Monster Child in a Promised Land
She’s caused mischief galore as Discord, but surprisingly, Meighan Desmond has her head firmly on her shoulders, as Ian Rentoul discovers…
Official Xena Magazine: Issue 15
Discord was last seen going down with most of the rest of the Olympian Gods in the final episode of Xena’s fifth season, Motherhood. Although the young actress behind the fun-loving immortal admits she hasn’t yet had the chance to see how the episode turned out, she very much enjoyed her final hour in the Xenaverse. “It was great fun to film,” she enthuses. “It’s not every day you get to have your head cut off by Xena!”
Desmond’s first appearance in a Pacific Renaissance production was in Young Hercules. “I actually auditioned for the female lead [Yvenna] in the Young Herc TV movie,” she reveals, “but I didn’t get it. But I guess the producers liked what they saw because a couple of weeks after telling me I hadn’t got the part, they rang up with one they’d created especially.
“In any audition you’re always asked to present your impression of a part, so I was asked to read for Yvenna to see what I could do with her. Once at an audition, you could be asked to make the character a bit stronger or a bit nicer, so that you can show what your range is and what you’re good at. The funning thing was that I had a really strong feeling about that audition, so when I found out that I hadn’t got the part I was really confused. So between not getting that job and hearing about the part of Discord, I thought that the opportunity had passed me by.
“Initially, Discord was going to be a servant girl and was only in about two scenes,” Desmond recalls, “but her role eventually grew. I just thought that I was going to do this TV movies, and as far as I knew, that was going to be Discord’s first and last appearance. But as it turned out, the character went down very well and got stronger and stronger with each episode. It’s quite amazing how it happened, and eventually the character lasted for about three or four years.”
Discord was eventually developed to be the sister of Strife (played by fellow New Zealander Joel Tobeck) and the niece of Ares. Since that first appearance, Discord has been a major thorn in the side of Hercules, Iolaus, Xena and Gabrielle, as well as many of the gods themselves, not least Uncle Ares and Auntie Aphrodite, particularly after the death of Strife at the hands of Callisto.
So if Strife is a God of War wannabe, where does Desmond see Discord fitting into the Pantheon? “I think Discord pretty much fancied the God of War position for herself,” she reflects. “If she couldn’t be Ares, then she wanted to at least be as powerful as he was.”
So did Desmond have any real say in the development of Discord? “I think you make something personal because you are bringing elements of yourself to the character in a detached way,” Desmond muses. “All you really know about is yourself, and even though she isn’t the same as me, I worked with what I knew. Because the show is tongue in cheek, you have to take liberties, and her little moods and mood swings were developed over a period of time rather than being there from the outset, which meant I could play her slightly differently in different scenes. So in one scene she would be sarcastic, and then in the next she’d be dry or fiery.
“I would say that it took me the TV movie and a couple of episodes to really get used to the character,” Desmond admits. “That is, to be able to say some of the lines and not blush inwardly! When I said some of those lines, I would think to myself, ‘Oh my! Do I really have to say that?’”
Fortunately for us, every one of Discord’s mischievous plans failed. Would Desmond have liked to see her character succeed just once? “She would have been so smug,” she laughs as she ponders the thought. “I would have really enjoyed seeing her have some sort of success. I don’t think she would have been too horrible about it, but she certainly would have enjoyed it. After a while it got to the point where I’d think, ‘How can I play this ‘near-miss’ differently?’ So, perhaps for that reason, it would have been nice to succeed.
Following Strife’s death, Discord was written into a number of episodes in the later seasons of Hercules as well as into seasons three, four and five of Xena, in which she was frequently placed alongside Uncle Ares. Did Desmond and Kevin Smith sit down before shooting and talk through their characters’ lines? “We didn’t sit down and talk about it or anything,” Desmond reveals. “What you see [on screen] is the result of scripting and what we each decided to do with our characters. Generally there would be a script read-through a couple of days before shooting started, but usually the scenes were rehearsed and blocked right before we shot them.
“I consider Discord to be a comic character, but only in an unintentional way,” Desmond says. “You have to laugh at all her near misses at villainy. She had a success rate of near zero as far as bad guy Olympics go, although what she lacked in accomplishments she more than made up for in scathing retorts and one-liners that totally appeal to my own sense of humour!
