Transcript by Richard K
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14 minutes and 10 seconds
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BRIAN EDWARDS: Well, it’s not exactly a rags to riches story, though she does now appear on NBI’s rich list. It’s really just a story of a nice, middle-classed girl, from a good Catholic family in Mt Albert, who went on to become an international superstar.
But somehow she managed to stay a nice, middle-classed girl, with none of the airs, graces, pretensions or arrogance that you’d associate of international superstars.
Talk to people about Lucy Lawless… and the universal opinion is that she’s a really nice person. Well, more than that really…
The Warrior Princess seems to have attained almost saint like status in the public mind and the word ‘icon’ is being banded about.
Lovely to have you here…
LUCY LAWLESS: (snicker/giggle)
BE: What are you laughing at?
LL: Well… icon of Mt. Albert
BE: yeah… I think you should follow in the footsteps of… who is it… Mr Swarzenegger now and think about standing for public office. Maybe Mayor of Auckland… something like that? Maybe parliament?
LL: Well I’ve been… I think I’ve been put off that whole idea of watching my father sort of… just the drudgery of… the people work and the ceaseless piles of agenda’s that you have to go through in politics. It ain’t all fancy stuff.
BE: But I think that you’d be in with a chance, you see? Because I think your image now is so wholesome and so good that as I say so almost saint like that you’d have a very good chance.
LL: I don’t know how to live up to that. No… because I am a bit of a broad, that’s the truth. That’s what my friends in America… that’s how they would describe me…
BE: What does that mean? A bit of a broad?
LL: I’m a broad… I’m… I can play a lady for short periods of time and the rest of the time I’m just my kind of… y’know? My regular old self.
BE: How about that middle-class girl from Mt. Albert. I mean…
LL: Middle-middle… not even middle-class.
BE: Well… why not middle-class?
LL: Might be a two-car family, but not fancy cars, y’know? So… yes I don’t think that we… I never saw a Mercedes in my area. (laugh)
BE: But you are on that rich list? I mean, do you have lots of friends that are rich people?
LL: No… I…
BE: What sort of people do you associate with normally on a day-to-day basis?
LL: People of all sorts… Really my friends are from Onehunga, my friends are from… still my mates from Mt. Albert… that have gone as far field as Pt. Chev… y’know? Hi girls. (pictures of waving at camera) I know they’re watching. But all sorts really.
I can’t stand those people who can only mix with the people that they consider are their peers and that’s not interesting at all.
BE: So you do ordinary things? You go down to the shops and…
LL: Yeah.
BE: In your fluffy slippers… or…
LL: (snicker) Sometimes… (laugh)
BE: How does that…?
LL: They’re not fluffy… they’re stolen from hotels… y’know?
BE: They’re stolen from hotels?
LL: Well… no… it just seems wasteful to throw these things out, y’know they keep putting them in your room so… I’m a legendary saver of plastic bags and yeah…
BE: I wonder what else… do you take all those little shampoos and all those things?
LL: No never… I don’t use them.
BE: But the towel and the…
LL: I use the (?) sparingly…
BE: …dressing gown? Do you take those from Hotels?
LL: No. No-no.. only the stuff that they’re gonna throw away.
BE: It’s a whole new side of you…
LL: (embarrassed giggle) Well… its well documented.
BE: You are famously down-to-earth now, aren’t you really? And also, of course, you now have a reputation as someone who crusades a bit, particularly for things like... abused children, Starship Hospital and so on. What…?
LL: Crusades? Hmmm…
BE: Well okay? You’re out there being a spokesperson for these things…
LL: Yeah… no… right. I can see how it would look like that. It just seems like… if you have a profile that somebody you… or an organisation that you really believe in a cause you really believe in, desperately need some help that… who are you not to… do what you can
BE: What’s your particular commitment to that one? What is particular your whole commitment to child abuse and kids ending up in hospital?
LL: It’s what I can really manage given that I am first and foremost a mother of my own kids and a wife and an actress and I have to stick to the knitting. I’m no good… I don’t have a profile unless I’m successful at that, so, I have to get back and I want to get back at that and third comes charities… unfortunately my (chuckle) friends come fourth because I really have to priorities what I do with my spare time because I don’t have any. But… who does?
