When most people think about the idealized version of Hollywood that sometimes gets presented in movies and TV shows, it seems like the entertainment business is straightforward. After all, if an actor is skilled enough, all they have to do is get an audition to become a star according to those depictions of Hollywood. In reality, however, no matter how talented some actors are, they will never get the chance to show the world their skills no matter how hard they try to get their big break.
Over the years, there have been many memorable stories about famous actors missing out on some epic film roles. On the other end of the spectrum, there also are some actors who got caught their big break at the last minute even though everything was stacked against them. For example, many Xena: Warrior Princess fans have no idea that Lucy Lawless was cast as the show’s titular character out of desperation.
How Lucy Lawless Was Cast As Xena: Warrior Princess
When a show becomes a major hit, it is only a matter of time before everyone in the television business will try to replicate that accomplishment. For example, after Friends became one of the most popular shows of all-time, many sitcoms that were pale imitations of it were produced. On top of trying to create a show that is similar in tone, the producers behind hit shows often try to get lightning to strike twice by producing a spin-off.
Throughout television history, spin-offs have been a mixed bag since some of them have been big hits while others have completely failed. Even though some fans have forgotten that the show was spawned from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess is an example of a very successful spin-off. However, when it came time to cast the titular warrior princess, the belief was that Xena was only going to appear in a trio of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys episodes. Likely for that reason, the people who worked behind both shows had a hard time finding an actor to portray Xena.
When Lucy Lawless was interviewed for the Archive of American Television, she revealed that she was camping with her then-husband and her child “in the boondocks” when Hercules: The Legendary Journeys’ producers tried to find her. Luckily, one of Lawless' relatives tracked her down after they got the call from the producers and tracked her down.
“My brother happened to be stopping by my parent’s house way up at the other end of the country to pick up his mail and was there at the time when the casting agent rang on the phone and said; ‘Where’s Lucy? We’re trying to find her. Where’s she living?’ He was like, ‘Oh, she’s off camping somewhere.’ He rang someone who found out where my in-laws lived, and finally, we got this call. It must have been the second or third of January and within a couple of days, I was up in Auckland getting my hair dyed, and freaking out by the way. It was the biggest deal ever for me.”
Why Producers Were Desperate To Cast Lucy Lawless As Xena: Warrior Princess
Later in the aforementioned interview in which she revealed how she was cast as Xena, Lucy Lawless revealed that several actors turned the role down before she was cast. “Here’s a list of five other actresses, and they all turned it down. Thank you.”
Before Entertainment Weekly published an article titled “Xena: Warrior Princess: An Oral Herstory” in 2016, Natalie Abrams spoke to many people who worked on the show. During his interview for that article, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess producer Robert Tapert revealed why two of the actors who were cast as the role pulled out.
According to Robert Tapert, Kingpin actor Vanessa Angel left the role after she “got sick” which left them “scrambling to find a replacement. We had just worked with Kim Delaney up in Toronto on a made-for-video movie at the time and she was great, and I called her and she said yes, and her manager called like a half-hour later and said, ‘No, she’s not going to do that, it will take her out of pilot season.’”
Left with nobody to play Xena the character’s debut Hercules: The Legendary Journeys episode, Robert Tapert says the studio instructed them to get Lucy Lawless for the role out of desperation. The reason for that is that Lawless had recently played a completely different Hercules: The Legendary Journeys character in another episode and she was good in the role. “Ultimately the studio said, “Well, just get the woman who had been in that last Hercules and dye her hair black.”
Based on the strength of Lucy Lawless’ performance in the first Hercules: The Legendary Journeys in which she played Xena, Robert Tapert says the decision to produce a spin-off was made. When they saw the dailies of that episode, they thought, “Yeah, we should do a spin-off.” Ultimately, Xena: Warrior Princess arguably became an example of a spin-off that is more popular than the show it was spawned from.
When talking about Xena’s journey from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys to her own show, it is clear that Lawless loves her most famous character. Of course, Lawless’ love for the character might have a little something to do with the fact that after getting divorced, Lucy later married Xena: Warrior Princess’ producer Robert Tapert.
