Lucy Lawless: 10 most interesting facts

Lucy Lawless's childhood and family

Lucy was born in New Zealand, near Auckland, where her father was the mayor.
She was one of seven children. Together with her brothers, the girl climbed trees, ran, and fought. Despite the fact that she was never a bully, Lucy always knew how to stand up for herself. The future actress did not engage in sports as a child, except for equestrian sports. Lawless did not dream of an acting career, although at school she successfully played in children's productions and sang beautifully. Thanks to her good vocal abilities, she often took part in musicals. The parents, seeing that their daughter successfully performed sacred music, jazz, popular music and classical music, hoped to see her as an opera singer in the future. At the age of seventeen, the girl became a student at the University of Auckland, where she studied languages ​​and vocals. True, she studied there for only a short time. A year later, with her boyfriend, having dropped out of university, Lucy went hitchhiking around Europe and visited America. During this time, she had to work in different places to support herself.

Actress Lucy Lawless in the film Spartacus

Arriving in Australia, Lawless worked for some time in a gold mine along with men. According to Lucy, in Australia people work extremely hard. She tried to keep up.

Filmography of Lucy Lawless

At the end of the nineties, the television series “The Amazing Journeys of Hercules” was being prepared for filming.
The actress, who was supposed to play one of the main characters named Zena, fell seriously ill shortly before the start of the filming process. They looked for another replacement actress in a hurry, and it so happened that the role was offered to Lucy. Lucy Lawless Renee O'Connor Xena Convention 2012 (Russian subtitles) It was a villainous role, “anti-Hercules in a skirt.” The aspiring actress coped with the role simply brilliantly, and this with a complete lack of experience. The audience liked the actress. Their love led the writers to decide to turn the antihero into a hero. The script has been slightly changed. As a result, the warrior girl took the path of good. Soon, on the initiative of the executive producer, it was decided to create a separate television project about Xena. This is how the new film “Xena: Warrior Princess” appeared. Thanks to this film, the actress got the opportunity to sing, something she was good at and that she really liked. She could have fulfilled her dream and started singing on Broadway, but Lucy did not have time for this due to her busy filming schedule. During filming, the actress fell from a horse and significantly injured her leg. She treated the injury for a long time, which is why filming had to be postponed for a while.

ABOUT LUCY LAWLESS - my first work, Xena: Warrior Princess, is a film that became popular first in the USA and then throughout the world. The topic was interesting since Xena was the first female warrior in cinema. After the success of this film, many imitations were filmed.

New films with Lucy Lawless

Lawless, after the Xena series was closed, received several invitations to other projects.
Soon she appeared in “The X-Files” (with David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson), “Klava, come on!”, “Just Shoot Me” and “X-Files”. The roles were small, but memorable and bright. The audience liked Lucy and admired her mastery of martial arts techniques. In 2003, on the Discovery channel, the actress became the host of a series of documentaries about women warriors. She starred in a number of films, the most memorable being “The Boogeyman,” where Lawless appeared as the mother of the main character. In the science-fiction film “The Day of the Locust,” the actress starred with John Hurt, and in the horror film “The Deadly Pack” she appeared opposite Dylan Neal.

Actress Lucy Lawless and Renee O'Connor

After Lawless’s participation in the show “Famous Duets,” where she once again demonstrated her vocal abilities, the actress did not act for some time, but performed as a vocalist.

Lawless, Lucy - what is it

Childhood and youthEdit

She was born on March 29, 1968 to Frank and Julie Ryan. was the fifth child in the family, and the eldest of two girls. Until the age of 8, she was a real tomboy, in no way inferior to her four older brothers.

She received her primary education at a monastery school, where she showed an interest in acting and took part in numerous musicals and plays. After graduating from high school at the age of 17, she entered the University of Auckland, but studied there for a very short time, captivated by the idea of ​​traveling around Europe. After studying for one year, she dropped out and, together with her fiancé Garth Lawless, went to travel the world. To support themselves, the couple made small livings.

“Everyone wants to see the world, that’s why I left New Zealand. And now I know what it is: I picked grapes in Germany, walked around Paris with my future husband... In my opinion, this is natural when you live on the very edge of the earth.”

“The rough, tough world of men is a great school. But for me it wasn't that hard. I grew up with four brawling brothers. In Australia, everyone worked their butts off: they crushed rock, and in my free time I worked part-time by mapping the mine. She rushed around the neighborhood with a compass, falling into abysses and jumping over snakes.”

Returning, Lucy and Garth got a job at a gold mine near Kalgoorlie in Australia. They married in 1988 and returned to New Zealand, where their daughter Daisy was born.

In 1989 she won a beauty contest and became Mrs. New Zealand 1989. She began acting in various commercials and soon landed a role in the comedy show Funny Business. Lucy later became the host of Air New Zealand Holiday's Travel Magazine.

Xena: Warrior PrincessEdit

Then Lucy appeared in the series about the adventures of Hercules, playing two small roles. Xena first appeared in the series "The Amazing Journeys of Hercules" as a villain. Vanessa Angel (Lisa in Marvels of Science) was initially cast as Xena, but she unexpectedly fell ill. The producers had only two days to find a replacement.

Appearing in three episodes of the series “The Amazing Journeys of Hercules” in the role of Xena, Lucy won the hearts of the audience. [ source not specified 1501 days

] Soon they managed to produce a separate series about the adventures of Xena, the filming of which lasted six years, from 1995 to 2001.
The series “Xena: Warrior Princess” gained popularity throughout America, and then throughout the world. [ source not specified 1501 days
]

Participation in the series brought Lucy worldwide fame and radically changed her life.

