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She battled demons and sorcerers as the leather-clad Xena:Warrior Princess but now Lucy Lawless is set to play a new tune at the Roxy on Sunset Boulevard.
Lawless will be in Hollywood for the first of two sold-out rock shows on Saturday night, Los Angeles time.
And while she's given up her sword and battle yell for a microphone and rock attitude, she's not ditching the leathers.
"Damn, I look good in these," she says over a muffled phone connection as she tries on a pair of custom-made leather trousers at a store on Melrose Place. "We gotta keep the truckers happy and I've got a few female fans out there too," she says.
The former Miss New Zealand is in between rehearsals for the Roxy show and "a million" other things. "I am going crazy and, all of a sudden, I find myself being a donkey in the middle of a whole lot of stuff at the moment,"she says.
"I tell you I'm not a producer and disseminating information or being the go-between is not my forte."
One thing Lawless is good at is singing: she was runner-up in the American TV series Celebrity Duets.
Her appearances on the show gave her the opportunity to share the spotlight with some of the biggest names in music including Grammy award winners Dionne Warwick and Smokey Robinson.
"Oh my God mate, it was the highlight of my life because that man's a genius and a real generous performer too.
"He was the reason I did Duets in the first place ... I thought I can't turn 80 and turn down the chance to perform with Smokey."
Despite other forays into the music world (Lawless was Rizzo in a Broadway production of Grease in 1997) she said her final performance on Duets gave her the confidence to front a rock band.
"That [Grease] was really great but that was the first singing I had done in more than 10 years and, ever since then, it's been singing for therapy.
"Things got too serious for me.
"I lost confidence in my late teens but now I'm 38 and I'm not gonna waste another second being nervous because I haven't got any time for that.
"I'm just storming and life's really fun," she said.
Her latest venture has the backing of singer/songwriter Anika Moa, who toured with her and Dave Dobbyn in 2003.
"Whenever she went on stage, people really dug it," Moa said.
"She has quite a nice singing voice and she knows how to communicate with the audience - that's one thing that stood out and she knew how to sell it."
So what does all of this mean for Lawless' acting career?
"I dunno yet. There's a musical pilot which is of interest to me but all I know is that this is totally exciting and a hell of a lot of fun so we'll see where it goes from here."
