Lucy Lawless talks Xena reboot, Margaret Moth, and the email that changed her life

Lucy Lawless discusses her new-found love for directing and what role she'd like to play in the event of a Xena reboot. Photo / Matt Klitscher

Fans have been crying out for a reboot of one of biggest TV shows of the 90s for years – and now, its Kiwi star has dropped a huge hint.

Lucy Lawless is best known for her roles in Xena Warrior Princess, Ash vs. Evil Dead, Spartacus and My Life Is Murder. But, at 56, she feels she’s found her calling in a career she initially dismissed.

“I had no intention of directing. But when I received this email out of the blue saying, ‘Do you want to make a film about my best friend Margaret Moth?’, my mind cast back to when she was shot, and the whole country was riveted,” she said.

“I was compelled by some other force because I’d never, ever wanted to direct before. It was as if Margaret picked me and booted me through the directing door, and now it’s all I want to do.”

Her new movie, screening at the SXSW festival in Sydney from October 14-20, is called Never Look Away, a powerful documentary-style film exploring the life of Margaret Moth. Moth was a pioneering camerawoman for CNN specialising as a war correspondent, with a tragically defiant backstory filled with sex, drugs and rock and roll.

Moth’s story is a heady mix of thrill-seeking and adversity. Lawless acknowledges it could be confronting for some viewers.

Lucy Lawless said an email from Margaret Moth's best friend changed her life.

“The thrust of this film, and any film I make, is to be supremely non-judgemental about my characters, their exploits, and that carries through their conflicts. I just put them in your face and make it your problem,” she said.

“You have to figure out how you feel about her sexuality, the drug-taking, her relationships, and the conflicts she was in. I very consciously tried never to colour or editorialise the experience for the audience, because that’s the work the audience gets to do.”

Lawless is careful to specify the film is documentary-style, rather than a documentary, because so many of the facts and interviews are conflicting. One might argue that’s a hallmark of almost all documentary work, because human memory is fallible and life is complicated, but Lawless doesn’t want to claim any titles she doesn’t feel she’s earned.

“I knew I didn’t want to tell a linear story, because to me that is journalism. I’m not sure I even believe in objective truth in terms of storytelling. It’s always subjective. My choice is not to sugar-coat things, I’m still just giving you my version of the truth using other people’s versions of the truth,” she said.

When Lawless talks about Margaret Moth and Never Look Away, there is an electric energy to her.

You can tell this project has consumed her life and is a true work of passion. That’s perhaps why it was noticeable when my next question landed more flatly. Lawless is more strongly associated with a character she played nearly half her life ago. Xena first aired in 1995 and finished up in 2001, but it shaped a generation of viewers and clearly influenced the fantasy shows that followed it for decades.

Lucy Lawless's documentary Never Look Away follows the life of New Zealand-born photojournalist Margaret Moth, who was shot by a sniper in Sarajevo in 1992 while working for CNN.

So, it’s not surprising many fans and casual viewers are calling out for a reboot, and even less surprising it’s been a challenge to craft the right circumstances for a reboot that would satisfy everyone.

“They keep trying and it keeps foundering at the last step for various reasons. The thing is, you have to reboot it in a way that honours the old but is entirely new, and if you can’t do it as well as or better than the original, then you can’t do it at all, really. You can’t do a lame version because it’ll just flop,” she said.

However, if there is a reboot, Lawless already knows which parts she would like to play (and which parts she doesn’t).

“Perhaps Hera? Or maybe – was it Labyrinth or was it The Never Ending Story where there’s the lady that’s made out of all the trash? Just some character role, but it would have to be either super-characterful or super-pivotal. There has to be something vital about it. I’m not there to play someone’s wife,” she said.

It was her experience working in television that originally tempered her interest in directing, seeing the profession as lacking in creative control.

Lucy Lawless in the hit Kiwi TV series My Life is Murder with Rawiri Jobe.

“I see the directors come and go on television and they don’t get to set the tone or the story. It’s a little bit like being a gun for hire. Whereas, if you are originating an idea, it’s all on you to determine what the tone of the piece is, what the focus of the piece is,” she said.

While Lawless is now fully in love with directing and consumed with her next directing project, she assures her fans she’s not going to quit acting any time soon.

“I won’t stop acting, that’s still my main bread and butter. I’m producing and starring in this little TV show My Life Is Murder, which started in Melbourne. It’s because I don’t believe in killing something that’s working. And it employs a lot of people, so it’s going again and that’s great. But my obsession now is about my next act, and that’s my directing gig,” she said.

“There’s nothing I know better than life on a set and drama, script interpretation and working with actors. So I want to marry my new-found knowledge with what I’ve known deeply for now 38 years and make something really fun. I want to entertain you. I want to take you somewhere crazy.”

Alice Clarke is a freelance writer for news.com.au.