That’s All, Folks
For those fans who didn't have the good fortune of being able to attend the UK's biggest annual Xena convention. Chariots of War III, which took place over the weekend of 29 June - 1 July at Heathrow's Radisson Edwardian Hotel, Xena Magazine's Kate Barker brings us in on the action…
Official Xena Magazine: Issue 24
Continuing the success of the last two years, the location for Chariots of War, Part III was once again the stunning Radisson Edwardian Hotel at Heathrow, London. The weekend's shenanigans kicked off in the serene Newbury Suite (complete with fountain and rock garden) on the Friday evening with a celebrity cocktail party, where guests and convention attendees mingled in a relaxed and friendly environment. This was followed by the customary first-night disco, which kept fans dancing to an eclectic mix of retro and new music until 2am.
Saturday's events began in at least four different locations. Attendees queued for photo sessions with the guests from 9am to 12 noon in the Newbury suite, while in the main hall, things kicked off at 9am with selected Xena episodes, followed by a panel with representatives of Xena Magazine: namely, our illustrious editor Darryl Curtis and myself. The crowd was most attentive as Darryl and I presented clips from recent Xena episodes and revealed some behind-the-scenes anecdotes to accompany them.
After lunch, it was time for the guests to make their appearances - each took the stage for an hour, during which time they entertained and amused the audience with stories of their Xena experiences and more. In order of appearance, these were: Ted Raimi (Joxer); Jennifer Blanc (Kendra in the science fiction series Dark Angel); Karl Urban (Caesar, Cupid), who replaced Jennifer Sky when commitments forced her to cancel her appearance at the last moment; William Gregory Lee (Virgil in Xena and Zack on Dark Angel) and Adrienne Wilkinson (Eve); and finally Callisto's more sane alter ego, Hudson Leick.
Details of the guest speeches can be found later in this article, but first a look at one of Saturday's main events: the fancy dress parade, which took place in the evening. There were over 20 entries this year, ranging from the big blue Destroyer (son of Gabrielle's evil daughter Hope), to characters from the Evil Dead movies (produced by Ted Raimi's brother Sam), to a cute purple dragon from the Pokemon universe.
The guest judges interacted with the entrants, as they had done at previous Starfury events, and enjoyed themselves immensely. Highlights included Karl Urban's reaction when a suitably dressed Aphrodite took the stage. Karl stepped up to the stage, put on his best Cupid voice, and asked his stage “mom” for a hug, to which the costumed fan happily obliged. Even more amusing was the actors' continued hilarious persecution of the unfortunate entrant who had dressed up as the prophet Eli. The judges eventually decided to award every single entrant a prize!
Following the fancy dress parade, the main hall was reorganised for that night's disco, for which many of the guests turned up again to strut their stuff on the dance floor.
Sunday opened with more photo sessions, Xena episodes and the dealers' room, where merchandise was selling like hot cakes. All the guests appeared on stage in the main hall for a second time, with eager fans returning for another hour with each of their favourite actors.
First up were Jennifer Blanc and William Gregory Lee, who launched straight into some anecdotes about one of the many challenges that actors can face in the middle of shooting an episode: having to cry on cue. “Sometimes you've got about a hundred people watching you, and a camera right in your face,” Jennifer explained, “and you'll have a make-up artist blowing this stuff in your face to make you react.” To demonstrate this difficulty, they brought audience members up onto the stage, giving each two minutes to see if they could produce realistic tears.
After the first two contestants failed to cry realistically, Greg continued by discussing the more amusing difficulties that could occur while filming dramatic reactions on set, especially in the presence of a certain practical joker. “Sometimes you have someone on the set like Ted Raimi, who's making funny faces at you while you're trying to cry!” Greg then demonstrated this by peering over the shoulder of another contestant, a big burly fellow, and making him laugh in the middle of his attempt at being sad.
Eventually, first place went to the last contestant, a young boy, who received a hug from Jennifer for his efforts.
Both Jennifer and Greg told the audience how much they enjoyed British conventions, as the guests generally had more opportunity to mingle socially with the other attendees. “At some cons, we're just there for an hour and a half for our speeches,” explained Greg, “but here it's like school. You're just walking around, going, 'Hi! How are you?' It's great.”
One highlight of the session was the ongoing phenomenon of Greg slowly stripping down to his underwear, which solicited interesting reactions from the audience! Impressed with the fans' approval, Greg complimented them or their support of the shows... and their obvious good taste! “The fans are what make this worthwhile,” he said.
Adrienne Wilkinson appeared on stage to catch the end of the speeches. “What did I miss?” she asked, before catching sight of Greg's lack of attire. “Well, I'm not taking my clothes off, that's for sure,” she added quickly.
Adrienne started off her afternoon's talk by discussing the episode The God You Know and how wonderful it was to work with Michael (lolaus) Hurst, who directed the episode. Next came anecdotes from the season six opener Coming Home, the first about Adrienne's Eve costume constantly catching on gates and trees as she tried to make her way through the scenes, and the second on how much she enjoyed playing one of the Furies in the guise of Eve, tormenting the unfortunate Ares.
Asked how she came up with the motivation for Eve coming to terms with the bloodthirsty warrior she had once been, Adrienne gave an interesting insight into how she played the character's reactions. “As an actor, you have to feel legitimate as the character,” she revealed, “so I played Eve as an addict; afraid that if she picked up a weapon again, she'd never put it down.
