Expect some startling new directions for the Warrior Princess and her maturing sidekick as Year Three unfolds.

A recipe for disaster and hilarious outtakes - order up one very hot day, the smallest of studios, toss in an afternoon barbecue and just a pinch of late-night revelry.

A recipe for disaster and hilarious outtakes - order up one very hot day, the smallest of studios, toss in an afternoon barbecue and just a pinch of late-night revelry.

Ask Renee about everything from the Dawn of Man to Tim Burton’s obsession with ‘50s monster movies (there’s some Xena information here too!).

“I always wanted to become an actress,” Renee O’Connor says with the exuberance of her TV character, Gabrielle, courageous sidekick to Xena: Warrior Princess. “I mean, it was sort of like an obsession.”

Comic book-style superheroes may come and go, but realistic, fleshed-out characters are eternal. That’s the philosophy of Renaissance Pictures, creators of TV’s reigning king and queen of mythological muscle, Hercules and Xena.

Costume Designer Ngila Dickson determines what the well-dressed Warrior Princess - and her cohorts - are wearing.

And then in September 1995, there was Xena: Warrior Princess. From the start this was something very different. A female warrior.

R.J. Stewart discusses The Debt I and II.

R.J. Stewart discusses Gabrielle’s Hope.

Steven L. Sears discusses The Deliverer.

Liz Friedman discusses The Rift arc.

Do I dare confess that I started this phone interview with the words, “Rise and Shine! Rise and Shine!” What possessed me? Thank God Lucy has a terrific sense of humor and it functions at eight o’clock in the morning.

Talking to Renee O’Connor on the phone is like talking to Gabrielle - the voice is the same. There is a difference, though. And I realize it is the voice of Gabrielle from “The Deliverer,” “Gabrielle’s Hope” and “The Debt.”

My first phone interview with Lucy Lawless introduced me to an intelligent woman whose conversation ranged from “why I took up fire-breathing” to “how to get inside the mind of a murderer.”