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Convention Information

LOS ANGELES, CA
Fri., Sat. & Sun.
28-30 January 2011
Los Angeles Marriott at LAX
5855 West Century Blvd.

Guests
Renee O'Connor,
Brittney Powell,
Jacqueline Kim
Hudson Leick
Michael Hurst
Jennifer Ward-Lealand
Claire Stansfield
Melinda Clarke
Charles Mesure
Charles Keating
Steven L. Sears
Ted Raimi
Katherine Fugate
David Franklin

Spartacus Panel
Steven DeKnight
Rick Jacobson
 

 

2011 OFFICIAL XENA CONVENTION
Los Angeles, California, USA

28-30 January 2011

Convention Report by KT

Con 2011 A little bit more on Lucy and Renee and Jacqueline

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.


 

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