Lucy Lawless
24 January 1999/Santa Monica

Lucy Lawless ruled the con. No question about it. Over 5,000 fans were very clear in their affection of her once she stepped on stage....not to mention any time she came up in any music videos, bloopers, or other tapes. One of her prop swords went for $31,000 in the charity auction for the day. Xena is where it's at.

There was a different format for Lucy's talk time. It had a lot of potential and can hopefully be improved upon for next time (there will be a next time, right Lucy?). Creation opted to circumvent the unruly hour of fans asking for autographs in line and whatnot and had an interviewer, Ann Beatts. Ann comes from a strong TV background, having been one of the original writers on Saturday Night Live. Unfortunately, Ann did not in any way seem to be a fan, or at least regular watcher, of Xena: Warrior Princess. She started us off with top 10 answers to most asked questions (answers like "they're really, really, really, really good friends....") but then proceeded to cover the same old ground in the interview. Lucy was game, though, and tried to make sure her answers were peppered with stories that hadn't been in at least a dozen magazine interviews at that point. After the sitdown interview, 10 pre-selected people were able to ask a variety of questions which were much more interesting than the interviewer's choices....

And what did we learn? I can only speak for my own impressions, obviously, but Lucy seems to be an incredibly grounded individual for someone who is on TV in over 60 countries worldwide. She owns up to her personal challenges, admitting that the start of season 4 filming found her in a bad place regarding the show. But, she got some self-help tapes (Tony Robbins) and found her way out of it. She talked about making sure she is always professional on the set so the younger actresses never learn that it's "ok" to throw "fits" if something was disagreeable. She talked about valuing every day of life, relating a story of nearly being hit by a fire truck while on her way to a party. We learned that she is game to run for President of the U.S. ("Do you think they could overlook that I'm not a citizen?") and when asked what she'd do in office...."Kill 'em all!"

Of course there was much more, but you're probably more interested in photos than my faulty memory :-)

Please note that all photographs are © Amy J. Putnam. Download is made available for personal use only. Please do not display these on other web pages. Links are fine (and will be reciprocated if you let meknow to where...). Thanks!