Hera Apparent
Meg Foster will always be hailed as the woman behind the most villainous eyes in the Xenaverse, which so often drove Hercules to distraction. Long after the downfall of the Goddess Hera, Meg Foster looks back on a distinguished career which led her to the door of Renaissance Pictures. Interview by K. Stoddard Hayes.
Official Xena Magazine: Issue 14
Meg Foster had her first taste of acting as a teenager in boarding school. It changed her life. “They put these young women into the atmosphere of theatre, of make believe, of creating. Everybody changed,” she says. “I found out things about my classmates - a generosity, an imagination, a humour - that I never would have known if we were at a dance or an algebra class. All the competition went away; everybody pulled together to tell the story. We fed off each other's imaginations, and we were free.”
That freedom was something Foster wanted to hold onto. Instead of going on to university, she was accepted at the prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City. When she emerged two years later, she acquired an agent and immediately began to work in off-Broadway and regional theatre. She soon went to Hollywood, where she has worked steadily for more than 30 years in film and television, as well as numerous stage plays.
“I’ve always wanted to be a character actor,” she says of her long and diverse list of credits. “I never wanted to be a leading lady. I’d actually shy away from leading lady parts.
“I look for the writing more than anything,” she says of her approach to choosing a role. “I also look for a character that I haven’t done before. I’ve been known to do things very low budget, fun things, just so that people will perceive me differently. For a long time I’ve had the reputation of being typecast as a not very nice person, and it’s difficult to do different things. I do much prefer to do something new. For instance, I did this film called Shrunken Heads. I played this odd, very wonderful character. I don’t know if she was male, female or androgynous, but she was a cigar smoking teamster! They had me dressed in a wonderful blue collar outfit. I had so much fun doing that!”
Foster was already well acquainted with Xena and Hercules before she was cast as Hera for the Hercules episode Reunions. Introduced to Xena by the daughters of a close friend, she recalls being stunned by, “This striking woman riding on this horse,” and by the production values and the scope of the story. She quickly became a fan, watching whenever she could.
“Xena and Hercules are such finely produced shows,” she enthuses. “They’re film quality with the special effects and the magnitude. They lift our spirits. They’re opera, they’re slapstick, they’re vaudeville, they’re drama, they’re comedy. They’re everything that’s wonderful about what anyone would call theatre. And of course mythology is where we all come from. The myths that get passed down, how we fit into our families and our cultures. It gives children a wonderful place to see something so big, and yet it can be funny at the drop of a hat.
“The scary stuff is scary and then it rolls off the backs of the characters and they deal with it in a moral way. You watch evil turn around and be good. As an adult I get my reprieve from modern life by having a hit of Xena or Hercules!”
Working as a guest star has made Foster even more of a fan, not only of both series but of everyone involved in producing them, starting with the cast. “There are no more wonderful actors doing television than the stars of Hercules and Xena,” she says, and she should know.
“They are extraordinarily kind, down to earth people. I’ve never encountered stars of television series that are like this. Kevin [Sorbo] is the nicest young man in the world. He is the person you would like your daughter to come home and say, ‘This is the man I adore.’
“Renaissance has created a delicious working environment with such kind professionals,” she continues. “The energy is very different [from working on a set in the US], and these people are so gracious. There’s no attitude whatsoever. It’s extraordinarily refreshing and extraordinarily freeing. You really feel that you’re in the arms of an extremely talented family.”
In Reunions, Foster brought a character to life who had previously only been seen as an ominous pair of eyes. Her own remarkable eyes helped her convey the power and anger of the Queen of the Gods, but the actress recalls that Hera’s majesty was also emphasised by her costume.
“They brought in this extraordinary gown and cape and boots and crown that they had crafted. And your little blue-jeaned self is put into it and it's magic making! It wasn’t black. It was between green and purple. It was layered and textured, and the whole bodice was beaded and laced. They constructed something extraordinary so I had a cleavage, which was a remarkable feat! I have no cleavage whatsoever, but lo and behold, once they'd gotten me into this thing, there it was!”
The only wardrobe problem Foster encountered was caused by Hera’s crown. “I actually had two crowns,” she remembers. “We had to stick the first one [in Reunions] to my forehead with a little bit of tape to make sure it stayed centred. It was so warm and humid the tape kept coming off, and the crown would slip down to the bridge of my nose. Right before the take, I’d go, “Check my crown, check my crown!”
