2010 OFFICIAL XENA CONVENTION
Los Angeles, California, USA

5 - 7 February 2010

Main Con Page

Day 1 - Friday Part 1

Report by KTL
fsktltoo@gmail.com

First day  Friday, February 5, 2010

Part 1

I’ve often thought in the past about how a con really starts when you arrive at the local airport. You can look at some of the folks milling around and just KNOW that you’ll be seeing them at the Xena con. (And I’m not talking about the folks you are acquainted with-this be people you’ve never seen in your life before that I’m talking about.)

As you stand under the hotel shuttle sign you can casually slide your eyes around and check out the people standing with you. And decide “Ah-she’s one. She’s one. Her. Yeah, her. Ooh, NOT her. Her.” There is a certain je ne sais quoi air about us. There’s just something about a Xena fan, or at least about some of us.

Male fans are not so easy to identify-for them, I need them to be wearing Xena shirts or to have tarted up their luggage with chakrams or Xena’s or Gabrielle’s face or a Lawless In Concert sticker or something like that.

And it’s SUCH a pleasure to enter the door of the hotel and suddenly be in a culture made up primarily of females. For this weekend, the hotel is kind of like the world Xena inhabited. Where the population was overwhelmingly female and the relationships between women were the most respected, honored and important of all.

There’s a very large number of stars scheduled for this convention. We’re thinking it might be because it’s the 15th anniversary of the show. But what the hell do we know?

Today we had appearances by Katherine Fugate, David Franklin, Hudson, then Lucy and then Lucy and Renee.

As always, I’m going to start with Lucy.

Lucy came out to the usual thunderous applause. To a LONG standing ovation. She looked relaxed and contented to me.

She told us that she and Renee thought it would be fun for them to perform a little play together. I think she said that Renee had picked out a play. Lucy said that she first read it like two nights ago. (Even though they had thought of doing this and knew what they would be doing like 3 months ago.)

Lucy said she read it, “And it was crap!” So she went off to Barnes and Noble and pulled out all the books with short plays for two women in them. She said she and Renee thought that it would be real interesting for us to watch “Her and me in a cold reading. Working on the acting process.”

Then she talked about having had an intense year. That she moved. Is working on a new show. She said, “You may have noticed that my blog dried up.”

She talked about Spartacus. “Nobody knew what it was at first.”

She said she had to work very long hours “Mostly involving hair”.

I think someone asked her about her merkin. “I never wore it. I never did full frontal nudity.” She said she wanted a merkin that would make her look like Mr. Thomas. A few fans laughed and she asked if we knew who he was. (No one around me did.)

Then she explained that she wanted to have a merkin “With hair here (holding her hand palm down against about her navel, I think) to here” (holding her hand palm down against her upper thigh. She said, “It would look like a big ol’ pair of britches.”

She said, “Spartacus is really challenging. It’s great and edgy.”

She talked about Andy Whitfield who plays Spartacus. She thinks he could be a big star. “I’m really excited for him. I know what his journey might be.”

A fan thanked her for going to London for a concert because then she followed her and so got to go there.

A fan asked, “Did you ever have a dream in which you were your character?” Lucy looked pleased and said happily, “I’ve never answered that one before.” She said, “No. But when I was married to my first husband,  one night I had a dream that I was bobbing for apples. I woke up with my teeth sunk into his shoulder. (Pause) That was the beginning of the end for us.”

“Did playing Xena make you stronger?” Lucy answered that Xena had to come to accept the serenity prayer. That there’s things you can’t change. And you have to practice gratitude for what you have.

My next note is, “You look fresh”. Who said that to whom, I have no idea.

Lucy was asked which country she has enjoyed visiting the most. “China was the most interesting. I was there working on Warrior Women. I’m not a relaxer.” She said she doesn’t like just lying on a beach. “China would blow your mind.” She likes being totally immersed in the culture. She said you’d see things like 500 chicken feet in a vat. “There is incredible poverty. But the people are hardy and amazing.” And that underneath, they’re just like us.

She told a story of Daisy being there with her. And there was Daisy playing cards with a bunch of teenagers her age. And they were all just laughing and having a good time, even though Daisy couldn’t speak any Chinese.

One interesting thing, that I comment on about every year actually, is that this year again, there were lots of new young fans. And also quite an obvious increase in young male fans. Like teenagers. I am SO glad to see them here to celebrate Xena.

One young man asked Lucy if she’d ever made friends with a fan and if so were they close friends. Lucy just said bluntly and definitely, “Nooo.” He then offered himself up to be her friend, making a very appealing face. Lucy said, “That puppy dog face won’t work with me.”

She said, “I did become such good friends with one fan that I was at her death bed.”

She said, “I’m not here to make anyone’s dreams come true.” She said that you couldn’t keep the same relationship, with her being famous and the fan being her fan. “It’s not sustainable. And then they died.”

She was asked about her character on Spartacus. “It’s taken me a while to figure her out.” She said either, “It’s so good (to play this character)” or “She’s no good”. “She has only bad qualities. No character thinks they’re bad. They figure out justifications for their actions. She loves her husband. She’s boffing a gladiator. She wants a friendship with (I don’t know the characters name-it’s that blond woman who has a name that sounds to me like “lithium”, like the battery). “There’s no self love. There’s longing on each side (to be friends). They were not raised to love. That pure spark (of wanting to be friends) is constantly smothered by their greed, desperation and fear. I’m totally enjoying it.”

“Roman women wear red hair. Lithium has blond.” Lucy said something like Lucretia becomes a blond like Lithium. And laughed and said, “It’s like ‘Single White Female’”.

A fan asked if Lucy liked watching herself work. And mentioned that Lucy had talked about being traumatized by the nude scenes. Lucy said it didn’t really traumatize her, that she’d said that at a private party that was filled with journalists and they ran with it. (Note: A little clarification-she had also said she was traumatized in a number of press interviews and online interviews.)

“There is a natural fear of doing sex scenes. But they’re very choreographed, safe. Always a layer between people-well, two layers, one on each person. There’s no danger of accidentally having sex. Try telling that to your husband.”

And on that note, I just HAVE to give up and go to bed-it’s just about  3:00 a.m. here.

End of part 1

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