Lucy Lawless back in space

Lucy Lawless

Former Xena: Warrior Princess star Lucy Lawless will soon be taking her New Zealand accent back into space.

She is joining the permanent cast of the Sci Fi Channel's space opera Battlestar Galactica, to reprise her role as a renegade reporter, D'Anna Biers, for 10 episodes in the third season of the series.

Her long stint will start filming in April, but in the meantime she will make another guest appearance in the reporter's role in a Battlestar episode to screen in the United States on February 24, the Entertainment Weekly magazine reported on its website.

Lawless said she modelled the Fleet News Service reporter character on one of CNN's most visible reporters, Christiane Amanpour, because she wanted the performance to be "visually annoying".

In the third season of the series, her investigative journalist will turn out to be an undercover agent for the villainous Cylon faction.

- NZPA