Lucy Lawless on V Graham Norton Show - 13 May 2006
Channel 4 UK TV
Click here for screencaptures and video clips
Transcription (and mistakes) by Barbara Davies
GN - Graham Norton
LL - Lucy Lawless
GN: ... and finally introduce tonight's heroic guest. Yes, she's
Hercules' buddy, the star of Xena: Warrior Princess. Ladies and
Gentlemen, please welcome Lucy Lawless is here.
[Lucy appears and is escorted down the stairs by two half naked, muscled
hunks]
LL: Hello.
GN: Hello. [they exchange kisses of greeting] Oh, mwa! Look at you, you
beautiful thing! You look gorgeous. You look stunning.
[they sit]
LL: My daughter is so impressed that I can come on your show.
GN: Really?
LL: Yes.
GN: How old is your daughter?
LL: 15. Nearly 15.
GN: Really?
LL: Yes.
GN: You look a child bride.
LL: [mimics a face-lift and is ironic] I've had work done.
GN: Have you? Good work.
LL: No.
GN: Excellent. Lovely.
LL: No. I reserve the right to at some point.
GN: Of course you do. Now what I want to know and this is just me,
gossiping for no good reason ... Because of your huge kind of celebrity,
fame, and Xena, you have -
LL: Huge.
GN: Well, no, you have met incredible people through it.
LL: I have.
GN: Apparently, I hear, you've met ex-president Bill Clinton.
LL: I did. Actually, I met him when he was president.
GN: Better still.
LL: Which was incredible. When you meet the President of the United
States. I got invited to this dinner down in Queenstown in New Zealand.
So I got flown down there. And they know you're coming long before you
see anybody, they're on walkie-talkies, and there's a cavalcade of 200
cars when you go to dinner with the President, and you don't know which
one he's in. And there's helicopters overhead, and this incredible
mechanism that surrounds him all the time. And I had this ... went to
this dinner which turned out to be quite intimate, actually, it was like
... it was like 8 of us. But anyway. And I was sitting opposite his
daughter ... um .. who was looking very sceptically at this buxom, dark-
haired woman next to her father.
GN: Mmmm. She's seen this before.
LL: We weren't hitting it off. And then the sun rose as the end when I
stood up and she realised I was 8 months pregnant. And she went 'Oh!
You're pregnant!' You know. Then I was okay.
GN: Oh, okay.
LL: And then I met him 2 years later. Cos we hit it off so well that I
think I got put on his 'things to do' list.
[GN pulls a face and the audience laughs]
LL: 'Things to do in New Zealand' list. I know! 'She can't be pregnant
forever.' So. When I met him next time, I actually had just had yet
another baby cos I can't help myself. And it was a little sad,
actually. It was a little sad. I got invited to this dinner, and I say I
can't go - I've just had a baby and I can't leave my child there for a
5-hour banquet, whatever, and finally - this barrage of invitations
comes - and finally I say OK, I'll come to breakfast at the lobby of the
Hilton in Auckland for breakfast, and uh it gets changed to breakfast in
his suite.
[GN grimaces]
LL: Oh no, no, it's OK. It worked out well. I took my baby for
chaperone. But I got there, and it's like instead of -
GN: To fend him off.
LL: Yeah, right, like that'd work! - and instead of having people greet
you, I was sitting there, sort of tapping my .. twiddling my thumbs in
the lobby, there was nobody there, eventually somebody came to take me
and I hefted my baby up the stairs, and they came upstairs, and there
were these big guys in dark coats, standing around, they looked like
these Polynesian brothers from the 'hood going 'Yeah, where's Mister C,
bro?', 'Oh yeah, Lucy's here', 'Oh yeah, get Mister C.' Anyway, it was
quite a different experience, the second time round.
GN: The outfits you wore. You know, the whole Xena Warrior thing. They
love, I mean the fans seems to love it. And there's this particular
website ... Do you look at these websites?