In 1996, Lucy divorced Garth Lawless, leaving behind her daughter Daisy. In October 1996, Lawless was invited to the United States on the popular TV show “Tonight with Jay Leno.” According to the script, she was supposed to enter the studio on a horse. The horse slipped and fell along with the actress, and Lawless received a severe hip injury. [ source not specified 1501 days

] During the six years of filming “Xena,” Lucy did not receive a single injury.[
source not specified 1501 days
] In most of the stunt scenes she did without stunt doubles.[
source not specified 1501 days
] For insurance, the film crew covered the future battlefield with gymnastic mats and masked them with mud.

A year later, after treatment and another season of Xena, Lawless returned to the United States and took part in the Broadway theater production of Grease as Betty Rizzo. On March 28, 1998, she married Xena producer Robert Tapert.

“We met when I was already playing Xena, and, as they say, there was a big spark between us. And then we started spending more and more time together, and a spark ignited a flame. The more we talked, the more we realized that we were simply made for each other. And then, finally, both felt that it was useless to resist further. This is Love".

On October 16, 1999, their son Julius Robert Bay Tapert was born.

Modern periodEdit

In 2001, Lucy played episodic roles in such TV series as “The X-Files” and “Just Shoot Me.” Lucy chose "those small bit parts that didn't put any pressure on me." “But there is still pressure because if you do a bit part, you have to live up to it, and I’m still practicing,” she laughs.

In 2002, Lucy also appeared in the film Spider-Man in a cameo role as a punk girl expressing her opinion about the notorious Spider-Man.

On May 7, 2002, Lucy and Robert's second son, Judah Mayro Tapert, was born. The baby was born at home in New Zealand.

In 2003, Lucy hosted a six-episode documentary program on the Discovery Channel called Women Warriors. Each film was dedicated to a different warrior. The authors not only talk about their lives, but also try to understand and analyze their history. That same year, Lucy hosted the New Zealand Music Awards 2003 in New Zealand.

In 2004, Lucy played a cameo role in the youth comedy Eurotrip. According to Lucy, her heroine in Eurotrip is “an Amsterdam dominatrix who seduces young people, leading them into a den of injustice with the help of ugly men in rubber suits.”

Live in Los Angeles (2007)

In 2005, the horror film “Boogeyman”, which was filmed in New Zealand, was released around the world. Lucy played the role of the main character's mother. Here's what Lucy had to say about her role: "It was attractive to me," she says, "to play the antithesis of what's happening to me in reality." That same year, Lucy played the lead role in the television movie "Locusts" for CBS.

In 2005, Lucy received the role of Cylon Number Three in the TV series Battlestar Galactica. In the middle of the 3rd season, the character of Lucy is “frozen” - the Threes lineup is archived[3]. However, the producers of the series managed to obtain Lucy’s consent to continue her participation in the filming, and the episode with her participation was released in June 2008[4].

She participated in the show "Famous Duets" and showed America that Lucy Lawless can be more than just a warrior princess. After concerts in Roxy and New York, it was Chicago's turn - Lucy held two concerts in Chicago, October 5 and 6, 2007. And this time Lucy decided to take her friends from the Xena series team with her. Renee O'Connor took part in the concert, she and Lucy performed one of the songs together, Joseph Lo Duca, the composer of the series, played bass, and Daisy, Lucy's daughter, was one of the backing vocalists. Also present at the concert was Stephen Sears. The concert program in Chicago was very diverse - Lucy performed many new songs and decided to try herself in a new style of music - R&B.

Still, the most important question among fans of the Xena series remains the question of continuing filming or a full-length film about the warrior princess. A reunion of the film crew is not expected, and Lucy views this as an irretrievable past. “I don’t miss it,” she admits. “I don’t miss anything as long as my children are near me.” I'm having a great time."

In 2010, a new historical series “Spartacus: Blood and Sand” was launched on the American cable channel Starz. The main plot of the series is the story of Spartacus, the leader of one of the largest slave uprisings in the Roman Republic. Due to the presence of realistic scenes of violence, erotic scenes and profanity, the series was placed in the TV-MA category ( Mature audience

- “
for an adult audience
”). Lucy played the role of Lucretia, the wife of Batiatus. The pilot episode of the series was received controversially by critics[5][6][7][8], however, even before the premiere of the series, the planned filming of a second season was announced.

As a Greenpeace activist, in February 2012, as part of a group of six environmental activists, she participated in the seizure of an oil production vessel off the coast of New Zealand and chartered to carry out drilling work in the Chukchi Sea off the coast of the American state of Alaska[9]. Climbing onto a 53-metre rig, the group held the ship for 77 hours until Lucy Lawless and her comrades were detained by police. The court sentenced the actress to 120 hours of community service and a fine of 545 US dollars.

Lucy Lawless today

Since 2008, the actress began filming a lot, returning to acting again.
She played in the fantasy film "Bedtime Stories", in the action film "Bitchy Things", in the American film "Angel of Death" and in the Canadian film "Sex in Another City". In 2010, one of the American cable channels launched the television series “Spartak. Blood and Sand". The actress was invited to play the role of Batiatus’s wife, Lucretia.

Lucy has repeatedly taken part in scoring animated films. Among them are such films as “The Simpsons”, “Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight”, “Werewolf”, etc.

Filmography[ | ]