The Last Labour of Hercules
As filming closed on Hercules, Kevin Sorbo reflected on his long association with the starring role in an exclusive interview with our on-set reporter, Kate Barker.
Official Xena Magazine: Issue 05
It is late July 1999. Sitting outside a studio in west Auckland, New Zealand, Kevin Sorbo looks remarkably calm. There is little sign of the emotions that he and his colleagues must be feeling; in two days, filming of Sorbo's role as Hercules will wrap for the final time.
After the achievement of over one hundred episodes, five TV movies and two spinoffs, the phenomenon that is Hercules: The Legendary Journeys has come to a close. Even after six years of playing the legend, Sorbo is still struck by its success. “It's amazing. I always thought we were only in 75 countries - we're in 115! I just found that out,” he says, “and I was like, oh - only 30 countries off.”
Landing the role of the heroic half-god was no easy task. Sorbo was one of over 2000 actors to try out for the leading role. “You walk into a casting session,” he says, “and there's always another 100 guys who look like you. You're going, ‘What am I doing here?’”
Over the next three months, the producers of Hercules called Sorbo in for seven more auditions, each time with a different group of actors going up against him. “There were all shapes and sizes. Every time I asked them, ‘What do you want me to do?' they said, ‘No, we like what you’re doing.' So I was like, ‘Why do you want to see me again?' I thought, ‘They don’t know what they want.’”
Finally, while filming a guest role in a Vancouver-based television series, Sorbo got the call. “They called me on my birthday and said, ‘You got the part’. That was my birthday present!”
Initially, Sorbo was unimpressed with the Hercules idea. “I balked at it,” he remembers. “I said ‘Hercules...? Please.' I thought, ‘They're going to want some no-neck steroid guy, going around saying these stupid lines.'” But they wanted Sorbo, and when the actor got the chance to read some of the Hercules dialogue, his attitude changed completely. “When I read the first couple of scripts, I said, ‘This looks like a blast!’ I wouldn't have taken the part if it hadn't looked fun to play.”
Originally, the legendary journeys were planned to comprise only four two-hour TV movies, to be screened as part of an ‘action pack' sequence of programmes to air in syndication in America. Sorbo recalls the concept as it was first explained to him. “In the Seventies they had this rotating wheel of spy-type series - McMillan and Wife, and Columbo, stuff like that. So they said, ‘Let's bring that back, with action shows.’ They had Vanishing Son, they had [William Shatner’s] TekWar ...and they gave Hercules the least amount of chance of making it.
“We came to shoot four two-hour movies, back in '93. When we were halfway through making the third movie, they added a fifth movie - everybody else [in the ‘action pack ] was doing four. It took nine months to shoot the five movies, and when they aired, the ratings were so ridiculously great for this show that they cancelled the other four series.
“Here we are, six years later, it's pretty amazing.” Sorbo credits these five TV movies (in order of appearance, Hercules and the Amazon Women, Hercules and the Lost Kingdom, Hercules and the Circle of Fire, Hercules in the Underworld and Hercules in the Maze of the Minotaur) with being something for which the entire cast and crew must be grateful. “[The movies] started the whole ball rolling. Without those movies, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
New Zealand was chosen as the location after the series' producers visited the country and, according to Sorbo, “fell in love with the scenery - just like that.”
The beauty of the New Zealand landscape is one of the things Sorbo will miss the most, citing the South Island as a particularly “magical” place. “I've spent six years down here; this has been my home. I'll miss it all.”
Sorbo is looking forward to returning home of course, although he says it is “going to be weird. It’s going to be strange to go home, to go back to the States and rekindle friendships and see my family again. Certainly, I've missed that part of my life.”
The rest period won’t last long. Sorbo has just signed a deal with Tribune, the production company which owns many of the television stations that are currently airing Hercules in America. He will be working with Majel Barret Roddenberry, widow of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, on a new Roddenberry-inspired SF series starting production during 2000. “I’m a big fan of Gene Roddenberry,” Sorbo enthuses. “I grew up watching the original Star Trek series as a young, young man. I'm going to fill the shoes of being that next person. It’s kind of cool, to be the next... captain, or whatever.” For the moment though, Sorbo will be content to “just have fun, play tennis and laze in the sun for a while.”
Now that it’s all over, what does Sorbo think has made Hercules such an overwhelming success? It’s a big list, starting with the universal appeal of comedy. “It's the cheeseball humour,” Sorbo explains. “The Nineties dialogue. There is no bible; we could do anything we wanted in this show. It’s a wonderful way to do it.” Examples of “anything” in Hercules have included storylines with biblical, Celtic and Norse references, plots involving flashbacks and time travel, and even an episode (Les Contemptibles) set during the French Revolution. The fact that nothing had to stay the same appeals to Sorbo and, he thinks, the audience in general. “Hercules is not infallible. He makes mistakes, he makes fun of himself, he can be a smart-ass... he can give it as much as take it. It’s not your typical Hercules.”
