Hercules and Xena:The Legends Continue...(Xena section of article)
"At the start, the biggest problem was the syndicators were leery about a female action show. Plus, they worried she would be a female Hercules," say Tapert. "We did everything we could to make her different."
Again, Tapert took inspiration from Hong Kong films. "I have to give a great deal of credit to Bridget Lin. In some respects, we westernized her character from Swordsman and Bride with White Hair films. A volatile character, yet still very feminine; you never know what she's going to do next."
Lucy Lawless, a New Zealand native, brings a natural thirst for adventure to the role. At 17, she abandoned college in mid-studies in order to travel the world, grapepicking on the Rhine and gold-mining deep in Australia's outback. She returned to Auckland, not yet 20, married, and mother to Daisy, now 7 years old. "Xena is as strong as any man or woman," Lawless says of her alter ego. "She's a bit dysfunctional, yet she understands the dark side of human nature. She's actually the person I could've been if I was born to different parents."
Lawless, too, was introduced to the "white lotus" system under the tutelage of Master Wong in preparation for her series. "Doing th fights is like doing a dance," she says. "They can be diffcult, but when I see the results onscreen, well, it's really fabulous and quite rewarding."
Tapert adds, "With Xena, we stepped outside the boundaries of fight reality. In fact, when we pitched Xena, I made a demo reel of four Hong Kong movies, to show Universal the kind of action sequences we wanted to do in ht show. Our rule in Xena is that you can't actually defy gravity, but we try to heighten the action beyond what Americans have seen. Because she isn't a goddess, we can use more martial-artsy stuff, like a fighter running on top of people's heads, acrobatic flips, running up trees, fancier weaponary. It appeals to the Hercules audience, but the stories are geared to a slightly older audience.
Tapert left us with thought for the future of both legendary journeys. "I love the fights in Xena, but the Herculesfights are getting a little too dull and too repetive. It's hard with a guy who punches people to continue to come up with new brawls that are interesting without going too much kung-fu. But we are continuing to try, still being careful not to use too many gadgets.
"For both shows, we'll start to raise a few stories form the Bible. We're going to break out of some ruts in Hercules that we are falling into. Lucy is becoming more comfortable with Xena and becoming a mcuh better actress. We plan to do a pure slapstick episode, and perhaps a few dark ones. So going light, then going real dark, we are expanding in all directions, and trying to give the audience an interesting mix."
