Lucy Lawless: The Mount Albert Girl Who Became A Warrior Princess

In episode three of Sportscafe Legends, Marc Ellis and Ric Salizzo sit down on Herbie the housebus with Lucy Lawless - Xena: Warrior Princess herself.

She grew up in Mount Albert with no fences and no curfew, was nicknamed "uncoordinated" at school, and then spent six years and 24-episode seasons swinging a sword nine months a year. Xena big in New Zealand, but it was enormous in Italy, Turkey, the Philippines and Iran - and somewhere around episode eight, Lucy found out her character had become a global gay icon, via a stack of faxes from New York while she was standing on the side of set.

These days she'd rather direct than act, and keeps turning down offers from America to do it.

She also has a hobby that comes up about twenty-five minutes in, and it's not what you'd expect.

Marc and Ric get into what Xena did for the New Zealand screen industry, knowing Russell Crowe when he was running an underage nightclub, the first time in her life she felt proud of herself, and what Herbie is actually being used for.

CHAPTERS

Chapters

00:00:00 Welcome to Herbie

00:01:27 A slow start to the day

00:02:20 Growing up in Mount Albert

00:04:34 Slightly delinquent

00:05:49 How the acting started