LL: Ah, no. Not for a long time.
GN: Don't worry. These aren't bad. It's not your head on a naked body.
LL: No, I haven't for a long time.
GN: Don't worry.
LL: Some of them are cool, actually. Some do ... people send me stuff.
Some of them are pretty outrageous ... Very well done. ... I'll show you
later.
GN: Here we go. Now what have I got here. Er. This is Xena Wannabe. This
is Norma Xena Wannabe.
LL: Good on yer, Norma!
GN: And there is Norma. She's managed to superimposed herself right
beside you there in her own outfit. She's made this outfit herself.
Norma gives us instructions on how to make the entire outfit. Right. How
to make your homemade outfit. It includes a papier-mache chest piece.
You need a bowl .... petroleum jelly... I'm afraid, cos I have money and
staff with time on their hands, we decided to see what happened if you
followed her instructions. [produces outfit] It's not that bad. You end
up with that!
LL: [claps hands] Good!
GN: I was wondering, is there ... It's quite fragile and quite small. Is
there anyone who thinks they could fit into it? Anyone in the audience
would fit into it?
[audience members shout out 'I'll have a go']
GN: There's a boy wants a go.
[a thin guy named Gary in a pink shirt is picked out (it looked
prearranged to me) and with GN's help goes behind some rock scenery and
puts on the outfit and accessories]
GN: [emerging and holding out a piece of the costume to LL] What are
those?
LL: I couldn't rightly - Oh yes. They're for your arms. Make you look
like you've got muscles.
[the robing of Gary continues then he comes out fully clad]
GN: I'm loving this.
LL: Me too.
GN: It's all papier-mache. [bangs breast armour with mike; it makes a
hollow thud; Lucy is laughing] It's lovely. Very good.
[Gary is to be filmed doing three things, the clips will then be used in
a XWP opening sequence]
GN: You can advise.
LL: Right.
[Gary is supposed to emerge from some rocks.]
LL: Stealthy.
[Gary is supposed to throw the chakram.]
GN: This is your ... what is it called. A chakram?
LL: Chakram.
GN: Chakram. Did they get that from anywhere? Did they just make it up?
LL: Shamrock. Round killing thing. Um. You can call it anything you
like.
GN: The word chakram. Did it come from anywhere?
LL: I think they just made it up. Chakra, it's a play on ...
[Gary throws the chakram. LL gives him two thumbs up.]
GN: Ooh! That was good! There was a lady in the audience, I don't think
she's moved that fast in a long time! [mimes ducking] Very good.
Excellent!
[Gary has to uses his sword.]
GN: What sort of swordplay should he do? Is it mostly ... A bit of ...
LL: Oh, anything he wants. He looks like a man of great style.
GN: Just basically some swordplay, some slashing about.
LL: Figure 8s.
[The sequence is finally finished, spliced together, and played while LL
does the voice over}
LL: Forged in the heat of battle, when war raged across the land, a
brave hero stood up to evil. He would change the world forever. He was
Xena, Warrior Princess.
GN: Very good. Well done, Gary. That's it for part 1. Join myself and
Lucy after the break.
------ advertising break ---------
GN: Now, Lucy, we must talk about Xena and its fanbase. Cos it does have
an incredible fanbase around the world. And yee-ha, lesbians love you.
They do, they're mad about you.
LL: I think it's natural that they should like the show though. There's
2 women, with no visible means of male support.
GN: They have kissed, haven't they? Gabrielle, the little blondie one,
and yourself. You've kissed.
LL: Well yes. they did actually, in the end. All those years I was going
'Oh no, I don't think she's a lesbian, she has had boyfriends' and at
the end all of a sudden, Xena says, 'Well actually, yes, Gabrielle, I
did have a special girlfriend, 10 years ago.' And I'm saying to the
producers, 'Are you kidding me? Now you pull this one out?' It's like
somebody telling your wife that, 'Oh, I was actually married before,' 10
years into it.