Typical Hercules it certainly isn't. For one thing, the show’s take on the ‘original’ Greek myths is much more family-oriented and toned-down from the often dark and violent angle of the classic tales. It's an action show to be sure, yet in this version even the battles are fought with a generous dash of humour. “The fight scenes are fun,” Sorbo says, citing the fact that they never display “gratuitous violence. You don't see a lot of blood, you don’t see anybody dying. People know that everything is done with a wink in the eye - I think that's the key to it.”
Sorbo also considers part of the appeal of Hercules to be the show’s values. “There's always something moral about the show,” he says. “Whether it’s being good to your parents or being good to your kids or against gang violence or drugs or something... It’s there. You get a lot of letters from parents and hospitals, churches and universities, schools and libraries; letters from everybody, talking about how the show affects them; whatever it might be. No matter how funny it is or how dark it is, there’s always something in there to show that it's a moral message.”
Constant variation in the series has also been a plus for Sorbo, something which his other colleagues sometimes find just a little curious. “I had a director come down here last year, who said, ‘Here you are in season six and people still like you.’ I said, ‘It’s just a fun place to work.’ You can go crazy working these kinds of hours, working day in and day out on something like this. But there’s nothing really the same about this show. It's not like we’re stuck on some soap opera and you’re a doctor and you’re there in that same office for 12 years. It's a different set, a different location, something different all the time, which makes it interesting.”
One thing Sorbo will not miss is his costume. While the leather pants and open chamois shirt certainly haven’t prompted complaints from a large percentage of the Hercules audience, Sorbo has found that six years of wearing the same outfit has become a little tedious. “I’m bored with the pants,” he admits, mildly amused with the fact that everyone else on the show seems to have enjoyed numerous costume changes. “We’ve got amazing costume designers,” he laments, “and I only get one change!”
Well, that’s not counting the dozens of copies of those famous leather pants that the actor has gone through over the course of the series. The pants, Sorbo explains, “stress very quickly in fight scenes. They rotate them every two or three days. I think they’ve made at least one or two dozen.” Surely all that leather can’t be comfortable after eight hours under hot lights? “These pants weigh six kilos,” Sorbo points out. “Try running and doing high kicks in these things after a long day!”
He is a little more light-hearted about the shirts. “These shirts are chamois; once we’re done with them, we use them to dry cars off at the local car wash...”
The designers wanted to keep one recognisable look for Hercules throughout the series, and Sorbo does admit that it has worked. “The costume looks good - it’s my cape.” He smiles thankfully. “Thank God it’s not a toga!”
There have certainly been high points for Sorbo off set as well as on. While filming Hercules in New Zealand, he met actress Sam Jenkins, who later became his wife.
If there is one constant that stands out about working on Hercules, says Sorbo, it has been “the laughs”, both in front of and behind the camera, on and off the set. But now it's all over, and everybody feels it. Four months before the end, both cast and crew were given news of the series’ eventual close. Shooting at certain sets for the last time has proved to be an emotional experience for Sorbo, as have the last few days of working so closely with other actors and colleagues who have now become friends.
Michael Hurst, who has played loyal sidekick lolaus since the first TV movies, wrapped up his filming with Hercules nearly a month before the final shoot. Sorbo remembers that time fondly. “That was an emotional week, that last week with Michael, because Michael’s been with me since day one. Every day, he and I would look at each other and say, This is our last fight, this is the last time we’ll shoot on this location.’
“He came to my camper and we exchanged gifts and he started crying. He got me all misty and I said, “Michael, I've got three more weeks, don’t let me start now.’ So that got kind of emotional.”
As things begin to finally wrap up, Sorbo is sounding almost philosophical about his time with the show. And the irony that his last shoot of the series will be at the studios where he filmed Hercules and the Amazon Women - the TV movie that started it all - isn’t wasted on the actor. “It seems like things have come full circle,” he says, smiling, making a knowing reference to the title of the series final episode.
Specific highlights are hard to recall, says Sorbo, because much of the last six years has been constantly memorable in its own way. “You look at six years,” the actor says wistfully, “and it’s gone in the blink of an eye. It really is. We’ve done so many things and we’ve gone through so many cast members and so many people have been a part of this... It's sad. It's weird. I'll miss it all.”
All journeys, even the legendary ones, must eventually come to an end. But in doing so, Hercules has not only advanced the careers of Sorbo and Hurst, but has launched the legends of ancient Greek heroes into television history, bringing them to life for a new audience.
Sorbo has had a blast all right. So have we all.
“It’s been unbelievable,” he declares with a smile. “For all of us.”