Antony & Cleopatra
written by Carl Ellsworth
The Chakram Newsletter: Issue 13
SD: Roman politics - I’ve always loved it when Xena did stories in this arena. How did this particular story come about?
Carl: The idea was conceived in February of 1999 when they were prepping the fifth season. They called me in and said they wanted to revisit Cleopatra and Egypt. It went through various incarnations of Cleopatra’s involvement - is she a part of the story? Do we kill her? Does she die?
SD: You know Cleopatra made an appearance in an earlier episode of Xena called “King Of Assassins”?
Carl: Yes. In that one they established she was more or less a good person who Xena fought for and they became friends at the end of the episode. Ultimately, for me, it seemed the story hinged on whether or not we should change Cleopatra’s attitude. Should she be a bad person. Then we hit upon the idea of Xena as Cleopatra and rewriting history which resulted in her more as a sidekick to the story. One of the early versions had Xena capturing Cleopatra and holding her for a time while Xena did her thing with Marc Antony.
I think that version of the script is what kept me working here at Renaissance. They were happy with that idea. Then, a couple months later, I received a call from R.J. Stewart telling me Lucy was pregnant and we needed to put this script on the back burner. We didn't come back to it until February 2000 to fit it into the final five-story arc of the end of the fifth season.
SD: In “Looking Death In The Eye,” Xena gave baby Eve to Octavius, who we met in “Antony & Cleopatra,” which aired first.
Carl: Yes. “Looking Death In The Eye” was written before the latest version of “Antony & Cleo,” so we did a little backwards writing to set that scenario up. We knew that Xena and Gabrielle needed another person on their side, in the character of Octavius, in “Looking Death.” So we had to add him to “Antony & Cleo” to get there. We had to make him naive, but powerful enough that Xena and Gabrielle would want to make him their ally later on.
SD: A modern day song, Natalie Merchant's “Carnival,” was used in the seduction scene between Xena and Antony. I think this is the first time they’ve done that.
Carl: Editors put temporary music on their cut of an episode to give us a better feel for how the scenes will play. The editor for this show used that song and the more we looked at it, the more appropriate it seemed. It drove the point home that Xena was indeed being attracted to Antony.
SD: Michael Hurst directed this episode and I know from filming the making of “Who's Gurkhan,” that one of the reasons he would have been chosen is because it’s very atmospheric. After watching the episode, I was surprised to go back and find out there was no dialogue during this scene. It felt as if a lot had been said, but it was all with looks and emotions.
Carl: Sometimes my favorite scenes are ones in which everything is spoken by the actors physically rather than verbally. And one of the concerns from the get-go was that we only had 43 minutes to convincingly tell a story where the audience needs to believe Xena has fallen for this guy or is in the process of falling for him.
SD: How do you set about writing a man that Xena will have to be attracted to in one episode?
Carl: My biggest problem was finding the voice for Antony. I remember modeling him after Michael Keaton in Batman. Michael's voice was sort of suave and he had a dry sense of humor. One thing that was told to me was that Xena has a weakness for bad boys. But I wanted to convey that rather than the hardass warrior hellbent on succeeding, Antony was more a guy fighting for what he thought was right. He didn't necessarily want to kill Octavius or think he was a threat. He wanted the best of both worlds. Ultimately, it was decided we have to make him the definitive guy who is incapable of change.
SD: I was struck by the viciousness of Antony’s fighting in the scene under the pyramids where he and Xena were making love and were attacked.
Carl: Yes. His way of fighting conveys to Xena that although she's turned on by him, she's fighting her own instincts. Because of her growth in the series, Antony is not who she is now.
SD: Antony was a lot like Julius Caesar - powerful, good-looking, charming. We’ve seen her fall for this combination before. And Gabrielle brings up the bad boy aspect to Xena. Is it that Xena's intrigued by bad boys or the strength and power they have that can be used for good as well as evil?
Carl: I think it's a combination. The phrase bad boys stuck in my mind. It’s a good hook for the writers to latch on to. I’m not sure if ultimately her interest would have been in power or everything that comes with being with this guy.
SD: Antony, Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, Brutus - these are all real people. How do you decide what part of history you’re going to follow and which parts will be changed?
