Armageddon Now
In between her all-important visits to the Xena soundstages to bring Xena Magazine readers up close and personal to the end of the show's fifth season, set reporter Kate Barker took time out to attend Auckland's comics pulp expo, Armageddon, where she found a few familiar faces...
Official Xena Magazine: Issue 20
Armageddon is an annual comics and science fiction convention, and this year's event was by far the largest and most successful so far.
The guest list not only featured three of the main cast of Stargate: SG1, but also offered a treat for Xena fans. Less than a week into filming their final episodes of the show, Ted (Joxer) Raimi and Kevin (Ares) Smith took time out to appear at the event.
Kevin Smith arrived fashionably late for his on-stage appearance, and was greeted by the enthusiastic applause of a conference room full of eager and waiting fans. Smith launched straight into his question and answer session, which began with a query on many fans’ minds: was Ares ever going to get it together with Xena? Smith didn’t confirm or deny this possibility, but instead responded that even though Ares’ interaction with Xena had always been something of an “ongoing seduction”, with only a couple of months' filming to go (at the time of the expo), there really wasn't much time left for anything to happen.
When asked whether he would be in the final episode of Xena, Smith implied that his appearance in the episode currently being filmed, Soul Possession, would be his last. However, he did add that “nothing is set in stone, even when you receive the script!” Similarly, Smith clammed up and pleaded ignorance to any questions regarding the plot of the final episode and the eventual fates of Xena and Gabrielle.
Smith was eager to discuss his own acting history, however, both before and during his six-year run on Hercules and Xena. The actor recalled his role as a would-be male stripper in the Stephen Sinclair & Anthony McCarton play Ladies Night, a part New Zealanders most likely remember him best for. This would probably also have been the first time Kiwis had got their first real look at Smith's well-toned chest and arm muscles, a factor Smith feels helped increase his popularity as Ares!
He also recounted another of his early roles, as a rough character in Class, a New Zealand drama series set in the cutthroat world of fashion and advertising. Coincidentally, while shooting Class, Smith just happened to get talking one day to another supporting actor - none other than Lucy Lawless. It was a few years later, while playing the lead in a stage production of Othello, that the audition came up for a part in Hercules - that of the half-god’s half-brother, Iphicles.
Smith told the attentive audience that after seeing his performance as Iphicles, the producers at Pacific Renaissance decided that he had “just the look” they wanted for the God of War. “Originally,” Smith explained, “Ares was written as a big, dark, fiery character. But they wanted to give him some humanity.”
One of the next questions from the floor was whether Smith had any influence on how his character was designed and developed. Smith admitted that it was “a collaborative process” with the writers, not to mention an eye-opener for him. He joked that it was ironic that the God of War was always momentarily defeated until he showed up again in another episode, and that he was “spending all this time in the gym, just to have these people kick your ass!”
Smith had numerous questions fired at him from all sides during his time on the Armageddon stage, and the actor answered them all in detail and with honesty, not to mention humour. On the subject of his singing and dancing role in the first Xena musical The Bitter Suite, he commented that the singing was not much of a stretch (his next project is a cabaret show featuring songs by Cole Porter), and that when it came to the seductive tango near the beginning of the episode, he simply “hung on to Lucy and went along for the ride!”
Mention was made of Smith's other projects during and after starring in Xena, including his performance in the two-man play The Blue Room with another Xena regular, Danielle (Ephiny) Cormack. He also spoke briefly of his role in a series of New Zealand action TV Movies in which he played the title character, whose name was, coincidentally, Lawless. “Can you believe it?” he laughed. “I can't get away!” Smith described his job in the films as having to “turn up, drive a few cars, shoot a few guys and get my ass kicked - not that different from Ares, relatively speaking!”
Responding to questions about his phenomenal success in Xena, Smith seemed genuinely amazed and impressed that the series had catapulted him and the other actors to fame. This is largely due to the fact that Xena was not initially screened on New Zealand television. “For the first two years, we never saw the fruits of our labour,” he explains. “Then I went to my first convention about three years ago, and there were 5,000 people there. I thought, people really do like this show!”
