After Ellen
source: afterellen.com
date: january 21st, 2007
Xena: Warrior Princess may have aired its last episode six years ago, but you'd never have known it last weekend in Burbank, Calif., where hundreds of Xena fans — mostly lesbians — turned out for a standing room-only appearance by stars Lucy Lawless (Xena) and Renee O'Connor (Gabrielle) at the 12th Annual Xena Convention. We spoke with Lawless and O'Connor after their turn at the convention about their fans, their careers and the possibility of a Xena movie.
Lawless was glowing after she came offstage after her appearance with O'Connor, the sound of the standing ovation they received still loud in the background. After a star turn on Celebrity Duets and a critically acclaimed role on Battlestar Galactica, her public profile is at its highest since Xena wrapped up its final season in 2001. During the weekend of the convention, she also delivered two sold-out musical performances at Los Angeles’ Roxy Theater.
Asked about the almost palpable adoration shown by the audience at the Saturday night's concert, Lawless gave a radiant smile and said, “It's great,isn't it? It must have been, because even the technical people [at the Roxy] mentioned it… And when the technical guys say something, it really means something.” One fan at the convention told Lawless that Xena's Michael Hurst (Iolaus) commented to her at the concert that one of the Roxy tech staff said they hadn't ever seen a fan reaction like the one Lucy received, “not even when Bruce Springsteen was there.”
During the first two numbers there were some sound problems, and at one point Lawless asked the audience to turn around and face the sound booth. These folks, she said sweetly, “want to hear me.” It worked, and the next day she laughed about it, saying that being threatened with 500 angry Xena fans is “worse than being threatened by one angry Xena, because Xena has one ounce of compassion.”
Did Lawless and O'Connor ever make a conscious decision to foster such a devoted relationship with their fans? According to Lawless, it just happened. “No, there was no decision,” she said. “I think how you conduct your life and dealings means that people who are not like-minded fall away. They can't handle it. I do not have glittery star people on my payroll.”
Asked what it's like to perform for an almost exclusively lesbian audience, Lawless answered: “I just want to emphasize again how it is of no interest to us what form people have. It's all about the heart for us; that's what we identify with in our fans.”
As to interviewers who sometimes make negative comments about her lesbian fans, Lawless said, “I don't care to add to their mockery. I have come to know a great many of our fans, and they are phenomenal people.”
“It's so patronizing,” said O'Connor, who joined the interview during this exchange.
“And we do have a lot of fans who are men,” Lawless pointed out.
O'Connor laughed. “Yeah, when I was voted … what was it, number one lesbianof the year…”
Lawless broke in, also laughing, “Yeah, yeah, you're lesbian icon number one.”
O'Connor said, “That's it. And when I posted a thank you to ‘the girls,' a lot of guys posted, ‘Wait a minute, we voted for you, too!'”
Being seen as lesbian icons obviously suits Lawless and O'Connor just fine. At the convention, Lawless told the crowd that Xena was voted the second most loved lesbian icon in the world, and asked, “Would you like to meet number one?” The audience screamed and applauded, and O'Connor joined her co-star on the stage.
During her sold-out concert the night before, Lawless found lots of ways to make her lesbian fans happy. The emcee greeted the audience by saying,“Welcome, ladies and ladies,” and backup singer Sharlotte Gibson laughed that there were all of four men present. Lawless performed a sizzling version of Melissa Etheridge's “Like the Way I Do” and tossed the name “Gabrielle” into the lyrics of “Piece of My Heart.” Midway through the evening, she went offstage and came back in the fringed minidress she wore on Celebrity Duets and blew the stage apart with “Tell Mama.” Then O'Connor put on a fringed minidress of her own and came out and danced while Lawless sang “What'd I Say.”
O'Connor said she originally had a different outfit in mind, but “Lucy called and said, ‘Oh, Ren, I have a dress for you to wear; it matches the beads.' And I was like, it was this big. Does it have a bottom half? And Lucy told me, ‘Just wear fluffy panties, and it would be fine.'”
