Lucy Lawless has played a number of big, bold characters over the years and while all likely came with their own set of unique challenges, she does have one she considers the scariest of the bunch. With her new film, The Spine of Night, premiering at SXSW 2021, Lawless joined us for an episode of Collider Connected to discuss her experience making that ultra-violent Rotoscope feature and also to look back on her earlier days in the industry to discuss how they paved the way to where she is today.
While discussing the types of opportunities that came her way after Xena: Warrior Princess came to a close and how she climbed out of the box the industry tried to put her in, Lawless emphasized the importance and necessity of being brave. “Keep doing things that scare you because, by golly, if you live to be 80, you’re gonna look back on all this and go, ‘Wow, none of that mattered, but boy did I have a good time,’ so be brave.”
With that in mind, one might wonder, what’s the role that called for the most bravery from Lawless herself? When asked, she immediately pinpointed Lucretia from Spartacus:
“Probably Lucretia. [That] was pretty damn scary. Xena was scary on that physical level because it was just relentless and I hated the action. I just hate fighting. But again, I didn’t have an option to hate it so I didn’t indulge that. But Spartacus was very difficult for - you know, that whole nudity thing is quite counter to one’s nature and to our culture.”
Lawless played Lucretia in Blood and Sand, Gods of the Arena and Vengeance, delving into the character’s flair for deception, seduction and doing whatever it takes to further her social and political agendas. Lawless continued:
“I was just watching Gods of the Arena the other night. My husband had it on because we’ve been through everything else online. Everything you can stream, we’ve seen and so we went back and watched our old show and, my goodness, that was really hardcore, very rich storytelling, so that was probably the scariest. And the best role.”
Looking for more from Lawless on her lengthy list of credits? Check out her episode of Collider Connected below to hear more about her experience working on Xena, her run on Ash vs. Evil Dead, why The Spine of Night was an especially unique animated feature to work on and loads more.