Since I was a child, I was very aware of my mortality. It's something about growing up Catholic. There is a prayer called the "Hail Mary" and in it you pray "Pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death", and every 6 year old was saying "Death, what do you mean, death? Oh My God, I'm gonna die!" So I have always been aware that, any minute, I am going to wake up and be 80 years old. So my ambition is to be a happy and mobile old lady, and I know that if I work year round and make a lot of money, that would not make me a happy old lady,if I had lost my family and my partner in the process. Work is the second most important thing to me.
You can't produce a character that makes people `feel' if it is not rooted in your own history. So, yes, of course, Xena must come out of me...but she's not the whole enchilada. People rarely see Xena in me when they first meet me. But she's in there! That's for sure!
(laughs)
And part of that, I realize, is the costume. When I put that costume on I become her. But this week, we are shooting a scene where Xena goes "undercover" as a beauty contestant, and flounces about looking *gorgeous* at every opportunity. I felt quite a different sort of person, and I realize that "clothes maketh the man" in some shallow sense.
And to them I say...THANK YOU.
So it fell to me because I was in New Zealand; they liked me, and although I wasn't a name in America, I would just have to do. And the rest is history!
And that is the last time I am *ever* going to tell that story! (laughs)
*Except* when it comes into my home.
I will not have anybody invade the four walls of my home: not phone calls, not faxes, not email. Anybody who is not invited, is not welcome. But, I have to say that people are pretty, bloody wonderful. I don't get too much unwarranted attention.
Thank you for inquiring.
I can't tell you anymore, or I'd have to kill you.
When you are doing yoga, you think about nothing other than your breath, and the simple nature of what you are doing, of the pose you are in. That is very meditative....which seems to straighten you out in a lot of ways.
*However* I haven't done much yoga in the last year and a half, though it stays with you in all sorts of ways. That value of simplicity has stayed with me.
Dr. Scott Peck. At the moment I am reading a Frederick Forsyth book, and I like him. Hmm, let me see what's by my bedside...
"Cowboys Are My Weakness" by Pam Houston,
"Voltaire Bastards" by John Ralston Saul.
"Voltaire's Bastards"
That's what by my bedside, as we speak.
And in my hand is a glass of New Zealand's most excellent Chardonnay....I'm lying, it's the most excellent Sauvignon Blanc. It's a sunny afternoon here in New Zealand. We have Christmas without snow. But it's a very hot, dry summer.
But I have to say, I do enjoy the big-spiritedness of Americans, and that I have enjoyed more hospitality at the hands of Americans than from any other country, and I've travelled quite extensively.
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