Carl: When I first learned I would be writing something having to do with Antony and Cleopatra over Christmas 1998, I was at home in Kentucky and rented the A&E biography on Cleopatra. Everyone in the meetings knew parts of the real history of the characters. We set out on the table who wanted what, what the political situation was, where might Xena fit into the story. But we realized the story is only interesting if Xena is Cleopatra. Then it became a matter of when does she become Cleo. The story took a huge turn when we all felt the perfect “teaser out” is Xena unrolling from the carpet. Although Cleo actually did that in front of Caesar, we felt we had to include that visual moment.
SD: Did you know that in “King Of Assassins,” Cleopatra was played by Gina Torres, an African American woman?
Carl: We were aware of that and there was talk early on of using Gina when Cleopatra played a larger part in the original story. But she became unavailable because of her work on Cleopatra 2525 and her role would have only been in the teaser.
SD: Xena is noted for its color blind casting - villains, love interests, major guest roles. I wonder if they've ever specified color in the casting of any role?
Carl: You could say they didn't change the color of Cleopatra. Cleopatra wasn't black or white, she was Cleopatra.
SD: The battle scene at the end was terrific!
Carl: That was something Rob really wanted to see. For a while we were saying we couldn't do it and the battle would have to be on land. But, ultimately, it turned out just great. And, none of it was shot on water. They used the landlocked boat and miniatures combined with computer effects.
SD: One of the factors needed for this story is that Xena has to be attracted to Antony?
Carl: That was a story we wanted to tell. But Xena never has the intention of following through with this guy. For Xena, it starts with the mission - my friend Cleopatra has been whacked by a force unknown to us at this point. She owes it to Cleo to figure out who killed her. The wrench is that Antony might not be as bad as everybody thinks he is. Or is he and is Xena blinded by her attraction to this type of man?
I think it was the scene where she has to undress and get in the bath and Antony shows up in the doorway. In order to continue the mission, Xena feels she has to invite him to join her and he doesn’t. We see, at that moment, that Xena is intrigued and wonders if he’s all bad. That's where we start to question if Xena has fallen for him.
SD: When does Xena decide she has to kill Antony? The way the fight under the pyramid was filmed, focusing on the viciousness of Antony's fighting with Xena just standing there watching, I thought that might be the spot. And she was crying at the end of that scene.
Carl: I think that exemplifies her inner turmoil at that point. More and more, it's becoming inevitable she's fighting her feelings for him. The conflict being how can she avert killing him. She asks him the question about Octavius being a good boy and he responds, “He may be a good boy, but he'll never be a good man.” Ultimately, she decides she has to take him down. When they're facing each other on the ship, I don’t think either of them wants to do what they feel they have to do to each other. Even when he realizes he's been double-crossed, he understands why she’s done what she's done.
SD: They're so much alike.
Carl: There was no way out for either of them. It came down to Xena's backstory and history starting with Caesar. Despite her feelings for him, she knew the repercussions of letting him live. She had to make the sacrifice for the greater good or at least how she thought history might unfold if he lived.
SD: Was there any talk of Antony not dying in this episode?
Carl: There was, but his death became the emotional crux of the story - Xena falling in love with him and then having to kill him.
SD: She replaced Antony with Octavius. It could have been removing the devil you know for…
Carl: Octavius represents the lesser of three evils between Antony, Brutus and himself. It was definitely a political intervention installing the person who you think would most likely lead us into a new age of peace and prosperity.
SD: Xena’s decision was based on Gabrielle's talk with Octavius?
Carl: Very much so. Gabrielle feeling him out and telling Xena he might be too naive and idealistic, but he has a positive outlook. And Xena trusts Gabrielle's instincts.
SD: Gabrielle’s relationship with Brutus resonated so much in this episode. It was as if there were more scenes between the two of them than there actually were.
Carl: Her part was vital because they weren't sure who killed Cleopatra. It could have been Antony. The jig would have been up if Gabrielle wasn't able to keep Brutus occupied. And Renee and David Franklin (Brutus) work so well together.
SD: I'd heard Joxer and Cyrene, Xena’s mother, were originally supposed to be in this episode?
Carl: Yes, they were going to meet up with Cyrene and the baby. But it was cut for time. It didn't seem necessary to bring back the actors just for that one scene.
SD: You had Cleopatra never meeting Antony when actually they were married with a few kids.
Carl: It boils down to how much you can include in an hour. Also, we were looking to use characters like Brutus who had already appeared on Xena and we had to take what was established in the series and meld it with what we wanted to do now. In the end, we just used the jist of their story. Of course, what you see on Xena is the actual history of how it all happened. (laughs)