After playing the vengeful goddess in Reunions, the changes to Hera’s character in Full Circle and God Fearing Child called for a carefully balanced performance. “It was a big turn to take in a small amount of time,” Foster explains. “When I played Hera before, all my preparation for her was subtly the other way: not being nice, not being kind. So it's a little awkward when you’ve previously been someone who wouldn't have exposed any of this, and now you’re going to make this 360 degree turn.
“There were a lot of very subtle moments that I had to take to ease the audience into exactly where we were going. You want the audience to maybe not know if they can trust her. I was amending a lifetime of horrible behaviour, asking someone whose life I had totally destroyed to trust me.”
While Foster gave Hercules fans their first face- to-face encounter with Hera, Hercules and Xena gave Foster her first encounter with the fans, at a Creation Convention in Cherry Hill. New Jersey, in August. Although she was nervous beforehand because she was totally unfamiliar with conventions, Foster found she was in her element the moment she began to mingle with the fans at the charity breakfast.
“I felt like I was the audience, not the actor,” she explains. “I was the fan of the fans. I felt so comfortable and everybody was so dear. I had no idea that they’re so knowledgeable. They’re so kind and so embracing, and I found out so much about each of them, as much as I possibly could. I thought they were marvellous. I literally felt like I’d come to breakfast with a bunch of people I hadn’t seen in a long time.”
Foster's enjoyment continued during her stage appearance later in the day. “I said, ‘Hi, I’m Meg, and I’m here because I’m a fan of the show too. So we all have something in common’,” she recalls. “I didn’t want to get off the stage! I was having such a good time.”
Like many actresses over a certain age, Foster has seen the acting opportunities diminish as she has matured. “There is more work for men as they age,” she acknowledges, “and this is all the way across the board. This is not only men who we put in the star category, which is maybe three per cent of the Screen Actors Guild. There are fewer parts for women; that’s just how it is. You reach a certain age and there are fewer parts.”
However, the actress remains hopeful that this might still change. “Some very wonderful [well- known] actresses are all reaching middle age and they’re still looking wonderful,” she says. “It’s possible that they’re going to start creating better parts for themselves.”
The issue of women's roles on screen brings Foster back to Xena again. “There are very few shows that present women the way that I think women should be seen: in true women's friendships,” she says. “[Television and film] make women too dramatic. The relationships between women, between siblings, between mothers and daughters, are much more profound. I have three sisters. I’ve never seen a film that embraces sisterhood. This is the other thing with Xena and Gabrielle, and it’s one of the reasons why I adore that show: it embraces womanhood and it embraces friendship.”
So does Foster wish she could have her youth back? “There have been times when I could play characters 10 years younger than myself, and I really can't do that now,” she admits. “But I don’t particularly want to do that. I'm a woman who’s 52 years old. I feel lovely being this age. This is the best time of my life.
“I have worked for 33 years,” Foster muses, “and when I look back on my career, I go, ‘My god, how fortunate am I?’ I’m like a workhorse, I just keep going and going.”
SIDEBAR: Apples, Oranges and Kumquats
Meg Foster discusses the differences in acting for theatre, film and television.
The Camera
“The camera can just zero in on someone. Someone can use a camera so well and the camera can love them. Your cameraman is your best friend; they see your eyes that big. A camera is a looking glass; it can mirror something back to you that you never knew was there, or it can mirror something back to you and you go, ‘Oh well, I know that's not the right take.’”
Editing
“You can change a performance by editing, absolutely change it, make it so much better than what actually happened. Editors do magic. And once you've completed your performance on television or film, you have that moment, that take. You might have five of them, you might have one of them. Many times my first take feels like it's the best, and many times it is.”
The Crew
“They are extraordinary - how hard they work, what they know. They're the mortar that holds it all together. They're just consummate professionals in this industry, and nothing could be done without their generosity, their professionalism and their support.”
The Theatre Process
“With theatre you have a rehearsal and you take it from top to bottom. Act I, Act II, Act III - every night, every day, sometimes twice a day. So the process is very different and what you learn about yourself is different and every audience is different. It's exhilarating and it's exhausting. In the long run they hone you so beautifully, whether you like it or not. The show goes on, mistakes are made, and you get up and do it again.”
Reaching a Pinnacle
“The most extraordinary thing about being part of a theatrical production is, you've been running this play and running this play, and you're finding out all you can about your character, and there are relationships between characters on stage and there's a storyline. And day after day you do the play, and all of a sudden, in the middle of a scene, you reach a point or a pinnacle that you've never reached before. It's one of the most intimate things in the world to witness after months of doing this. It's magical.”