After saying goodbye to O'Connor, who would be appearing with her onstage again later that night, Lawless left, and O'Connor returned to the topic of her relationship with her fans and its impact on her career.
In 2004, O'Connor starred in Eric Escobar's award-winning short film OneWeekend a Month, which is now being made into full-length feature. She played a single mother of two who is also a member of the National Guard and is called up to go to Iraq. The entire film consists of a series of short phone calls and was shot without a script. Other than those playing her children, she is the only actor in the film.
She hoped to appear in the movie, but Escobar decided to work with a different actor. “Our fans are passionate,” she said. “I'm not doing the film project now, and I'm worried about the backlash. I was hesitant to even mention it [at the convention], to tell the story.”
When asked about the film during the convention, she said, “As wonderful as things can be, you still have disappointments. … I want to be this character… Eric said he really didn't want me in the part… That's just the way it goes. I'm really disappointed… [but] I respect his artistic vision.”
Among convention goers, the question on everyone's lips was, “Will there ever be a Xena movie?” There was even a letter writing campaign announced at the convention.
In a November interview with AfterEllen.com, Lawless said a movie was not in the works, but a few weeks later, she told Leeza Gibbons on her radio show, Hollywood Confidential, that there was a 50/50 chance a film would happen. What raised fans' hopes the most, though, was the last-minute addition of series executive producer Rob Tapert (also Lawless' husband) and co-executive producer (and out lesbian) Liz Friedman to the convention lineup. The two had never appeared together before.
Tapert jumped right in with the movie question, saying there is interest in doing a film, although nothing is firm. He added, “If I was a betting man, I'd say something's going to happen… It's a matter of what's a story; what would happen; what would they do? I'm only concerned with, is there a good story to tell?”
Some might question the viability of a Xena film given that Xena herself died in the series finale, but death has never been a permanent condition in the Xenaverse. The warrior princess died more than once during the show's run, and a combination of divine intervention and all-purpose magic — and the loveof Gabrielle — brought her back every time. Sure, this time it might be the magic of Hollywood rather than the ancient gods, but hey … Xenaverse, remember? Not so much with the reality.
Xena: Warrior Princess and its stars have iconic status among lesbians among lesbians for many reasons, including the natural chemistry between Lawless and O'Connor and the subtextual hints of a sexual relationship between the two characters.
The show's writers and producers, as well as its stars, have all freely acknowledged the lesbian subtext of the show, and Lawless and O'Connor have both gone on record saying the two women were lovers. Still, many lesbians to this day are dissatisfied with the ambiguous nature of the pair's on-screen relationship.
When Liz Friedman was onstage, Xena fan club president Sharon Delaney asked if the show would have been different if there had been more female writers. Friedman answered, “I don't really think so. I think that we really were all sort of on the same page as to what the character is… [and] I was always there like gum on people's shoe… ‘No, no one's going to think they're lesbians; shut up, it's fine.' They fell for it.”
Writer Steve Sears also fielded the subtext question, and said, “When I look at it through my eye, to me there's no doubt [they are in a sexual relationship]… However, that's because that's my mindset. Did I write the characters that way? No… So to this day… it's still ambiguous.”
Whether there's a Xena movie in the future remains to be seen, but Lawless and O'Connor are both keeping busy. O'Connor's next film, due out this spring, is a comedy called Diamonds and Guns, about two best friends who go to LasVegas to find one of them a husband so she can avoid deportation. She will also be starring in Ghost Town, a Western in which she plays Little Jack, a role originally written for a man.
Lawless will be appearing on the upcoming season of HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm and is just wrapping up a featured role on Battlestar Galactica, where her character, Cylon D'Anna Biers, recently had a threesome with a man and woman. When asked how much input she had on her character, Lawless said, “There was a lot of input I could have in the beginning; then they put it together in their own crazy fashion.”
But whose idea was the threesome? Lucy laughed. “Just another day at the office. Another day, another threesome.”