Ephiny of Amazons
An Interview with Danielle Cormack. By Robert Weisbrot.
The Official Magazine: Issue 04
The golden-haired Amazon Ephiny made a striking debut in the episode, “Hooves and Harlots,” as a quick-tempered warrior hostile to Xena and jealous of Gabrielle. Since then Ephiny has made several dramatic personal and career moves, becoming a mother to a baby Centaur, queen of the Amazons, a staunch ally to Xena, and a friend to Gabrielle. Along the way she has also become one of the best loved figures in Xena’s mythic world, a development that gratifies and amazes the New Zealand actress who plays her, Danielle Cormack.
In January 1998 the diminutive, energetic Cormack braved the Hercules and Xena convention circuit for the first time, appearing in Burbank, California, before some 2,000 intensely devoted fans. Though fielding questions with both warmth and wit, she seemed at first overwhelmed by the adulation. “It was completely INSANE!” she recalls with a laugh. “I walked into a room in L.A. and it was like a meteor hitting me at 100 miles an hour. I didn’t know how to react because when people are giving you so much, of course you want to be able to reciprocate, but how? I didn’t really feel like an actor up there, I felt like a rock star - which fulfilled my dream, of course, because as we know, most actors want to be rock stars!”
Cormack was just twenty-four when she landed the part of Ephiny in 1995, but already a veteran actress. By then she had made some headlines touring with New Zealand’s youngest Shakespearean troupe, acted for three years in the stylish hour-long drama Gloss, and became a reluctant celebrity as an original cast member of the TV cult hit Shortland Street (in Cormack’s words, “our national soap opera”). Cormack had also read for several roles on Hercules but each time lost out after hearing the dismaying refrain, “Could you be more vulnerable?” But the intensity and conviction she brought to her next audition won her the part of Ephiny on Xena.
Intended as a possible recurring character, Ephiny proved a flawed but ultimately sympathetic heroine in “Hooves and Harlots.” She bristled toward the outsider Xena and fumed when Gabrielle unwittingly became heir to the Amazon throne on receiving the “right of caste” from a dying princess. But between her taunts, Ephiny loyally tutored the new heir while helping Xena avert a war between Amazons and Centaurs, then fought at Gabrielle’s side and even bestowed a parting heirloom: the fighting staff that has become Gabrielle’s singular weapon.
Cormack agrees that since Ephiny’s first, fiery appearance in “Hooves and Harlots,” viewers have seen a kindler, gentler Amazon: “I think it’s due to Ephiny’s being a mother now. Her hard edges have been softened somewhat. She’s quite different - she’s grown up!” Asked how Ephiny can still develop dramatically, Cormack responded with an intensity worthy of Ephiny herself:
“Oh, I would love to incorporate some of the initial personality traits of Ephiny. I think it’s really interesting that [the writers] have taken her to a place where she can be a leaning post for Gabrielle, that maternal role. Ephiny’s very strong, she’s queen of the Amazons now. She’s learned to channel her feelings a lot better, or perhaps to bridle them. But I think those other sides of her personality are still there.
“You know, that darker side! Ephiny seemed to have a very jealous streak in her. And I think that she also felt she was owed quite a lot without giving too much. She had a certain selfish side but not much selflessness until, say, the end of “Hooves and Harlots.” I think that she didn’t know how to control certain parts of herself, she let them run rampant and it got her into a lot of trouble. And so it would be really interesting to see once again Ephiny’s “darker side” - shall we say [that], because it’s “Xena terminology.” And to see how she’d deal with it in the situation that she’s in now, as a mother and a queen.”