BE: Do you see the point that I’m making about that what’s happened to your image here, because if I were an advertising agency I would go for Lucy Lawless if I could possibly afford her to make an ad for me, because your credibility now is so absolutely high in New Zealand. It seems to me.
LL: Well yeah… bring ‘em on. (laugh)
BE: Would you do it?
LL: Will I do it? You know I have to be very careful about… An alcohol company came to me recently and you know in a different time of my life to be associated with something that is a fun product wouldn’t be such a bad thing, but, I feel perhaps… it doesn’t sit easily with the causes that I have lent my profile to. So… yes I am… I do have responsibilities that constrain me a little bit, but I’m good with that.
BE: Would you like to tell me what they were offering? What was the figure?
LL: Oh no-no… why would I do that?
BE: Alright, we will be back with Lucy after the break.
(theme)
BE: Welcome back and I am talking to Lucy Lawless.
Now if we look at the other side of the coin I suspect that inside every little actress there is a little show-off waiting to get out.
LL: Never denied that part.
BE: You never denied that. Where did the showing off start?
LL: Before I can even remember apparently. But my uncle Brian, my godfather Brian Malabar was out at the washing line pegging up washing. He said, "What are gonna be when you grow up Lucy Ryan?"
And I said, "FAMOUS!"
And apparently I was four. And I can’t imagine where that came from, ‘cause what could that have meant to me?
BE: This talk about performing on the table when you were little with a seashell pretending it was a microphone?
LL: Played with that.
BE: There was lots of that going on?
LL: Yeah… my best friend Rochelle and I would adapt plays from… totally of our own bat… from fairy tales and my mother would make us put them on… encourage us to put them on for the old folks because she was Mayoress of Mt. Albert, so there was lots of spreading the joy (laughing)… inflicting our terrible plays on these poor old folk.
BE: So you like an audience… I mean, that’s what it boils down to. You want people to look at you. Isn’t that what it’s about? Or is that too simple?
LL: Well I certainly don’t mind it. Sometimes I do.
BE: When do you?
LL: I caught myself today when ‘cause I was at… I take out my son ice-skating and I have to go on the ice with him sometimes because he’s very little and doesn’t y’know? He wants me to do everything so I’m skittering there across the ice and I saw these two women gawping at me and I just wanted go, "What are you looking at?" You know? And I went off and was changing my boots and I thought, ‘oh calm down, Lucy. You’re only saying that because you feel insecure about what you’re doing. And normally I really could not care less. It’s totally fine if they look. People are generally very kind to me and New Zealanders are cool, so. (shrug)
BE: Because you have protested quite a lot that you really don’t like the celebrity too much… this fame…
LL: Have I?
BE: Oh yes you have and numerous…
LL: Really?
BE: Yes you have.
LL: No I don’t think I said that ‘I don’t like being looked at.’ Or anything like that. I think its that ‘celebrity’ in itself is not… I call it ‘shilebrity’ because it valueless unless you do something useful with it.
BE: Right. So you don’t mind?
LL: So… I take issue with you. I mean its not (?). I’m gonna fight you for it … on this one Brian.
BE: You thought she was pretty good, didn’t you?
LL: I did Brian… I was taking notes of that going on. Was thinking oh-my-god, what’s this?
BE: You were thinking, ‘How can I perform as well as this, in fact.’
LL: I thought she was pretty damn good.
(Note: talking about previous guest speaker MP Donna Awatere-Huata)
BE: Well she was. How does it go beyond that? Beyond just wanting to perform to a degree of exhibitionism, really.
LL: No, I think that is a necessary part of it…
BE: Do you?
LL: Yeah… I do.
BE: Yeah… because…
LL: Because else how could you stomach failing in public and that’s a necessary part of it as well. You gotta get up and keep getting back up there… keep going to auditions… and if you didn’t have some sort of incredible resilience… you couldn’t get to a stage of success.
BE: But you went in for Miss New Zealand in 1989 and won it what’s more?
LL: Yes… oh and it was ‘Mrs’, it was as weird as that… I can’t imagine why I did that. That perhaps is the germ… was probably in sighted by a little bit of that exhibitionism, encouraged by my agent at the time.
