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   From: daviderl31@yahoo.com   
      
               Excellent article. I've read excerpts from it, but not the   
   entire thing.   
   Thanks for posting.   
      
      
      
   "Ubiquitous"  wrote in message news:nk8vat$4h4$7@dont-email.me...   
      
   How Xena went from sword-wielding heroine to feminist icon   
   by Natalie Abrams   
      
   To mark the upcoming 15th anniversary of the beloved fantasy series’   
   finale, EW spoke with Xena: Warrior Princess co-creator Rob Tapert   
   and stars Lucy Lawless and Renee O’Connor to find out how Xena went   
   from sword-wielding heroine to feminist icon.   
      
   Ahead of the 1995 debut of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys,   
   Universal Television started mulling a companion piece. For the   
   flagship, Hercules executive producer Rob Tapert pitched an evil   
   warrior princess to appear in a three-episode arc before being   
   killed. But things turned out differently…   
   ROB TAPERT: At that time, there were no female superhero shows on   
   TV, and really Bionic Woman and Cagney & Lacey were the two most   
   identifiable female-driven shows that had been on. While they had   
   been somewhat successful, they had never repeated in syndication   
   very well. The guys at Universal quickly said, “You know what? You   
   should rip yourself off before somebody else does and try and make a   
   spin-off out of that character.” At that time, the head of the   
   studio gave me a lecture about why he was going to do this. He was   
   concerned that female heroes don’t really work well on television   
   and never to take my eye off the ball of Hercules.   
      
   Lucy Lawless, who had appeared on Hercules playing two other   
   characters, was far from the first choice to play the leather-clad   
   heroine. A former warlord spared by Hercules, Xena embarked on a   
   journey of redemption as penance for her crimes.   
   TAPERT: Because it was never thought to be a spin-off originally,   
   when we were doing the evil warrior princess arc, Universal asked us   
   if we would consider using somebody from one of their other shows   
   who they liked a great deal, and they thought would bring viewership   
   to Hercules. Then that actress [Weird Science’s Vanessa Angel] got   
   sick and we were stuck scrambling to find a replacement. We had just   
   worked with Kim Delaney up in Toronto on a made-for-video movie at   
   the time and she was great, and I called her and she said yes, and   
   her manager called like a half hour later and said, “No, she’s not   
   going to do that, it will take her out of pilot season.”   
   LUCY LAWLESS: They scrambled to get a number of actresses to come   
   from Los Angeles [to New Zealand], but it was pilot season. It was   
   shooting through January and in those days you didn’t leave town, so   
   they all turned it down thinking it was [only] a three-episode arc.   
   TAPERT: Ultimately the studio said, “Well, just get the woman who   
   had been in that last Hercules and dye her hair black.”   
   LAWLESS: It fell to me when everybody else turned it down. I was the   
   lucky local kid on the spot who got the gig.   
   TAPERT: When they saw the dailies of that episode, they thought,   
   “Yeah, we should do a spin-off.”   
   LAWLESS: I thought it was an entirely natural process: “This is what   
   naturally happens in the course of American shows.” I was that   
   green. I’m a kid from the bottom on the world, and I just thought,   
   “Of course it gets to be a big success and then you go to Hollywood   
   and get a career.” It’s only now that I’m sweating bullets at the   
   extreme, almost cataclysmic good luck that I had. All the stars all   
   lined up.   
      
   The key then was finding Xena’s partner in crime, Gabrielle.   
   TAPERT: Just prior to starting Xena, some writer who was hot at the   
   time said, “Every single story’s a story of redemption,” and I   
   thought about it and I’m like, “Yeah, at some level it is.” But in   
   this particular case, what does it mean when you’re no longer evil   
   and you want to find a better moral compass in life? Gabrielle was   
   that moral compass for Xena and that united them together.   
   RENEE O’CONNOR: I remember auditioning for Rob Tapert and [co-   
   executive producer] Eric Gruendemann. They recognized me from an   
   Australian TV movie.   
   TAPERT: We had used Renee in a two-hour movie of Hercules and I   
   loved her onscreen presence, so when we came up with the idea of   
   Xena and Gabrielle, Renee was always front and center in my mind as   
   to who Gabrielle was. We went through a lot of casting, because the   
   studio wanted to look at other options. Was she too young? Was she   
   too this? Was she too that? We brought her back numerous times.   
   O’CONNOR: I had to go through an extensive audition process for   
   Gabrielle.   
   TAPERT: There was somebody else who was the sultry version of   
   Gabrielle, a different way of going, and who was actually a very   
   fine actress in her own right, but ultimately I prevailed.   
   O’CONNOR: I was hired out of L.A. I moved to New Zealand and met   
   Lucy at our first table read. I remember having dinner with Lucy   
   maybe about a week into the show just so we could have a get-to-   
   know-you time.   
   LAWLESS: She had this character that was supposed to be sort of   
   worshipful and she was looking at me like that and I was like, “Stop   
   that. What are you doing?”   
   O’CONNOR: I was more fascinated with her story and who the actress   
   was. It took us a little bit longer to get to know each other, but   
   I’m probably her biggest fan.   
   LAWLESS: She was just a little bit younger and I think she was just   
   imbued with the Gabrielle of it all. We went through a lot of   
   changes. We went through our twenties together. We’re really,   
   totally sisters. There is a lot of trust and protectiveness between   
   the two of us. She’s a great, great woman and she’s become a great   
   artist.   
      
   Airing in 100-plus countries, Xena was a worldwide sensation,   
   ranking in the top five syndicated drama series during each of its   
   six seasons — but it wasn’t an out-of-the-gate success.   
   TAPERT: When we got the first week’s ratings, I was a little   
   surprised because Xena should have done a little better at 9 o’clock   
   with Hercules at 8 o’clock. It took a full year for Xena to rise in   
   the ratings.   
   O’CONNOR: I remember a couple of different times when Lucy would   
   come back to America for publicity for the show — she did publicity   
   with Kevin Sorbo, who was playing Hercules — and I remember a time   
   when people knew her name as much as they knew Kevin’s. But that   
   surprised me because, as far as I knew, we were working in New   
   Zealand and no one knew what we were doing, and we were like the   
      
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