a warrior and wondering what Renee's take on this situation was. So, I asked.
“Xena and Gabrielle are supposed to be soulmates. So, even though Gabrielle has changed her internal path, it doesn't mean she can give up loving the person who's her partner,” she said. “We also discovered that Xena Is supposed to be a warrior for ‘good.’ It isn't as if she's out mercilessly killing people. It was for the benefit of mankind. They have the same goal, just a different way to approach it.”
We had to break off the interview at this point because It was time for me to call Lucy. However, there was more I wanted to cover and Renee offered to call me from the set during her lunch break the following week. It was on a Wednesday when we got together again and it had been raining hard. Silly me. I thought that meant they got to stay indoors.
“Actually, we've been outside and the remains of some huge thunderstorm that came from Asia down to Australia has just passed over New Zealand. We've been filming in some pretty torrential rain,” she informed me.
“Aren’t you glad Gabrielle got her boots back?” I said gleefully.
“Oh yes,” she said with relief. “And, at the moment, we’re wearing more than the usual, minimal outfits.”
“Speaking of minimal outfits,” I said. “I hear Claire Stansfield is down there reprising her role of Alti in ‘Them Bones, Them Bones.’ They're going to resurrect her bones?”
“Yes,” Renee chuckled. “They’re doing the ritual scene right now and it's quite funny.”
Claire had told me she asked Rob if she could wear less clothing next time she made an appearance on the show and she's got none in this episode.
Renee thought this was quite ironic. “It's a rarity on this show, asking for less clothing. And it’s more unusual that Lucy and I are fully clothed throughout this show. So we’re enjoying being out in the rain in the winter.”
I wondered what Claire thought of them being covered up while she was running around in her birthday suit. I'll have to ask her when she comes back to Los Angeles. Bet I get an earful!
“John Fawcett is directing this episode,” Renee added. “He just gets better and better each time we have him. He always has a twisted element that he wants to add to a scene. And he knows how to find the subtleties in acting, as well. I’m enjoying him.”
Here was a chance to ask Renee how it was directing Lucy in “Deja Vu.”
“If you’re an actor who is directing, is it difficult to direct an actor who doesn’t work the same way you do?” I asked.
“I think you just get an idea of the personalities when you direct someone. And since I know Lucy so well, of course it was easy for me to know how to speak with her,” she said. “Lucy’s the sort of actress where you don’t need to do a lot of work with her because she uses her instincts and she’s usually right on all the time. I would put my two cents in when I thought I could add to what she was already doing, but usually she’s always good, you know.
“She’s the sort of person that ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’” she laughed. “There’s no need to go in there and try to complicate issues. The approach I took was from the point of view of an actor. How do I like directors to talk to me.
“When I was breaking down the scenes. I put action verbs in that I wanted to make points of and if I wanted to make a note for Lucy or Ted. I would try to give them an action to do instead of giving them a result.
“A lot of times you have directors who give you the end result of what they want to see and you have to translate in your mind what you have to do to get that result. I try to keep it simple.”
As we know, Renee started taking yoga when she found out it was going to be part of “Paradise Found.” I wondered if the philosophy that was being explored in the India episodes about each person having their own “way” interested her.
“I’m exploring that idea right now, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the episodes. I think it’s more that we’re seeing the demise of Hercules and I’m beginning to wonder what I’ll do after our show,” she laughed. “I’m questioning what my reason for being here is all about. When we were doing ‘The Way,’ I was exploring different religions - Hinduism, Buddhism - and reincarnation. I don’t have a point of view yet, but I’m fascinated by it all.
“And, as I was getting ready to direct ‘Deja Vu,’ I read as much about reincarnation as I could because I wanted to have a realistic element in the episode.”
She continued. “What I really liked about that episode was seeing Ted’s dignity come across on screen. He’s an intellectual man and we hardly see that when he plays Joxer. I wanted everyone to see the Ted I know.”
There were so many great bits going on in this script. So many hat-tips to the audience and in jokes. But I know things are always getting cut out for time and I asked Renee if that was the case with this show too.
Renee burst out laughing at this question. “We filmed a great scene where Ted played a campy version of him dressing up as Xena. It was my favorite part, but the episode was just too long and we had to cut it. It was R.J.’s idea.”
I must admit that images of Ted dressed as Xena immediately filled my mind and I was struck speechless. What could that possibly have looked like! Maybe we can get the footage shown at a convention some day. I’m definitely going to look into that.
He’s where having one ear to the ground, er, internet, comes in handy. Because the fans spotted something that I hadn’t noticed at all. “Was there anything going on between Gabrielle and Brutus?” I asked Renee cautiously.
She laughed.
“Some fans thought he was looking rather endearingly at you,” I said, encouragingly.
Renee gave in, still laughing. “That was a subtext that the actor, David Franklin, and I decided to play. We wanted to show the love/hate relationship between the two characters so we played a bit of attraction. But there was nothing going on between them,” she laughed. “Sometimes you have chemistry with another actor and sometimes you don’t. David and I did and we added that to the scenes.”
