.....¡§I'm drawn to spicy roles,¡¨ the perennial badass says. Besides playing a
warrior princess, the 38-year-old actor was recently in the studio
voicing the character of Wonder Woman for a Justice League DVD. ¡§I've
turned down just about every cop or journalist TV series,¡¨ Lawless
admits. ¡§I cannot chain myself to boredom.¡¨
......
Lawless did a lot of singing as a teenager but abandoned it in her 20s,
once she was no longer enjoying it. ¡§When Celebrity Duets came up, I
thought: I'm not getting any younger, and this is something I'd regret
my whole life if I didn't get out. I had to do it.¡¨
And she did so against the advice of her various representatives, who
were all aghast. ¡§I said, ¡¥They are bombing in Beirut. I am doing this.
As a human being I need to do it for me.'¡¨
Lawless doesn't regret the decision one bit. ¡§I am so glad and so
empowered by telling everyone who is supposed to be my advisors to get
out of my way and make the deal. Who works for who here?¡¨ In the end,
she says, those critics have become her biggest supporters.
¡§It was great for me,¡¨ she says. ¡§It's about joy; seize the day. It's
your life ¡X make it your sculpture and not what other people think looks
pretty.¡¨
.....
While being asked when she first realized she was a lesbian icon,
Lawless interrupts with a ready answer: ¡§Episode 8, Season 1.¡¨ That was
the episode of Xena being filmed when she and co-star Renee O'Connor
first realized a Sapphic storm was brewing.
¡§Renee and I were standing together in a warehouse down in Auckland ¡X
and it was quite cold at that time of year ¡X reading this faxed review
about it being lesbian, and going ¡¥Oh, that's really funny! How did they
get that?' And then we went, ¡¥Oh! Now, that makes perfect sense.' ....it just hadn't occurred to us, is all.¡¨
But Lawless says she and O'Connor were never concerned with whether
their characters were gay or straight: ¡§It doesn't make a difference how
you go about your job as a warrior princess and sidekick. It's like, a
female firefighter does her job regardless of her sexual orientation,
and that's why it never made a damn bit of difference to us.¡¨