People
(United States)
March 27, 2001

Homer never mentioned anything about copper-plated bustiers and mini-skirts in The Iliad. But, then again, Homer never had much of a syndication deal.

Leave it to Lucy Lawless and Xena: Warrior Princess to interpret ancient Greece with a campy flair that has made the series an enormously successful sister-show of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, regularly topping even Star Trek spin-offs in the ratings since its 1995 debut.

"We are always winking at the audience," the raven-haired, blue-eyed Lawless, a native of New Zealand, where the show is produced, told the Chicago Sun-Times. "There's really a lot of satire and irony in what we do."

Lawless plays the swashbuckling Xena with a mixture of dour seriousness and deadpan sexiness. Millions tune in each week to watch Lawless -- who has become both a pinup girl and feminist role model. There are hundreds of websites devoted exclusively to the star, and prison inmates reportedly gather for Xena nights. The show has also developed a significant gay and lesbian following, due largely to Xena's strong female image and an ambiguous, quasi-erotic relationship with her sidekick, Gabrielle, played by Renee O'Connor. When Ms. and Playboy and PEOPLE (who magazine anointed Lawless one of the 50 Most Beautiful People of 1997) agree on the merits of Xena, you know you've got a hit.

All the weighty attention suits the rugged, 5'10" actress just fine. "There are a lot of people out there who have suffered from some kind of abuse -- women, gays, kids -- and they all relate to Xena," Lawless told USA Today. "She's always fighting the good fight."

Feistiness comes naturally to Lawless, who grew up in a large family outside of Auckland, New Zealand. Her father Frank Ryan, onetime mayor of Mt. Albert, and housewife mother Julie, raised Lawless and her six brothers and sisters in a rollicking atmosphere on a suburban homestead. There she learned horse-back riding, gymnastics and how to hold her own with her older brothers. "I had a fairly rough-and-tumble childhood," Lawless told the LA Times. "I've got a good kick and I can throw a punch, and I learned not to cry."

Lawless excelled academically and acted in high-school productions, then studied briefly at Auckland University before dropping out to travel through Europe and Australia with her boyfriend. That restless period also included brief stints as a grape-picker and a goldminer. But those adventures were cut short when she became pregnant in 1987. She and her boyfriend, Garth Lawless, returned to New Zealand, where she gave birth to their daughter, Daisy. (The couple divorced in 1995 but remain friendly.)

During those early days of motherhood, Lawless resumed performing and taking acting lessons. Work in commercials soon followed, and by age 20 Lawless had landed a plum gig on the TV skit show Funny Business. Bit parts in movies on both the big and small screens followed, but her big break came in 1994 when she made several guest appearances on the popular Hercules series, first as a renegade lieutenant and then as an evil warrior who seduces Herc.

The character proved so popular that Xena -- now revamped as a warrior who atones for her dastardly past -- soon got her own series. And her own action figures, trading cards, comic and children's books, soundtrack album and sword-and-sorcery novels. But one of the best aspects of all: Xena is taped 20 minutes from Lawless's house in Auckland, giving her plenty of time to spend with her daughter.

For now, the action-heroine has no aspirations for broadening her cinematic horizon -- playing Xena and mommy to Daisy keep her fully occupied. "Being a mother and being an actress are equally important," she recently told the Chicago Sun-Times. "I am very lucky right now that I can do both things without having to choose one over the other."

Still, Lawless has added one other role: that of wife. Xena producer Rob Tapert and Lawless wed in March '98. "This has been the greatest year of my life," she told PEOPLE right after taking her vows. "Rob is the finest man I've known."

--LORRAINE GOODS


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