Culture magazine has a cover interview with Lucy about her role on Xena, Ash Vs Evil Dead and other roles but it also goes into her stance about various issues including Pro-Medical Cannabis and her activism with Greenpeace.
TENACIOUS TALENT Actress and activist Lucy Lawless is fierce, fearless and will fight for what is right
Culture Magazine
September 2016
Lucy Lawless thinks before speaking. Only not, apparently, to consider what her publicist or manager might want her to say. For while she’s forever associated with fantasy action roles, the refreshingly opinionated Ash vs Evil Dead actress conveys a defiantly down-to-earth demeanor in her unaffected Down Under brogue.
Some highlights:
You were a teen mom. How did rising to that considerable challenge help form the character that has made your so successful since?
I didn’t understand it was a challenge.
I think my family thought “oh, there go all her dreams of being an actress,” but within days of coming home from the hospital . . . I was full of energy; I was writing skits and things to produce into a show reel [and] went and filmed it. Jobs started to come from there.
[MaryD: I found this part quite interesting – she didn’t just sit back and let her dreams go to dust – she wanted something and she went for it.]
You’re a board member of New Zealand’s Starship Foundation, benefitting children’s healthcare, and have been involved with animal rights organizations such as Paw Justice. Do you see it as your responsibility to use your celebrity for good in those ways?
Well, I don’t want it to bloody sell lipstick! That just bores the shit out of me, all that stuff . . . [Celebrity is] currency, y’know—use it for something that does some good for the world.
In May, you tweeted a fairly strongly-worded pro-medical cannabis statement. Could you expand upon the sentiments behind this?
I just think it’s twisted that we withhold available medications from somebody in pain—it’s disgusting. Why wouldn’t you give it to them? How completely sick. We’re the ones who are sick—we’re sicker than they are.
How have your views on recreational and medical use of cannabis changed over your lifetime?
I don’t think I knew that marijuana could be medical when I was growing up. My views of marijuana haven’t really changed . . . I know it does a lot less harm to society than alcohol.
I certainly tried it as a kid, I do think we have to be really informed about the facts, but it doesn’t bother me if people smoke pot.
Your work with Greenpeace suggests that you’re very pro-active regarding issues about which you are passionate. Might you become more involved in medical cannabis activism?
I doubt it, except to say that I absolutely support—I mean, I really, wholeheartedly support [medical marijuana]. It’s medicine, man—nothing works like it, is what I’m hearing, so it’s very cruel and unusual to deny a palliative medicine from these [seriously ill] people.