Featurette: Warrior Tales

So there is a special featurette on this disc called Warrior Tales and I am undertaking the boring task of sitting through it to share with you all the more interesting tidbits and factoids. First up is adorable Lucy Lawless talking about her name!

She married into the last name Lawless (born Lucille Ryan) and had her first child during that time. She decided to keep the name Lawless when she divorced and so that's what we all know and love her by. 

We also get some back story into Robert Tapert, Sam Raimi, and Bruce Campbell as dorky college kids making super 8 movies together (I'm adding the dorky part here okay but as a college film kid myself, I know we were all dorky alright).  

Then my fave lady Renee talks a bit about how it was tough playing a character younger than herself because she had to go through all that angsty growing up feels and finding yourself stuff twice. I've heard that from other actors in interviews before since casting consistently chooses 20-something people to play 16 year olds on all the teen drama shows.

Also that she loved the fight scenes and fighting with the weapons and has a bunch of weird weapons skills that she never uses anymore haha. Which is so funny because Lucy talks about how she hated all the martial arts training and fighting and stuff which I think is a great juxtaposition to their characters.

I do really like listening to Rob Tapert talk about his love for female driven heroes and how he got there. He discusses his frustration with only really seeing Wonder Woman in that role growing up and how he wanted to do more. Xena was just a guest role on Hercules but it was such a compelling story at a time when there weren't really any female led action shows that they managed to score their own series which - lucky us!!

Apparently Renee bumped into and broke a bunch of camera equipment when she went into her audition for a random role on Hercules hahaha - sounds about right. But clearly it worked out because Rob loved her and championed for her to play different roles and ultimately led to her being Gabrielle, to which I am forever thankful. Xena would not be the show it is without Lucy and Renee in those roles playing opposite each other.. They have amazing comedic timing and chemistry and that's what made this show so special to so many people.

I always love listening to how shocked and excited they both were by how much their show meant to the lesbian community during the time it aired. I mean, it's hard to picture it now, especially for all you young baby queers out there, because now there is so much representation in TV it is insane. I mean I randomly pick a show to watch now and there is usually at least one queer character, and often even full blown relationships. I'm thinking about how I sat down to watch The Haunting of Bly Manor because I like ghost stories and scary stuff and I had no idea there was a beautiful lesbian relationship at the heart of that show until I started watching it, like whaaaa??? It's so crazy but so awesome. But back in the 90s when this show aired there was very little representation, or if there was it was in a negative or joking way. So it makes sense that a show about two women, with a deep relationship, traveling and living and fighting together appealed to that demographic.

Okay okay, I'm done with my sappy gay ramblings now - it's just really great now you guys, compared to where it has been in the past. I mean, I was watching Wynonna Earp and there's scenes where like out of 5 characters in a scene 4 of them are queer. LIKE WHAT? And it's not even about that. It's not like it's The L Word where the whole thing is about being gay, this is just a bad ass show about monster killing and stuff and that scene had nothing to do with anyone's sexual identity but it was just so cool to be sitting there watching that and be like woah... that's a lot of gays! (Bless you Emily Andras)

Ooookay I have gotten way off topic here - sorry. That's the harm in stream of consciousness haha. 

Rob ends by talking a bit about the internet getting going and how that helped the show grow because people could connect about it and share it. Ah, the good old days of the internet before twitter and facebook when there were just poorly made fan websites. What a time to be alive! 

Next post we will be back to our regularly scheduled recaps!