As we were now talking about “Endgame,” I thought it a good time to find out what Gabrielle thinks about Amarice, the new young Amazon who has descended with a quip and an attitude into Xena and Gabrielle’s life.
“Amarice isn’t a third wheel,” Renee explained. “She’s a character in her own right and Gabrielle is not threatened by her. We’re just now developing her part and we’re going to see more of her in the coming season.”
“Is it difficult for a guest actor coming into a situation where the cast has been together so long?” I asked.
“We definitely try to make every actor who comes in feel as comfortable as possible with joining our family,” Renee said positively. “In respect to Jennifer, she’s such an open and easygoing woman that she’s very likable. I invited her to my home a couple weeks ago and we went on a wine-tasting trip. I introduced her to some of the local wines and she's bringing some back to her family. In many ways, she reminds me of myself,” Renee said thoughtfully. “Stages that I've gone through at her age. She’s in her early twenties. Finding out who you are and looking for love. All those things,” she laughed gently.
“Be patient and don't get desperate,” I added.
“Know you're worth it,” she declared firmly.
Time to delve into “Ides Of March” and Gabrielle's learning that, for her, the Way of Friendship is more important than the Way of Love. And how did Renee feel about the incredible fight scene as Gabrielle defended the fallen Xena. I thought she would have had a good time letting loose in the battle sequence, but her answer surprised me. “It wasn’t fun. I understood where the motivation came from, but I was frustrated it had to happen so quickly,” she said. “I like to play everything more subtle — perhaps a few less head butts or stabbings. And I was afraid it would look comedic because it was so over the top for Gabrielle I tried to play it as primitive and instinctual as I could.”
“I found it heartbreaking, especially with Xena crying out for Gabrielle to stop,” I told her. “And she doesn't know how to use a sword the way Xena does.”
“I don't think it looked anything like Xena s sword fights,” Renee said. “The movements weren’t complicated. Gabrielle was just defending herself as simply as possible. I felt it was important to show that Gabrielle didn't feel comfortable committing murder. And I wanted her to be vulnerable so I tried to make it as awkward for myself as possible.”
“What was going through Gabrielle's mind when she looked at the knife in her hand and saw the blood?” I asked, thinking I would hear about some deep psychological revelation.
Renee laughed. “I was sitting on top of the stuntman and we had to use a real dagger because it was coming up into the shot. As I was doing the motions. I was watching him as intently as I could to make sure I didn't actually stab him. I put my hand on his chest to protect him and ended up stabbing my own hand! Took off a chunk of my wedding finger,” she laughed again.
“I stood up and had all this blood on me and thought I had hurt him. The blood was so red, I thought it had to be fake. But, oh, no, it was real! When you're in the middle of a scene, you don't feel a thing and I didn't.”
“Isn't it odd that a piece of real life had an impact on the character and how you played the scene?” I commented.
“I've learned that from Lucy,” she explained. “I used to come in completely prepared for scenes and I’ve learned to use my instinct more. If something is working inside me. I try to find a way I can manipulate it into the scene. You want to be inspired in everything you do.”
When I was on the set, some of the crew were working on a mechanical cross that would be used for the finale of “Ides.” It was actually just the top half of the cross mounted on a machine so that it rotated from a horizontal position to a vertical one. I mentioned this to Renee.
“You saw that?” she asked. The ingenuity of one of our crew members created that. His name is Simon and he heard the shot that the director, Ken Girotti, wanted to achieve and created the design for that rig. Lucy and I both sat on it with a camera hanging directly above us and four men lifted the entire object, including us, upright.
“I thought Lucy was so brave because we all knew she was pregnant and she had this camera sitting above her stomach attached to wires and rigs,” she said in awe. “She had absolute trust in our crew.”
The highlight of this episode was the prison scene with Xena and Gabrielle. Xena has tried with all her might to thwart Alti's vision of their death and she has failed. But, although the chakram lies broken in two, the love between Xena and Gabrielle has grown stronger than ever.
Xena: “I'm sorry for all the times I didn't treat you right.”
Gabrielle: “You brought out the best in me.”
“It was so beautiful and so easy for Lucy and I to do,” she said softly. “It was Rob's idea to play the first part with no dialogue. And R.J. wrote the bit with the characters reminiscing about their lives - ‘I should have read your scrolls.’ Very touching to even think about. That was one of those scenes where you just try not to cry too much,” she laughed gently.
She explained further. “You go through waves as an actor where you reach a scene and you’re fine with it. Then you might have to do a few more takes and you start to struggle. I was getting frustrated and mentioned it to Lucy. She shared with me what was inspiring her and I used that to go into it on a new level. Another actor might just have said, ‘Well, you’re on your own.’ I found a way to tap into the energy between Lucy and myself and brought that into the scene.”