A conversation with the Short-haired Bard of Poteidaia
by Sharon Delaney
The Chakram Newsletter: Issue 06
It was on the tip of my tongue and I couldn’t wait for the phone to ring. Had the deed been done? Were Gabrielle's locks actually going to be shorn? Were the hundreds of blonde, red. strawberry-blonde bottles of hair color being tossed out the back of the make-up trailer? It was my first question. “Am I talking to the Short-haired Bard of Poteidaia?”
“Yeah,” Renee cheered. “Finally. We've been talking about it and planning it for months and I was at the stage of ‘Just take it off!’ I've never had it so short before, but I'm really enjoying it.”
“Have you always had long hair?” I asked.
“The shortest I ever had it was just before I was cast as Gabrielle,” she explained. “It was actually quite funny because I almost lost the part as they couldn't visualize me being younger than I am. But they put in five rows of hair extensions when I came down here…”
“...and lost ten years,” I laughed.
“Exactly. It was really quite a coincidence. I had been admiring this picture that a woman in our make-up department had on her mirror because she was going to cut her hair. And I said, jokingly, ‘Wouldn't it be great if we could cut Gabrielle's hair?’ And the next thing I knew, Rob approached me and said, ‘I want to cut it all off. How do you feel about it?’ I said, ‘Yes!’”
My next thought was the fringe benefit of not having to arrive so early in the morning for make-up and hair. But it seemed they were robbing from Peter to pay Paul.
“The make-up time has actually increased because although my hair is easier. I'm covered in tattoos!” she said. “They are putting a Mehndi design on different parts of my body for the India episodes. I'll probably be wearing them at least until the end of this season.”
They had put a short-haired wig on Gabrielle for a scene in “Adventures In The Sin Trade,” but that's not the same as seeing the real thing. And I must admit images of a cropped bard popped into my mind at the oddest times during the rest of the interview.
The first episode I wanted to cover was “Sacrifice,” and the first question was obviously, “You jumped on the platform, wrapped your arms around Hope and fell into the lava pit. What was Gabrielle thinking when she jumped onto that platform?”
“Don't slip and fall because there's nowhere to go!” she laughed.
“Gabrielle didn't plan on taking a header into the pit?”
“I really didn't go that far into trying to decide whether or not Gabrielle’s committing suicide trying to save Xena,” she explained. “Gabrielle had a job to do. To stop Hope and protect Xena. I remember trying to look for Lucy at that last moment.”
Renee had done such a marvelous job of delineating the two characters, I wondered if it was fun playing the dual role. Her answer was surprising.
She said, “Hope is so manipulative. I actually found her hard to play because she's just so conniving.”
“Not like you,” I chimed in.
“No, no, not at all like me,” she laughed. “But I did manage to play her so there you go. I enjoy playing Gabrielle much more. You'd think I would have liked to play a baddie, but the problem with Hope is that she looks like Gabrielle and she’s trying to be Gabrielle. There wasn't room to have fun with a really evil character. It was someone else trying to be Gabrielle and that was weird. Someone trying to pretend to be the good person she's not. To me. Hope has no soul. Gabrielle sympathizes with everyone and Hope doesn't have that.”
“You think she's irredeemable?” I queried.
“Yeah.”
And the $64,000 Question: “Is Hope really dead?”
“I hope so!” she said emphatically. “I kept saying to Rob, “I hope she's gone. But I have a feeling it's not the end of her.”
And, of course. Gabrielle is now a Grandmaw. I told her that some fans had nicknamed Hope’s monster son Dinsdale from Monty Python.
“He reminded me of ET,” she said. “Doug Lefler, the director, wanted the audience to sympathize with the creature. This little object of no one's affection. Even Hope. Hope used her own child to get what she wanted.”
“You don't think Hope loved her son?” I asked.
“I don't think she's capable of love.”
I told her the reunion between Xena and Gabrielle in “A Family Affair” was a long time coming after four months of summer reruns. It was the most emotional I'd seen the actors as well as the characters.
“Lucy’s so responsive to everything around her that if I start tearing up, she's a faucet,” she laughed. “We’re both like that with each other. I thought this was probably one of Gabrielle's rawest times. She'd literally come back from Hell. I just decided not to hold back and see what happened. I figured if there was ever going to be a moment for that kind of emotion, this was it. Sometimes there can be a bit of self-stroking, so you have to be really careful. I just decided to stop thinking as an actor and go for it.
“I've been challenged more this season. My character is going through another transition in her life where she's becoming more mature. She's on a journey where she's starting to find her own beliefs in herself and religion. For me that's been enlightening Gabrielle has certain beliefs and I'm analyzing my own through her troubles. It's been good.”
