Xena star Lucy Lawless on her blazing documentary debut: ‘I’m a cult person… I’m not a corporate girl’

In 2007, the Xena: Warrior Princess star Lucy Lawless received an unexpected job offer: to headline an American remake of Footballers’ Wives, ITV’s gloriously stupid soap opera about catfighting, baby-swapping, body-burying pseudo-Posh Spices. “I was living in LA, had a couple of very young children and they backed the truck up and paid me a lot of money,” the New Zealander remembers with a laugh. A single episode was made before the US broadcaster ABC pulled the plug – Disney, which owned both ABC and the sports channel ESPN, “didn’t want people besmirching football”, she remembers. But it was no great loss. “Looking back, it’s kind of a relief,” Lawless continues. “Short skirts and all that stuff? It’s not for me. I can’t keep up with that look.”

Well, she did for a while, if you remember that metal-plated mini she sometimes wore in Xena. For the most part, though, she spent the years between 1995 and 2001 waging battle in a bronze corset and leather dress, sword comfortably in hand. At the time, along with Sarah Michelle Gellar’s cursed high schooler Buffy Summers and Gillian Anderson’s cynical FBI boffin Dana Scully in The X-Files, Lawless’s Xena was part of a trifecta of tough, smart female icons who ruled over the era’s fantasy television. Xena, who journeyed through Greek mythology being strong and quippy and sorta kinda gay, transformed the image of TV heroism practically overnight.

A few years earlier in the real world, meanwhile, a fellow New Zealander named Margaret Moth was also making her way in a field historically dominated by men – going into war zones armed only with a TV camera, capturing images of violence and horror in places as far flung as Kuwait, Sarajevo and Chechnya.

“Any man who abused his status or power, she went after them in a way that was quite violent,” Lawless, now 56, says from her home in New Zealand, spectacles on and hair dirty blonde (Xena’s jet-black hair was a dye job). “She was one hell of a battleaxe. She got poked by people who didn’t know they were poking a bear.”

When she was approached to make a film about Moth’s life, Lawless was simply struck by her extraordinary story: Moth, who died from cancer in 2010 at the age of 58, was a punk and a rebel, who had wild, often problematic affairs and regularly diced with death; she was shot in the face by a sniper during the Bosnian War in 1992, leaving her with a shattered jaw and permanent physical damage, then returned to the conflict just two years later. She joked that she had to go back to find her missing teeth.

Lawless’s propulsive and often incredibly touching documentary about Moth, called Never Look Away, marks the beginning of an exciting new venture for the star. In the wake of Xena, Lawless acted on classic TV series as diverse as Battlestar Galactica and Curb Your Enthusiasm, but the appeal of being in front of the camera dimmed over time. “For nearly 40 years it was all I’d done for a living, and I’m just not that interested in the process any more, to be honest with you,” she says. “This directing thing is like a hard 180 degrees the other way. You have total control of it, and it’s made me giddy. Not with power exactly, but now it’s all I really want to do. It’s really, really attractive.”

Lawless approached Moth’s story much like a detective, often out of necessity. Moth filmed other people and rarely turned the camera back on herself. Her background was mysterious, too – she left an abusive family home at the age of 15, and would reinvent herself depending on her jobs and whereabouts. Lawless met Moth’s siblings and her former colleagues, piecing together as much of her life as she could. Even now, she finds herself pondering aspects of Moth’s identity and its contradictions. I mention that Moth seemed to de-gender herself, one of Moth’s colleagues remarking in the film that she “never made anything about being female – she just did it”. “It was like she amputated those parts of herself,” Lawless says. “She sought out male jobs, she rejected any kind of nurturing. But at the same time she was very sensual – she loved her body, she loved being naked, and she loved to share her body around.”

Moth’s private life makes up a significant portion of Never Look Away. Lawless speaks to two men who had long-term relationships with her. One was a 17-year-old high school student when he met the 30-year-old Moth. “I was castigated by one critic for saying that I introduced Margaret by seeing her through her lovers, but how could I not?” Lawless says. “Margaret was all about sex – you couldn’t leave that out. Sex, drugs and punk music made up at least 50 per cent of her life, and that’s the truth. I think some of the business people [who financed the movie] were a little shocked, because I guess they were expecting a hagiography? But I was not going to make that kind of film – I’m not a corporate girl.”

Lawless is used to life on the cultural fringes. Xena, who appeared first on the fantasy show Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and then in her own far more successful spin-off, marked Lawless’s first major acting job, and set the template for everything that would come afterwards – a cameo in the first Spider-Man, roles in movies with titles like Vampire Bats and Bitch Slap. “I’m a ‘cult’ person,” she says. “I do spiky and weird, and not by design. I’m much more interested in art, dahhling.” She draws out the word in mock haughtiness. “But ‘cult’ chose me, and then I just got on the river, stayed on it and I’ve had a very happy life.” Her father, once the mayor of the suburb of Auckland in which she was born, originally wanted her to pursue a life in politics. “But I’m not a joiner, I can’t toe a company line. I’m always going to speak for myself, you know?”

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I ponder if that rebellious streak is why so many gay women adore her. (A long-time advocate for gay rights, she was awarded the Australian LGBTI Ally of the Year award in 2017.) Yes, the ambiguous central relationship between Xena and her trusted companion Gabrielle (Renee O’Connor) – later confirmed by Lawless as not being entirely platonic – has been a big factor in it, but surely that sense of sharp, cool honesty has helped, too? “I think I just love the world,” she says. “I love humanity. I love its flaws and quirks, and maybe that’s what people can read? I’ve never needed people to conform. It’s not for me, so I’m perfectly fine for it not to be for other people. And I think the gay community knows better than just about anybody how to fight for authenticity in a world that’s unkind or intolerant or ignorant…”

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She says that we’re living in a particularly challenging time, and is concerned about the global rise of right-wing leaders and conservative politics. “It’s the tyranny of the majority,” she says. “Suddenly, being woke became bad and stupid and it needed to be crushed, when initially it was just about waking up to things. It was about caring and being open to new ideas.” She refers to “the cultural lag”, in which every new idea is initially met with fear. “Gender, pronouns, all this stuff – don’t get upset by it! In 10 years, it will have settled into a comfortable space. You don’t have to kill everything, but their nature is to kill because they don’t understand it. They want to crush everything that threatens a very 1950s ethos, and it’s really boring. But they like boring.”

Lawless rolls her eyes. She may be worried about the world, but she’s excited for her professional future – energised from her experience on Never Look Away, she is prepping her first directorial feature film, which will be an adaptation of a “lost” script by Dennis Potter. And she still embraces Xena, even if she admits it’s rarely on her mind – it might be her blonde hair, which has always been a bit of a barrier separating her from the character. “I know the show had quite an impact but I do forget about it – Xena doesn’t exactly follow me around,” she says. If anything, it takes The Simpsons to remind her of its status. In 1999, Lawless guest starred – in full Xena get-up – as herself on the series, kidnapped from a comic book convention in one of the show’s annual “Treehouse of Horror” episodes. She even has her own Simpsons-ised Lucy Lawless action figure.

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“It’s still one of the most pinch-me moments I’ve ever had in my life – I mean, Lisa Simpson says my name!” she laughs. “I don’t tend to think about Xena very much, but being reminded of that Simpsons thing does make me go, ‘Oh wow’. To be included in that, I guess I really did do something cool.”

‘Never Look Away’ is available on digital platforms via Kaleidoscope Entertainment from 6 January