Lucy Lawless

Lucy first started performing at the age of 10 and started acting at high school. She married Garth Lawless in 1988, giving birth to daughter Daisy that year. They divorced in 1995, and by then Lucy Lawless was established as an actor, so she kept the surname.

Her first television appearance was for the comedy skit show Funny Business in 1989 which launched a new group of comedy talents on New Zealand audiences, and she featured for a couple of seasons. She then travelled to Vancouver to study acting at the William Davis Centre for Actors Study and returned home to appear in the television movie The Rainbow Warrior (1993).

In 1994, Lucy appeared in Hercules and the Amazon Woman, which was shot in New Zealand. It ended up being the pilot for Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1995) and opened the door to her next opportunity. Co-creator and executive producer Rob Tapert was keen to create a companion show with female superheros, but, because it was pilot season, American-based actors were reluctant to leave Los Angeles just to shoot a couple of episodes in New Zealand. The studio decided to bring Lucy on board and dye her hair black for the role.

“It fell to me when everybody else turned it down. I was the lucky local kid on the spot who got the gig,” she says.

Xena’s sidekick, Gabrielle, played by Renee O’Connor, was hired in Los Angeles, and moved to New Zealand to begin filming. The team created a show that would become a pop culture icon, with an unapologetic former warlord as the titular heroine, an ambiguous relationship between her and her sidekick (at the studio’s insistence), and plenty of fast-paced action and fantasy for fans to enjoy.

It quickly built up a popular following with the LGBTQI+ audience, and, in the era before social media, the team would get faxes with feedback from fans, and their response to the storylines. “We felt honoured to be part of something that had strength-giving properties to people, even though that was not specifically our intention,” Lucy says.

In October 1996, while filming a segment for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Lucy was thrown off a horse and broke her pelvis. It took her a while just to learn to walk again, so the show had to be rewritten, reducing Xena’s action sequences, and increasing the dialogue for guest stars and other actors. By season four, young New Zealand stuntwoman Zoe Bell was Lucy’s regular stunt double.

Xena would go on to run for six seasons, from 1995 to 2001, and 134 episodes, airing in more than 100 countries, and ranking in the top five syndicated drama series during each season. In 1998, Lucy married Rob Tapert, and they had two sons, Julius and Judah.

“I’m very grateful for that show and everything it gave me – a husband and a family and a career, and amazing fans who do a lot of good in the community. What’s not to like about that?” she says.

An aspiring opera singer in her youth, Lucy enjoyed flexing her vocal cords in a new way. In 1997, Lucy branched out and trod the boards at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre on Broadway as Rizzo in Grease! for a seven-week season. She also sang in several episodes of Xena and was runner-up to Alfonso Ribeiro on Celebrity Duets (2006).

In 2009, she became a climate ambassador for Greenpeace, and in February 2012 Lucy and six people from Greenpeace clambered onto an Arctic-bound oil drilling ship in Taranaki to protest climate change. They spent 77 hours on top of a 53-metre drilling tower. She was arrested, fined, and sentenced to 120 hours community service.

“I would happily do it again. My responsibility is to be a good person for myself, and my children. It’s very hard to live up to other people’s expectations.”

Lucy also served on the board of New Zealand children’s hospital charity the Starship Foundation from 2000–2012, supporting fundraising efforts to provide additional equipment and essential help to staff, patients, and their families.

Since Xena wrapped, Lucy has been in demand for other iconic shows. She had a recurring role in Battlestar Galactica from 2005 to 2009, and has guest-starred on CSI: Miami, The L Word, Flight of the Conchords, Agents of Shield, Salem, and had a recurring role on Parks and Recreation. She has also voice acted in several animated television shows and movies. In 2011, she co-starred as Lucretia in Spartacus: Blood and Sand, and Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, created by long-time Xena producers Sam Raimi, and her husband Rob.

Lucy’s most recent series, My Life is Murder, brought her back to Auckland, where she plays a woman her own age, speaking in her natural accent, and showcasing all the best aspects of her hometown. She’s also an executive producer. Originally shot in Melbourne, the cast and crew relocated to Auckland during the COVID-19 pandemic for seasons two and three because of extensive lockdowns in Melbourne. Renee O’Connor made an appearance, along with other global acting talents Martin Henderson and Temuera Morrison.

“I’m really delighted to bring my city to the world… they’re watching this all across America and England, and Auckland looks beautiful.”

Lucy has now turned her attention to working behind the camera, directing a documentary film on legendary New Zealand camerawoman Margaret Moth, the first female camera operator in New Zealand.