You know, the problem with writing up
these things as quickly as possible after they’re over is
that it always happens that after a few days or a week or a
month, little bits of the experience resurface in my brain.
Or, sometimes friends write me and set me back on track.
I got a note from a bud who said that a
number of the questions I said Lucy had been asked by fans
had actually been asked by Renee.
And I realized that I was so delighted
to unexpectedly see Luce that I think my eyes never left
her. However, someone else sent me a bootleg copy of a few
minutes of the girls’ appearance and I see that my bud was
definitely right about Renee being the one often asking Lucy
questions. Watching the clip, I also realized that Renee had
slipped into a pattern that I’ve seen in the past when she’s
on stage with Lucy. She tends to focus on what Lucy’s saying
and will actually essentially interview Lucy. Sometimes
she’ll expand on a fan’s question, sometimes she reacts to
something Lucy has said, sometimes she reminds Lucy of
things that happened to them. I’ve always said that Renee is
the biggest Lucy fan in the whole Xenaverse-she is always
just so obviously delighted when she’s got Lucy on stage
with her.
Lucy also obviously enjoys being on
stage with Renee – she always gives a huge, sappy smile to
Renee when they hug each other hello and often when they’re
tromping off stage saying goodbye, usually with Lucy draping
her arm across Renee's shoulders. She answers Renee’s
interview questions not just with words, but also by acting
out huge reactions and/or hilarious recreations of past
events, mugging mightily-I think just as much to play to
Renee as to play to us. Big ol’ ham…
Also, I’d like to clarify something in
my report. I got an e-mail about the part where the grrls
talked about their reactions during the different seasons. I
was asked if they had given any reasons for their feelings.
After a couple of e-mail exchanges, I realized that there
was confusion about the question that had been asked and
what the grrls were actually responding to.
The question was, “What was the funnest
year for you?” (Or at least, that was what Lucy repeated as
the question.) And the grrls answered it in relation to what
was happening in their personal lives while they were
filming each season, rather than on the content of the
episodes and /or the show’s arc of each season.
So Lucy talked about season one being
so exciting because the show was such a hit “We were feeling
our oats-we were unbeatable”, season two she liked because
she was feeling good about her work, finding her feet and
realizing she wasn’t unbeatable and then in season three,
“We began to soar”.
Lucy has talked in the past about
season four being a real low time in her life. She was
unhappy, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do personally.
She felt lost and adrift.
She’s talked about how awful it was
filming Sin Trades, the first ep of season four. It was
winter in New Zealand, it was cold, it was raining
endlessly, and for a good part of the filming, it was just
her and the production crew. She had no other actor to react
to and play off in the scenes of her riding through Siberia,
transforming herself into a shaman and grieving over losing
Gabrielle to that pit at the end of season 3. And not only
did she have to show HUGE emotion and reaction when she
kills the horse and then wails over losing Gabrielle, the
poor grrl had to DANCE. All by herself. And she HATES
dancing. There are behind the scene pictures of that shoot
that we’ve seen at cons where she’s glumly sitting under an
umbrella, totally sunk in on herself, an inward turned shut
down look on her face, just lost in misery. And the horse
she’s sitting on looks almost as “I just no longer give a
damn” as she does.
And, just as an aside, let me throw in
here that she had turned thirty on her birthday that year.
That’s a BIG birthday. It’s one of those “Where the hell did
the time go?!” assessment points in a lifetime. Lots of
people do lots of introspection at that point in their
lives.
In interviews, she said that what
really helped her get out of her funk was discovering Tony
Robbins, a self-hope guru, and listening to his tapes and
reading his books. (When she appeared on the Bill Maher
show, she mentioned this and he made fun of her. He
would…grin.)
Just as a personal aside, I remember
that in Season Four, I thought Lucy was amazingly beautiful.
She was almost unearthly in how gorgeous she looked. I
remember being amazed at her appearance in Sin
Trades—particularly, post-orgasmic Xena was stunningly
attractive. She did a photo shoot that year with Jerry Ryan
(7 of 9 from Voyager) that ET I think it was had clips from.
And she was wearing this white dress and she just looked
breathtaking-ethereal, almost otherworldly she was so fine
looking.
But meanwhile, mentally, she was in a
total imbroglio*. (Sorry about that last sentence-I went to
dictionary.com to make sure I was using the word
“ethereal” correctly. And “imbroglio” was the word of the
day! I know that word but I would NEVER have thought of
using it here. And yet—it’s so APT! And I just LOVE
coincidences…) Anyway, to me she physically looked the best
she ever had while her life was falling down around her. Go
figure.
Renee said season five was hard because
Lucy was pregnant and not on set much. Renee has talked in
the past about how she had no idea how much time Lucy used
to spend on set and in post production until Lucy wasn’t
there and Renee had so much more work to do to fill in for
her. I think Renee said she liked all the seasons except
five.
Season six, Renee asked her why she
didn't like it and Lucy said something like she was going
crazy. Rob and Lucy have both talked about that, about what
a grind it was to finish the show. That everyone was
exhausted and out of steam and it was hard to reach the
finish line. When Rob talked with Lucy and Renee about doing
another season, both of them said no. Renee of course was
pregnant at the end of Season Six and Lucy said she was
apparently half insane. Laugh!
So anyway, they weren’t doing a
critique of the seasons of the show but rather a critique of
what was happening in their lives as they filmed it. I
wonder if that’s what the questioner was asking or was she
trying to get a season or episode arc based answer?
Just as an aside, they didn’t get asked
this time about what their favorite episodes are. For Lucy
it’s “The Debt” (Hey—hope Jacqueline knows that) and for
Renee it’s “A Friend In Need”. One from season three, one
from season six.
The only thing I want to add about
Jacqueline Kim is a comment on how beautiful SHE is now. She
and Clair have “aged” fantastically. Just gorgeous…
No wait! Also, I forgot to mention that
Jacqueline was jazzed because this was the debut of her CD.
She made a big point of telling us that, that she had
decided specifically to debut the CD here at the Xena con.
Because we had been so encouraging about her singing last
time. I really, really enjoyed her presentation this year.
Hope she swings back again sometime. Now that she likes us.
Grin.
KT
*From
dictionary.com word of the day:
Imbroglio \ im-BROHL-yo \ noun
1 A complicated and embarrassing state
of things.
2. A confused or complicate
disagreement or misunderstanding.
3. An intricate, complicated plot, as
of a drama or work of fiction.
4. A confused mass; a tangle.