In “A Good Day,” Gabrielle put herself and the audience through an emotional wringer. In “When In Rome,” all Gabrielle had to do to let a bad man die was ignore her beliefs. In “A Good Day,” in order to save a good man, she would have had to actively betray her beliefs by taking a life. The consequences of choosing not to kill someone leave her screaming in frustration and pain. To see what this does to Gabrielle was incredibly difficult to watch.
I wanted to know if Gabrielle meant to miss when she threw the spear. The answer was quite unexpected.
“The way it was scripted and the way I played it was that Gabrielle missed,” she said. “When I saw the episode, it looked as if she'd missed on purpose. Originally the core intention and what was filmed was that Gabrielle said to Xena, ‘If only you had taught me to use a javelin.’ If she knew how to be a warrior. she could have protected this person's life. And that's why she’s beating herself up. I thought that would be such an interesting turning point for Gabrielle. To make the conscious decision to kill.
“This was one of those times that you realize, as an actor, you only have so much input and then it can change in the editing. It came off completely different. It seemed as if she pulled at the last minute. It's fascinating to me how taking out one line can change everything.”
“In ‘Rome,’ Gabrielle made the choice that Crassus would die and you're saying that originally she made the same choice this time to kill the soldier?” I asked.
“Yeah, but it's a more heightened experience to actually do it herself. It's more powerful. That's the way I went with it. but it didn't come out that way,” she laughed.
It occurred to me with a major change like that, Renee would have to go back and watch the episode because Gabrielle isn't going in the direction she thought she was.
“Right,” she said. “Trying to have a follow-through between every episode with the character is a bit impossible sometimes. You just have to look at the character in each situation and not stress too much what came before.
“What's so interesting about Gabrielle is she is a dynamic person. She always has lessons to be learned. And since we're all human and are sometimes inconsistent, she may approach a problem in a different way. I love her because she can make mistakes. It's more believable for me as well.
“It's funny, but since they've cut off my hair, everybody's telling me how much stronger Gabrielle looks fighting. I think a bit of the vulnerability of Gabrielle was lost with her hair.”
Speaking of Gabrielle's fight scenes, in “A Tale Of Two Muses,” she yelled out to Xena, “Save some for me,” as she dived into the melee. Not exactly the regulation pacifist battle cry!
“If Xena were in some huge battle where people were being slaughtered, I don’t think Gabrielle would say something like that,” she laughed. “That episode was a comedy. Everything had a lighter approach. It was a playful fight - Xena grabbing the end of Gabrielle's staff. We never see that. And how often do you see Xena and Gabrielle dancing together?!”
Sometimes the most incongruous segues pop into my head. I went from visions of Xena and Gabrielle dancing to Gabrielle's battle royal with the mad rabbit in “In Sickness And In Hell!” Who could forget the infamous foot fungus - “It's green, it's red, it's on the move!” And the poor baddie tossed under the bed by Xena for Gabrielle - she of the numb mouth - to interrogate.
“Oh my gosh,” she said hysterically, “I was laughing so hard in that scene. My body was just shaking cuz I knew I couldn’t laugh and it was just so funny. I couldn't believe the guy under the bed was keeping a straight face. He was literally underneath me enduring my drool! He was quite the hero that day.”
Back to the Battling Bunny, I prompted.
“It was a stuffed rabbit that was a bit horrific to look at to begin with and it had these sharp teeth. So during the rehearsal. I ended up with some real bite wounds from the bunny,” she said, in all seriousness.
“You got bitten by a stuffed rabbit?” I asked, incredulously.
“Yeah. That was the running joke that day. The fight scene was so frenetic the teeth ended up cutting me.”
I wouldn't want to have to explain that one to the local Kiwi doctor! Her lunch hour was just about over and I took a quick dive into “Crusader.” Just what were Gabrielle's feelings about Najara?
“I believe Gabrielle definitely thought Najara was a fighter for good and was disappointed to find she had her own rules and deemed who was fit to live and who wasn't. That's not a right we have as human beings. But I don't know that Gabrielle thinks Najara’s evil. Maybe just misguided. I think she really fell for Najara in a sense that she found someone who could possibly be her mentor. To fill a role that Xena can't for her. A spiritual role.”
“There are some things Xena can’t help Gabrielle with in terms of her growth?” I asked.
“Right. That's what Gabrielle is experiencing this season. Maybe Xena isn’t the ideal companion for her because she can't satisfy the yearning Gabrielle has for spiritual enlightenment,” she said. “As the characters keep learning their life lessons, they'll always question whether or not they should travel together. I don’t think that's something that can ever be resolved. You love someone, you want to be with them. However, at the same time, maybe they're not ideally suited to you. But - they're both two stubborn women!” she said, laughing.
And maybe stubbornness and love will triumph over common sense.