I don’t think on my own I would’ve done that, because I knew that was stupid.
BE: Could we go through your list of crimes here. I thought we might y’know? Might be fun, okay?
LL: Yeah… (laugh)
BE: You appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone hot issue wearing I quote, ‘black angel wings and suspenders’. Who’s…?
LL: Yeah… you like that… don’t you Brian?
BE: …idea was that? Well, I probably would yes, but… but who’s idea was that? The gear?
LL: Theirs. (shrug)
BE: Interviewed by penthouse Playboy (?)…
LL: Are you just trying to get to this, aren’t you?
BE: I’ll get to that eventually… did anyone of those magazines tried to get your gear off?
LL: Playboy asked, but…
BE: What was your reaction to that?
LL: I thought that they asked everybody. I didn’t think it was…
BE: They never asked me.
LL: Apart from Brian Edwards of course. No I just said, "No!" Why would I… no its not my gig.
BE: You still would never do that?
LL: I don’t think so. I don’t really see myself doing that.
BE: You dropped out of your dress singing the Star Spangled Banner at an ice hockey game in 1987?
LL: Yeah… that was just an ill-fitting suit.
BE: That was an accident.
LL: It happens to a lot of women… strapless things.
BE: You know there is a video of that on the net?
LL: (groan) Yeah-yeah, I know.
BE: and apparently there is a message that says…?
LL: Do you know how many times I have to talk about this with...
BE: With who?
LL: You know… just goofy, horny people that have been looking on the internet about me.
BE: It’s awful. It says… it gives you an advisory… ‘Lucy Lawless nipple is coming up’ it says… anyway…
LL: Woohoo! (disinterested look)
BE: Come to this… this is more recent. It’s a ‘Pavement’ poster that you appeared in last year. It’s lovely, but why did you do that? Lovely pregnant tummy showing there? What was the idea for that?
LL: We were promoting ‘Vagina Monologues’. I believe my hands there are signifying the ‘screw you, let’s talk about vagina’s’ attitude of the play.
BE: Right okay.
LL: Was that enough for you?
BE: That’s good. That’s good. Let’s go for the next selection. This is the famous Breast feeding poster… have a look at that. I think this is absolutely beautiful, but I’m not sure how many women breastfeed in a short skirt and stoking like that…
LL: Well ya know if you’re dressed that way and the baby’s hungry what are ya gonna do? Actually that wasn’t my first choice for that poster. I had one that was much more… looking straight down into the barrel of the camera and sorta proudly breastfeeding which I thought was a staunch idea. Breastfeeding and proud of it. But they tested it with a small pool of breastfeeding women and they didn’t get it. They much preferred the loving…
BE: I thought it was lovely. We’ll just do one more… this is Metro and this is in March of this year. Now in this case I know that you brought your own… that bikini with you because that said so in the article.
LL: Yeah… and he was scandalised by that.
BE: Was he really?
LL: I’m not surprised by it. Yeah, I bring things along to every thing just in case they don’t have something that fits you.
BE: So have I started some exhibition theme or not.
LL: No… he tried to establish this exhibition… he doesn’t understand that the reason I can do it is that I don’t really mind what you think, but this is fun for me and my inner question these days is ‘how can I have more fun doing such’n’such?’ It’s not, ‘Let me get into a sparkly bikini so that I can one day be Prime Minister.’
BE: You say you don’t care a rat’s ass what people think of all of that.
LL: Not really, I mean… I care what people think, but…
BE: Just a final quick question… you appeared in the Vagina Monologues, in there… I saw you in that… and in there you had one piece where you were giving the most explicit detail of a lesbian encounter in bed. Its dirty stuff really. Did your mum and dad go to see that?
LL: I have to say that it was my… the best moment in my entire life when I came out from the first showing… the first public showing of that and having to do that piece which really is quite pornographic…
BE: It is.
LL: …and I’m pregnant – for goodness sake – and there’s my father standing proudly out the front… my father and my mother – and he was just pleased as punch with me. And it was the best moment of my life, I think?
BE: Wonderful. And its been lovely talking to you.
LL: Thank you