ARTS& ENTERTAINMENT
Lucy in the sky
As TVs Xena, Lucy Lawless made lesbians swoon. Now she's singing
on reality TV and playing a sci-fi bad girl—and she still makes
us swoon By Michele Kort
How do you know when you've really, really made it? How about
when a dwarf planet is named after you? I think it's great,"
says Lucy Lawless. She's smiling, sitting on a street bench in
the quaint Larchmont Village neighborhood on another hot Los
Angeles summer day, reflecting on 2003 UB313, the recently
discovered planet at the far reaches of our solar system. It's
popular nickname is "Xena," for the "warrior princess" Lawless
played for six TV seasons. "I ran into one of the astronomers at
a baggage carousel—he recognized me—and he said he didn't think
that [the name 'Xena' was going to get through," says Lawless.
"He thought they were going to go for Persephone.'
"I'm like, 'Didn't 1 kill Persephone in the second episode? Did
she have her own show? The whole thing is crazy, but it makes
perfect sense—Xena was just as real as the other mythological
characters. Xena knew them all—she belongs up there in their
pantheon."
Xena's already in the lesbian pantheon, as is the
tongue-in-cheeky Lawless, who deliriously brought to life a
kick-ass heroine subtextually in love with sidekick Gabrielle
(whose name, by the way, has been given to the moon orbiting
"Planet Xena"). Since the show completed its run five years ago,
the New Zealander has appeared here and there on TV and in
movies, but much of her energy has gone to raising her two young
sons, Julius, 6, and Judah, 4 (she also has a daughter, Daisy,
18, from her first marriage), with husband (and Xena creator and
executive producer) Rob Tapert. Now she's back in force—
honey-blond this time and living in Holly, wood—and once again
filling screens with her 5*foot-10 alpha-female presence.
First up is Celebrity Duels, Simon Cowell's latest musical
contrivance, in which actors and other celebs who can sing
(mostly) pair with legendary stars such as Peter Frampton, Patti
La Belle, and Smokey Robinson. Lawless will compete against the
likes of who-knew-they-could-sing celebs Cheech Marin, Queer as
Folks Hal Sparks, and Queer Eye for the Straight Guys "culture
vulture," Jai Rodriguez.
"My peeps were really trying to talk me out of doing it—they
were not happy I was going to do a reality show,* says Lawless,
who looks yoga-fit but not Xena-buff in her white tank top. 'I
said, There's bombing in Israel, the war is going on in Iraq....
1 want to be part of something that has joy and an open spirit
to it. I don't know how else to contribute to the world." (It
didn't hurt, either, to get the rare chance to hold hands with
Smokey Robinson and croon "Ooh Baby Baby"—"I was in awe," says
Lawless.)
After Duets, she'll be seen in 10 episodes of the Sci Fi
Channel's Battlestar Galactica, a modem take on the late-"70s
space opera. She plays D'Anna, a Number Three-model Cylon (part
robot, part human) who. conveniently, can be downloaded into
another body if killed. She describes her character as
"extremely pragmatic, tough, callous," leaving out "hot"—but
viewers will certainly notice, especially when she ends up in a
"sort of menage a trois" with female Cylon Number Six (Tricia
Helfer) and male character Baltar {James Callis). Is something
happening between the women, or is it all for the guy?
"Well, we'll leave it to the audience to decide," says Lawless
slyly. "You know how those things go, c'mon!*
Lawless spent four months filming Galactica in Vancouver, which
is also the shooting grounds for The L Word. While in Canada,
couldn't she have squeezed in an L Word cameo for her legion of
lesbian fans?
"They came to me about The L Word early on," she reveals. Then
they got some girl with a Xena haircut [Karina Lombard]. That's
what often happens to me. They came to me about [the 1999 movie]
Pushing Tin, and then at the last minute they said, 'Oh, never
mind," because Billy Bob [Thornton] had met Angelina [Jolie]. So
what did they do? They gave her the haircut! 1 can't use that
haircut anymore, because everyone else has done it."
Lawless doesn't know yet whether she'll continue with Galactica
beyond this season. "I like the diversity of what I'm doing,"
she says, adding in her best California patois, "I'm just going
with the flow, man.
"Wherever I am. whatever I'm doing, it's my new greatest thing,"
says Lawless, who's as likable (and makeup-free gorgeous) in
person as any Xena fan would have hoped. "My life isn't perfect
by any means. I certainly have my troubles, but I'm good at
spotting the fun stuff. 1 don't know about Planet Xena, this
bloody-cold chunk of ice...but I'm telling you. Planet Lucy
rocks!" ■