According to Adrienne, a big part of getting into the character was down to the character's costume. “Literally,” she explained, “your clothes are your amour. Every time I saw that Livia costume, my confidence soared and I started to swagger a little bit... but I was shocked at the amount of cleavage!” Conversely, Eve's 'rags' helped to show the honest, more vulnerable side of the character. Still, one of Adrienne's favourite lines was from her days as Livia, when the character told Xena, “You're not my mother... Rome is my mother!”
Later during the session, Adrienne auctioned off a large photo of Hudson and herself, taken at the Pasadena Xena convention earlier this year, which was signed by both guests. The piece finally sold for £350.00, with all proceeds going to charity.
Adrienne told a brief story about fighting Kevin Smith for the first time in the fifth season episode Livia. “The first time we had to fight,” she recalled, “I said to Kevin, 'I'm scared.' He said, 'Every girl in this show kicks my ass!' He's so gifted at making you feel comfortable.”
From being terrified by Renee O'Connor playing a possessed Gabrielle in The Haunting of Amphipolis to her favourite and only “mother-daughter bonding” scene in Who's Gurkhan?, to her views on the final episode, it was obvious that Xena and those involved with it had definitely had a positive impact on Adrienne's life. “I would have loved to have known what happened to Eve,” she said of the end of the series, “but I thought they ended the story exactly in accordance with what they started out to do six years ago. That got to all of us.” Adrienne cited this very convention as a case in point of the phenomenon that is Xena. “Every time I go to a con, I get afraid that no one's going to be there! But I've had an absolutely great time here and I'm so proud of being a part of all this.”
After a couple of entertaining music video montages featuring Joxer, Caesar and Cupid, Ted Raimi and Karl Urban entered through the giant chakram at the back of the stage to the tune of 'The Boys Are Back In Town'. After an unsuccessful attempt to remember just how many episodes of Hercules and Xena they'd both been in, the actors told the audience there would be a short question session, following which they would then be entertaining the fans “in our own special way.” Remembering Greg Lee's outrageous antics earlier in the day, Karl asked Ted, “Boxers or briefs...?”
After both agreeing there would be no stripping in this session, Ted went on to explain one of the excerpts from the Joxer montage at the beginning of the speech - the shot from Fins, Femmes and Gems in which Joxer the ape-man swings into a tree. “That was shot in reverse motion,” he revealed, “and they had a wire that they used to pull me - and my stunt double - away from the tree. It's the oldest trick in the book!”
The discussion topics went from both the actors' propensity for playing practical jokes on each other and the rest of the cast (like writing bizarre notes on Renee O'Connor's episode scripts), to a mock argument over which would be the better movie: Sam Raimi's Spider-Man, or Lord of the Rings, filmed in Karl's home country of New Zealand. This led to a discussion of the bit parts they'd both had in various action movies, and how easy it was for short scenes to be cut out of the final product completely should the film run longer than the desired length. “Big action movies often run really long,” Ted explained, “because the directors put in all these extra car chases and things, and the production guys say, 'How do you market a 90-hour movie?' So sometimes you just get cut out.”
Question time over, the talented actors launched into a hilarious two-man improvisation show a la Whose Line Is It Anyway?, which had the audience in fits of laughter. Then it was time for last minute reminiscing, in which Ted recalled his first day on set in New Zealand. “My driver said to me, 'watch out for the Wetas.' I didn't know what they were. I was sitting in my trailer and suddenly I saw this huge thing like a brown grasshopper looking at me. Cue to the exterior of my trailer and me running out in my underwear, shouting, 'Aaaah!' I heard the driver say, 'Now you know.' Welcome to New Zealand!”
Ted and Karl went on to say how much they were going to miss working on the Xena sets, and in particular the people they had been working with for so long. As their time on stage came to an end, they were each asked to sum up their favourite memories of the show. “My favourite words on set were, 'That's lunch everybody',” joked Ted.
“My favourite,” Karl finished, “are... ‘That's a wrap!’”
The last guest spot of the day went to the incomparable Hudson Leick, and as usual, she didn't disappoint. Dressed in a short white dress, white stockings, feather boa and black choker, she posed for the obligatory photographs before getting down to business. The first question from the audience was whether there were any other types of roles she'd like to play, to which her initial reaction was, in mock innocence, “...are there any other types of roles?
“Playing a normal person might be nice, but I wouldn't have any point of reference for that, would I?” she added. “I only seem to play crazy people or angels…”
Speaking of crazy people, a member of the audience asked Hudson to do Callisto's banshee-like scream, but she refused to do it unless the audience did it first! After a little coaxing (and, after all, who could say no to Hudson?), two near-deafening screams erupted from the crowd.
“Now do you feel good?” she asked with a mischievous grin. “That was great - now you can understand why I liked playing the character!” As a reward, Hudson launched into the scream herself, and as the cheers died down, she remarked candidly, “We're all going to get kicked out of the hotel for this…”
Following the guest panels it was auction time again, with the money going to a cancer foundation fund. A bemused Karl Urban modelled Hudson's white dress, while Hudson ran the auction dressed in Karl's T-shirt and very little else apart from her white stockings and choker. Hudson convinced Karl to stand on a table and do his own version of Callisto's scream, and the dress eventually sold for £400.
As a finale to the afternoon's events, and the entire weekend, Hudson read out a moving poem about accepting and loving yourself, which followed a very wise-sounding comment on enjoying your life to the fullest. “I like wherever I am at the time, because that's the moment, and at that time, that's all you've got.”
With the promise of a fourth Chariots of War convention in 2002, organiser Sean Harry officially announced the close of Chariots of War, Part III. What a truly fantastic way to spend a weekend!!