GN: It's a nice gift to the lesbian viewers though.
LL: It was a nice gift, yes. And then we chopped her head off.
GN: Because I was reading the fanmail. People were like so upset by the
chopping the head off episode. That wasn't ... you know.
LL: [ironically]I don't understand it myself.
GN: What? Being upset? Were you just so glad to get out of there?
LL: No no no. I do understand. I feel quite bad. I do feel bad about
that. Because actually it like hurt them. It hurt them more than it hurt
me.
GN: They were really upset. There was one ... who was the one? And we
read that she could only watch it kind of minutes at a time.
LL: Ooh, I know.
GN: Because she found it too upsetting. It took her 30 hours to watch
the whole episode.
LL: Now that's value for money!
GN: Isn't it, though?
LL: Um. I do feel a little bad about that actually.
GN: Of course, you did become a big icon. And typically dolls ensued.
Now I don't have the doll you really hate ...
LL: Do you have a doll?
GN: I do have some dolls. Oh, me? No.
LL: Get onto merchandising about that.
GN: People would abuse it horribly! Back to you and your dolls. I don't
have the doll you hate. I don't. Cos there is a doll you hate.
LL: No there's not.
GN: Oh there is. The Xena fan we rang up ...
LL: That I ought to hate? What are you saying?
GN: No. And I've seen it. It is quite musc ... It's huge in fact. They
think you hate it.
LL: Yeah. But I don't care. I never complain about that.
GN: It was when we rang up to say can we show the dolls on the show.
They said, 'You don't want that one, do you?' And we went, 'Yeah, we
do.' 'She hates it'.
LL: No I don't.
GN: Oh well.
LL: What do I care?
[he gets out some dolls]
GN: No. There's a nice one. These are just ...
LL: That's a little gruesome, but I still don't mind.
GN: You do look a bit emaciated in that one, it has to be said. Like you
need to eat Gabrielle. Then there's this totally normal one. Then one
very odd. You appear in this one to be wearing a pair of squirrel's
bollocks. [the audience laughs. so does LL] Even you look surprised. A
bit shocked. Is that based on a real outfit you wore?
LL: It was actually. It was every bit as glamorous as it appears.
GN: Lovely. I think it is so sweet. You in all these amazing things, and
then poor old Gabrielle [pulls out a Gabrielle bobblehead doll]. Oh!
It's cruel!
LL: Now Renee would love that. She'd put that on the dash of their car.
And be very proud. It's cool I would like one too.... Do I get one?
GN: No. You can have that one ... [hands the Gabrielle bobblehead to
her]
LL: I love that.
GN. Aw. Together again at last.
LL: Chop her head off!
GN: Yeah, chop her head off! You are now focussing on lots of other
female warriors.
LL: I am.
GN: Who? Who are you doing? Cos you're doing a documentary.
LL: I'm doing Boudicca. That's right. A series of documentaries for the
Discovery Channel. So ... Boudicca. Joan of Arc. Mulan. We went to China
at the beginning of the SARS business. Very exciting.
[GN pretends to cough and edge away.]
GN: Now. This is an odd question, but I will ask it anyway. Is there a
particular noise that Xena Warrior Princess makes when she's very
excited.
LL: well there is, actually. Funny you should ask.
GN: A noise of excitement, ladies and gentlemen.
LL: Alalalalalala.
[audience applauds]
GN: That was good!
LL: [pumps arms] When she's excited.
GN: No listen. Get ready to make that noise now as I introduce my
musical guests tonight - yes - one more time ...
LL: Alalalala
GN: It's Big Bruvas, ladies and gentlemen.
[the rap group Big Bruvas come on and sit with LL on the sofa. The focus
switches to them. LL just smiles and nods encouragingly from time to
time until it is time for GN to finish and for them to sing their hit
single.]
GN: And of course, a huge thanks to my lovely guest, Lucy Lawless.
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