Still on the subject of his and the show’s fame, one of the last questions Smith was asked was what he thought about all the merchandise out there - coffee mugs, shirts and lunch boxes to name but a few - featuring his and his colleagues’ faces. Smith chose to refer to the collectable Ares dolls which have removable accessories and flexible arms and legs: “Imagine being one of those dolls,” he said, entertained at the very concept. “You get stripped naked, put in the bath, have your leg pulled off... it’s something no person should ever witness!”
Cheers went up from the audience when Ted Raimi walked onto the stage the next day accompanied by the song he helped create: the melodious tune of the ode to Joxer the Mighty.
Raimi’s appearance kicked off with a brief question-and-answer session regarding Xena, and, like Kevin Smith, from what Raimi said it appeared as if Soul Possession was also Joxer’s last episode. The actor was asked whether he was actually as brave, clumsy or crazy as the well meaning but bumbling Joxer, to which he replied that he could sometimes be just as crazy, but that he enjoyed playing Joxer as the comic relief.
Filming was always fun, the actor admitted, recounting many examples of “goof-ups” with Renee O’Connor. One such example was in the fifth season episode Kindred Spirits, in which Joxer was sentenced to death for spying on naked Amazons. The scene had Raimi locked up in stocks, and filming had to be halted for a couple of minutes when Raimi and O’Connor exploded into fits of giggles and took a considerable time to recover.
Further questions included references to Joxer’s twin brothers, the adept assassin Jett and - in Raimi’s own words - the “flamboyantly gay” Jace. The episodes featuring these changes of character are among Raimi's favourites, and the actor affirmed that playing the very different personalities of Jett and Jace was great. Raimi’s favourite ever Xena episode is For Him the Bell Tolls, in which Joxer falls under a spell from Aphrodite and transforms into a suave, talented individual every time he hears the ringing of a little bell. “There was much more scope to the character in that show,” he stated.
Questions then turned to Raimi’s other projects, both before and after Xena. Television audiences first got to see him in the science fiction series Seaquest: DSV, which the actor recalled as being “most entertaining”, especially when he got to play with Darwin the dolphin in the water tank built into the Seaquest set. “Darwin would splash people on purpose,” he remembered, laughing. “It was really funny.”
Raimi also talked of his appearance in the comedy horror film Evil Dead 2, starring Xena and Hercules colleague Bruce (Autolycus) Campbell, and directed by brother Sam Raimi. He told the Armageddon audience if they wanted to try and spot him in the film they’d need a bit of help: “You know that monster in the cellar?” he asked. “That was me under all that make-up!”
The audience seemed to know a great deal about Raimi’s previous roles, especially in the horror and fantasy genres. However, the actor was genuinely surprised when a member of the audience referred to his appearance in the little-known movie Skinner, which co-starred Traci Lords, who featured in one of the last Hercules episodes. “That was a bloody movie,” he said, shaking his head, “literally.”
Questions then turned to Raimi's latest projects, which include a possible collaboration with Bruce Campbell on a television show later in the year, although he couldn’t reveal much about the project at this time. Several fans wanted to know about Raimi’s role in the upcoming Spider-Man movie, directed by his brother Sam. The actor confirmed that he was indeed going to star in the film, in the role of newspaper reporter Hoffman. He also revealed that he was about to start doing a voice-over for a new cartoon series entitled Invader 7, and that he would definitely like to be involved in an anthology series like The Twilight Zone. Mocking a stage whisper, the actor revealed that he does in fact “really love science fiction!”
As the questions returned to the subject of Xena, Raimi mentioned a certain episode which incited strong reactions and split fans down the middle: season five's Married With Fishsticks, which Raimi described as “the most offbeat Xena episode ever. The Americans watched it and went, ‘What?!’,” he said. “They didn’t really get it.” Raimi obviously did, however, describing it fondly as “Xena on acid!”
Raimi took one final question before leaving the stage, and was asked what his favourite memory of his time on Xena was. “The day I got the call back that I’d got Joxer,” he answered without hesitation.
Both Kevin Smith and Ted Raimi stuck around after their allocated hour on stage to pose for photos with fans and spend time in the signing area, where they were met by dozens of fans waiting in line to get the actors’ autographs and have the rare opportunity to speak with them.
Opportunities like this certainly don't come along very often for fans of Xena, but luckily for us, it's events like Armageddon which will continue to bring Xena fans up close to the stars of the show for years to come, even once Xena has left the airwaves.