Ephiny’s brief appearance in the third season episode, “The Bitter Suite,” left fans anxious about her fate. Ephiny rallied her Amazons in a vain attempt to protect Gabrielle from Xena’s onslaught, suffered a broken arm for her trouble, then disappeared for the rest of the episode - and the season. Asked if additional footage of Ephiny had been cut for reasons of time, Cormack said, “No, I was only in that one scene in the beginning. I was actually shooting another film down in Wellington at the time, in October of last year, so I came up and did that scene at the beginning of the day.” Nor has Cormack fretted much over Ephiny’s welfare or whereabouts:
“No, I’ve been too busy on other things, being a mother [of a two-year-old son, Ethan] and working on other projects. Without risking my place in the scheme of what happens with Xena and Hercules, it’s not the sole focus of my career because I’m also doing feature films for New Zealand companies.” Cormack’s most recent Kiwi production, Channeling Baby, also features Kevin (Ares) Smith. Still, she is eager to revive Ephiny’s adventures “because it’s a genre I still need to explore and gain more experience in. I still don’t think I’m hitting the mark, or at least not where I’d like to go anyway.”
While Ephiny’s current standing with Xena since “The Bitter Suite” is a mystery even to Cormack, her character’s relationship with Gabrielle has clearly overcome its rocky beginnings. Cormack emphatically agrees that despite Ephiny’s early disdain and jealousy toward Gabrielle, the two have become warm friends:
“Yeah! Well, I don’t think they see a hell of a lot of each other! But when they do the friendship bond grows stronger. Ephiny realizes what a force Xena is to be reckoned with, yet she was still willing to try to stand in her way to protect Gabrielle. So I guess there’s a sisterly thing between them. Also Ephiny knows that Gabrielle’s seen a side to her that maybe she’s not particularly proud of these days. And yet Gabrielle shows her friendship and generosity as though Ephiny has been very courteous and giving to her all along, though she hasn’t.”
Cormack praises Lucy Lawless, Renee O’Connor, and Kevin Sorbo as all wonderful, generous actors, then adds abashed, “Oh! I feel as though I should say something bad about someone, but everyone is just so amiable, so giving, and so professional.” As youths, Cormack and Lawless had taken the same acting workshop and “every now and then we’d cross paths” as part of Auckland’s close-knit acting community.
Remarkably, Cormack says, Lawless remains wholly unaffected by her sudden stardom: “She’s open with everyone, makes time for everyone. As much as you want to put her on a pedestal, and I try all the time because she certainly has my respect and admiration, you just can’t because she just doesn’t allow it, not consciously, but just by the way she is.”
Cormack has interspersed her six appearances on Xena and Hercules with varied, at times unconventional, projects. Among them is the acclaimed 1997 film TOPLESS WOMEN TALK ABOUT THEIR LIVES, which, despite the teasing title, Cormack describes as “a slice of New Zealand life that reveals class differences and what young people are up.”
Cormack also recently added a second female warrior to her genre credits in a TV pilot produced by Renaissance Pictures, Amazon High, which bridges swordplay and time-travel. “I played a completely different character, Samsara,” Cormack explains. “There are facets of Ephiny in “Hooves and Harlots” that I colored Samsara with, but [Samsara] channels her energies with a lot more conviction. I think that Ephiny was just a little bit lost in a sense: she wanted something that was taken away from her [the “right of caste”] and she acted like a spoiled child. Whereas Samsara knows what she’s fighting for, she wants revenge, her whole life is built around avenging her father’s death, and so she’s constantly heading toward a goal.”
Should Amazon High win the right of caste to become a full-fledged TV series, would Cormack’s involvement continue? “It’s too early to tell what will happen,” she says, but adds, “I would certainly love to play Samsara again. She was a great character!”
For all her dedication as an actress, Cormack’s mischievous side lights up as she ponders the appeal of working on Xena and Hercules: “Maybe it’s the fact that we get to dress up in these really funny costumes and run around and cause complete mayhem and speak in funny accents, and it’s like a child’s playground. That probably has something to do with it, that’s fun - and [we] get paid for it! We get to explore a genre that doesn’t really happen a lot in New Zealand television. It extends your repertoire, and to be part of something that’s obviously very successful is even better.”