“But given the choice,” she adds, “I prefer to do the dramatic roles. That’s what I like to watch anyway. If it’s a choice between drama and comedy at the video store, I’ll go with drama every time. But having said that, I love to laugh.” There were certainly plenty of laughs on set with Kevin Smith and Joel Tobeck. “There were no tricks played on me on set,” she reveals, “but there was always a lot of hilarity, especially if the scene happened to have Kevin and Joe in it. When those two get together they are side-splittingly funny because they manage to find comedy in even the most mundane and unlikely actions, situations or people!”
While Desmond will probably always be best remembered as Discord in the Xenaverse, the actress played another very memorable role in Xena’s fifth season: the mermaid Sturgina in the comedy episode Married with Fishsticks. “That’s one of the Xena episodes I got the biggest kick out of working on,” Desmond recalls. “That episode was kind of symbolic realization of those day-dreams you have when you’re just a kid. It was a classic girlie get together between Renee O’Connor, Alex Tydings and myself, with all of us playing mermaids. That character was so different from Discord. She was way, way out there on another tangent. I loved the extremities of that.
“Frolicking poolside for a couple of days while we shot the episode was good as well,” Desmond admits. “There was one scene that Alex and I did that was completely under water. We were wearing mermaid tails and we had divers holding out of shot holding us in position as well as being ready to give us oxygen when we ran out of breath. It was a very cool experience.”
One of Desmond’s first acting jobs in her short but so far extremely successful career was in the successful New Zealand soap Shortland Street. “I played a rebellious 15-year-old schoolgirl with a few problems who, in the end, had a good and happy heart,” Desmond reveals. “I’ve found that more often than not I tend to be cast in the bad or trouble psycho-girlie roles. Whether I’m typecast, who knows, but I find it much easier to play dark, messed up characters than straight normal characters. But let me reassure you that this is not a reflection of my own character!”
Is there any other character Desmond would like to have played in Hercules or Xena? “I’ve never thought of that,” she says. “I was always really into the role I was cast in. Discord got the hilariously saucy lines and was always feisty and fun. Why be anyone else? I really enjoyed my time as the goddess Discord and all the enriching experiences it allowed me to have, and I’ll take them all on to what I do in the future.”
That being the case, is there any of the character of Meighan Desmond in the outrageous Discord, or is she based on anybody she has met in real life? “Now that would be telling!” she laughs. “I think it’s fair to say that we both have a sense of mischief and we can both be dry with deadpan sarcasm. But she shouts a lot more than I do, and I laugh more than she does! She stomps around here and there, whereas I tend to bound! And no, she isn’t based on any real life people… What sort of people do you think I hang out with?
“I’m one of those people who has been lucky enough to always know what I wanted to do and be, and for me that has always been to act,” Desmond says. “There was no big decision that I had to make, and I can’t remember a time when I contemplated doing anything else. No one else in my family is in the profession. There is no nepotism in my family. I went off on a tangent that was my very own.
“I’ve never had any formal training, but I like to think that I make a good study of people, what motivates us as individuals, and the emotions that lie beneath our outward actions. I’ve been lucky enough to meet some really different people on my travels. I believe that the more I live my life and experience things, the better I’ll be as an actor.”
So what direction does Desmond hope her acting career goes in now that her time in Xena is at an end? “Right now, I’m passionate about working in television and film,” she remarks. “However, I know that there is a lot the theatre could teach me about everything. So maybe I’ll do that one day. But if that is the case, it will be a natural progression when the time is right.
“I know that I’m capable of doing more than just acting, although it will always be a great love of mine and I hope I’ll do it for a long time. I also know that I need a lot more to pour my energy and creativity into, but I haven’t figured out what that is yet and what to do next. Who knows? Maybe one day I’ll direct, produce or write. Right now I’m just looking around and trying to sort out what I’m about or what I’m not about, and what interests me and what doesn’t, before I make any big decisions or commitments to any one career path.”
Reviewing her time in the Xenaverse as a whole, Desmond points to the episodes Married With Fishsticks and Two Men and a Baby as the highlights. “Those stand out in my mind,” she admits, “but I also enjoyed a lot of the Young Herc episodes because they were different. The show itself had a completely different energy, and was a lot more funky and punchy. I had to play Discord differently. I wasn’t as vampy but had to be more mischievous. So I had a great time working on that show.
“Having said that, I’m not really big on favourites. There are high points, but everything is different for a different reason, whether it’s because I got to work with a very cool director on this one, because I had heaps of dialogue in another one, or because I got to do some really cool stuff in that one. They are all memorable to me.”