Xena: Warrior Princess star reveals stunt which went horribly wrong

If the 1990s had a Mount Rushmore of TV icons, the face of Lucy Lawless would be chiselled right next to Mr Blobby, David Duchovny and the Fresh Prince with his sideways cap. From 1995 to 2001, Lucy played the title role in Xena: Warrior Princess. With her trademark glass-shattering battle cry, the leather-clad New Zealander chucked her hoop-shaped “chakram” around Ancient Greece, righting the wrongs she’d once inflicted as a ruthless warlord.

After Xena ended in 2001, Lawless popped up in Battlestar Galactica, Spartacus and Parks and Recreation.

And now she’s smashing it as cat-loving ex-detective Alexa Crowe in the Auckland-set tongue-in-cheek crime drama My Life is Murder. Think Midsomer Mur-ders, but smarter, sarcastic and, quite frankly, pretty badass. It is murder mystery meets feminist noir – with a trendy flat white coffee and trench coat thrown in.

“Alexa is one of the few ‘real’ women I’ve ever played, and it’s truly liberating”, explains Lucy. “I get to wear modern clothing for a start, which is so great after all those corsets. Let me tell you, elastic makes such a difference! Alexa is pretty much me as the show was written with me in mind. I’m also acting in my native Kiwi accent which has been a rarity for me. In some ways that’s just as liberating as not wearing a corset. I’m also a cat woman although I don’t have one at the moment – probably because I have an enormous dog right now.’

Lucy shares top billing in the series with a silent co-star – the city of Auckland itself. The show is rather like a love letter to New Zealand’s largest city.

“I’m glad you’ve mentioned that,” she says. “In New Zealand, Auckland is considered to be a bit big, a bit ugly and a bit forgettable. But it has some amazing parts and, yes, it does look sexy and scenic and modern on My Life is Murder.

“I really get a kick out of sharing my beautiful hometown with the world.”

Talking of kicks, we have just got to talk all things Xena. Thirty years on, how does she look back at that time?

“With great love and affection,” she smiles. “We were out in nature all the time, we were all young and we liked the fact that it was such a success when we had very little money to make it with. That appeals to the New Zealand mindset. It was bloody hard work – we routinely did 14 hour days – and it was so physical.”

So it was. The show was known for its OTT stunts – sword battles, weapon throwing, flips and somersaults, leaps from great heights, running up walls, fast-paced riding and jumping from horseback... the list goes on

“I did do some of the stunts,” says Lucy. “I mean, when you’re filming a fight, you have to do your side of that fight. If the camera is on your face, it has to be you. I remember one stunt that went spectacularly wrong, almost fatally wrong, in fact. A fellow actress could have died.

“It was during the first series. We were all just figuring out how to do things back then – really flying by the seat of our pants. There was this lovely actress, Mary Elizabeth [McGlynn]. She was in a scene where her character was supposed to be lynched – grim stuff, obviously, but it was meant to be safely choreographed.

“She was on the back of a horse with her hands tied behind her back and a noose around her neck which was tied to a tree. The idea was, of course, that the noose was a breakaway. A prop. It should’ve snapped apart under any real pressure. Same with the ropes on her wrists. Everything was supposed to be fake and safe. But the idiots on set – and I include all of us in that – didn’t know how to make a proper breakaway noose. We hadn’t worked out the mechanics.

“And so, when all the extras dressed as peasants started jeering and waving pitchforks, as per the scene directions, the horse panicked and bolted. Suddenly, Mary’s being dragged forward with an actual noose tightening around her neck and her hands tied behind her back. It was a complete disaster. Total chaos. People shouting, rushing in. I still feel sick thinking about it.

“Years later – this must have been six or seven years ago – I was backstage at a convention and a woman came up to me. She said, ‘Do you remember me?’. I looked at her and her hair just triggered something in my brain. I blurted out, ‘Did we nearly hang you?’ And she laughed and said, ‘Yes, I’m Mary Elizabeth’.

"I was mortified. I started apologising immediately. But she was incredibly gracious. For me, however, it’s always been a source of shame. We were so careless. We put a human being in danger because we didn’t know any better. It’s not a funny story. But it’s the one I remember most vividly. It’s burned into my brain.”

Xena was killed off in 2001 when she was executed by arrows then decapitated – although thankfully that was off-screen.

Her demise was controversial amongst fans with many feeling shocked and upset that their heroine died so brutally andpermanently. Lucy also feels it was the wrong thing to do.

“I lament the fact we did it in that way. Not that I had any input into the decision but none of us considered the impact it would have on the fans. It devastated them. We cut her head off, for goodness sake! It was all a long time ago now but, you know, I still get recognised for Xena.

“I was spotted only the other day in Santa Barbara, California. It’s lovely people still remember, but viewing habits were so different then. Cable TV was in its infancy and everybody watched the same thing. We were on the same channel at the same time for years. It was my big break and gave me entry into a crazy world of cult shows. I remember at the time I was concerned about being typecast but there was nothing I could do about that.

“Although my career followed a certain path, I have gone on to do all kinds of different things. My Life is Murder is proof of that.”

Lucy, 57 and her producer husband Rob Tapert – who incidentally co-created Xena – divide their time between New Zealand and the US, although they regard the former as their main home. They have two sons, Julius and Judah. Lucy has a daughter, Daisy, by a previous marriage.

The three children have grown up and flown the nest, something which Lucy says has given her the time and energy to pursue new and exciting creative projects – such as directing a documentary called “Never Look Away” about fearless Kiwi award-winning camerawoman and photojournalist, Margaret Moth, who died in 2008.

Moth covered major crises worldwide – the Gulf War, Indira Gandhi riots, Tbilisi unrest, civil wars across the Balkans, Lebanon, Somalia, Chechnya, Zaire – and many more. In July 1992, while filming in Sarajevo’s infamous “Sniper Alley”, she was shot in the jaw, her face shattered by a sniper’s bullet. She survived thanks to emergency surgery and, later had more than a dozen reconstructive operations.

Though left with slurred speech, she returned to Sarajevo in 1994 to film again, showing extraordinary resilience. I’d been asked to direct projects before but always turned them down but I jumped at the chance of this one,” says Lucy. “I was determined to find the money, find producers and get it made. At times, I’d think, ‘My God, Lucy, what are you promising all this stuff for? You’ve never done this before’. But I was just in too deep. It was like I was meant to do it.

“The film premiered at last year’s Sun-dance Film Festival. So, in my 50s, my life kicked off in a whole, new direction. Like quite a few women of my vintage, I feel that my 50s are a decade of immense power.”

We may be 30 years on from Xena but Lucy Lawless is still that warrior princess.

My Life is Murder Series 4 and series 1-4 box set are available on DVD and digitally now from Acorn Media International