Galactica.com - Interview: XENA & BATTLESTAR GALACTICA's LUCY LAWLESS LIKES HER ROLES SPICY

By Sean Elliot, ifmagazine.com, on 08-12-2006

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Cylons

The charming and talented actress chats about past, present, and future

D’Anna Biers is a ruthless Cylon with religious aspirations and status among her people. Who else could bring this religious zealot to life other than the multi talented actress Lucy Lawless? Charming, intelligent, and of course beautiful, Lawless shared her insights with iF MAGAZINE into her new regular role on television and what lies beyond BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.

iF MAGAZINE: Were you aware that the press version of the episode where Six got shot in the head, just had her disappear from the scene and never showed the shooting?

LUCY LAWLESS: Did they trick you? I think that was the one I saw too, and I thought, eh boring. But, I’m glad they put that in. That’s a nice continuing storyline for her character and mine. She hit me in the head with a rock and then Matt [Bennett] shoots her character in the head, and I think my character watches that and thinks hmmm fair enough. [Laughs] From then on, it’s “who’s zooming who man?”

iF: From the press kit, I’ve seen shots of you with baby Hera, is that a big storyline?

LAWLESS: Oh have they not shown that yet? The thing is we filmed a lot of that stuff really early and they carved it up differently so episodes will have two different directors working it. I can only assume that’s for really good reasons. An arc with the Galactica crew is much stronger when they hold it together and the Cylon arc is stronger when it’s held together rather than having bits and pieces in every single episode. Sometimes it’s for maximum interest and value. It’s highly unusual in television, but on this show what are rules? [Laughs]

iF: Did you enjoy being creepy and crazy in season 2 and then switching to more down to Earth in season 3?

LAWLESS: Was I crazy in season 2?

iF: The scene where D’Anna gets clubbed in the head with the rock, right before it…the “God loves me” line was creepy.

LAWLESS: I can do a thousand shades of creepy. [Laughs] Yup, yup, yup. Psychopaths ‘R’ Us.

iF: So do you like playing those darker roles?

LAWLESS: I do I really do. I like roles to be spicy. I was just thinking this morning that there’s no way in hell that I want to play the mother on a sitcom. I don’t want to be on a lot of stuff. I’ve turned down cop shows, journalists, for the most part if it’s funny or wild in some way, I kind of feel like I’ve done just about everything I want to do in acting on television. It has to have a really compelling fun quotient for me now to go and do something.

iF: You’ve been involved with several pop culture shows and have already achieved “icon” status, so no matter where you go from here you’ll always have that status.

LAWLESS: That would be cool.

iF: You don’t think you have an iconic status?

LAWLESS: I don’t know. I never really though of it. Nobody around my house is calling me an icon I can tell you that. [Laughs] Usually they’re saying, “please don’t cook, please can we just order Chinese?” [Laughs]

iF: Is it nice since XENA to now work with slightly fewer stunts and leaping and yelling?

LAWLESS: Yes I love that. Though I have to say I’m awfully good at it. People don’t expect that from me when they get to know me. They just get to know me as Lucy who’s one of the gang. I’m damn fine at that stuff now after all of these years. I never liked it then, but on the rare occasions where I am required to do it I kind of enjoy it. Even I didn’t know how good I had become at certain things like taking a punch or making a fight look a certain way. I’m proud of that because that was never something I thought I would be good at.

iF: That must broaden out the types of shows and roles you can go up for, even on BATTLESTAR you’ve had your share of fighting?

LAWLESS: Yeah they do some good stuff on that show.

iF: What has been your favorite memory on BATTLESTAR so far?

LAWLESS: Howling with laughter with the hair guy Gerald. He cracks me up. There was a fair bit of nudity on that set. That would have to be something else I remember, seeing Jamie Bamber’s backside. Seeing his loincloth hold itself up with no visible means of support. [Laughs] James [Callis], Tricia [Helfer] is half naked most of the time. My God even I got into it a little bit.

iF: There’s a little bit of flesh given by everybody?

LAWLESS: Oh My god yeah…[dissolves into peals of laughter]

iF: Are there divisions amongst the cast since the GALACTICA crew and the Cylons shoot on different sets and days?

LAWLESS: Yeah, that’s pretty much true. Though, I see Eddie [James Olmos] a lot. I’ve always wanted to work with Mary [McDonnell]. I guess Eddie is around a lot, so I feel like I’ve worked with him more than people I was in scenes with. He’s very warm and a great activist. I really like Eddie. There kind of are divisions due to scheduling. James [Callis] is a very charming fun person to hang out with.

iF: Is there anything you haven’t gotten to do on BATTLESTAR, like killing certain people or sleeping with them?

LAWLESS: I think I’ve done all of that. What I do want to say is thanks for a great role, and I loved the way my arc winds up. It’s so funny and exciting and ironic, cruel and all of those things. What you reap you will sow. I just think it’s the greatest piece of writing, so I want to thank them for that. The writing on my arc was so elegant and beautiful and you don’t want to go messing with that.

iF: David Eick said your voracious reading appetite gave you input to some of the direction the character was going?

LAWLESS: I think all of that was serendipitous. For one thing I had been doing Hindu studies on a Sunday night and I also had read the trilogy “His Dark Materials” and it’s got some very heretical notions of religious and spirituality involving time travel and love which BATTLESTAR was all about.

iF: Any pet theories on how the series is going to end?

LAWLESS: I just hope they don’t find themselves on Earth, seeing a big poster of the show, kind of like PLANET OF THE APES. Humans as slaves, or whatever…

iF: So will you be coming back?

LAWLESS: Not in the second half of the season. If there was a real reason to [bring my character back] then yeah.

iF: How was singing with Richard Marx on CELEBRITY DUETS?

LAWLESS: It was great! He was the biggest surprise to me, because the man is comfortable in his own skin. He has no ego and no baggage and it was like working with your best friend.

iF: Did you enjoy being on the show and getting to use your singing talents?

LAWLESS: I LOVED IT. In fact, I am doing a show at the Roxy in January. We’re just retooling it a little bit at the moment.

iF: I saw that you are doing a voice for a DRAGONLANCE cartoon?

LAWLESS: Yeah I did a voice for that, and I just did Wonder Woman for a Warner Bros. cartoon thing the other day. It was really fun, and I love voice things because it’s not a field I’ve worked in very much.

iF: But you did the XENA cartoon?

LAWLESS: Yes, I did that and I wasn’t very confident. Then I did SIMPSONS and I still wasn’t very confident. When I did SIMPSONS again or CELEBRITY DEATH MATCH I was getting a little better. DRAGONLANCE I nailed that, and then this Wonder Woman role I did great on that one. I felt so much better. I like finding new challenges. It’s for a new JUSTICE LEAGUE that’s really kind of hip and sexy; it’s really retro drawings. It was for a DVD and it’s very adult. It was very cool. I loved it!