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AN INTERVIEW WITH HUDSON LEICK Exclusive to Whoosh!

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« on: September 23, 2020, 11:35:06 pm »

 AN INTERVIEW WITH HUDSON LEICK
Exclusive to Whoosh!
By Bret Ryan Rudnick
Copyright © 1997 held by author
5525 words


If you think the Callisto outfit is bad, try walking in5-inch heels!


Hudson Leick, looking good in whatever she's in.


    Author's Note: To say that Hudson Leick is "intense" would be like calling the ocean "wet" or a nighttime desert sky "starry". The word may be accurate, but it fails to do justice to the subject. Similarly, this interview will also fail to do the same. Hudson Leick is a very complex person, and I come to this conclusion not only from reading several other interviews in preparation for this one, but also from talking to those who know her. During the month of August 1997, I had the great good fortune to speak with Hudson Leick in a "mini-series" of telephone conversations, and I also had the singular pleasure of following up on those conversations in person at the Valley Forge Xena Convention on 4 October 1997. The pictures of Hudson Leick (non-Callisto) were taken by me at the convention. Details of that appearance (and more pictures) can be found in the "On the Road" section. But for this interview, I tried to concentrate on areas that I had not seen in other interviews to date, as well as attempt to obtain some information that Whoosh! readers in particular might find illuminating. You will have to judge for yourself whether or not that was successful. For my part, I am merely grateful to finally be able to speak with an actress whose work in general I admire, and who in particular plays one of the most fascinating characters on television I have ever seen.


    Detroit Convention (01-08)
    Stage Work (09-14)
    Adjusting to Filming Down Under (15-26)
    After The Game (27-32)
    Influences (33-36)
    Acting Experiences (37-42)
    Callisto (43-48)
    Upcoming Projects (49-50)
    Typecasting (51-52)
    Directors and Callisto (53-56)
    Getting the Role of Callisto (57-70)
    Revisiting the Character (70-88)
    New Zealand Weather (89-98)
    INTIMATE STRANGER (99-107)
    TEN LITTLE WARLORDS (108-116)
    SURPRISE (117-130)
    A NECESSARY EVIL (131-134)
    MATERNAL INSTINCTS (135-136)
    BITTER SUITE (137-142)
    Biography


An Interview With Hudson Leick


    Detroit Convention

    BRET RUDNICK:
    [01] You must still be rather jet-lagged. Didn't you just get back from a convention [Detroit Xena Convention, August 17, 1997]?

    HUDSON LEICK:
    [02] I did indeed! [sighs] Saturday was terrible! The convention was Sunday but on Saturday our plane was delayed five hours because of the bad weather. When we got to Detroit the rental car agencies were closed so we had to wait another hour and half and I didn't get to bed until five in the morning. It was an amazing day.

    RUDNICK:
    [03] I'll bet!

    LEICK:
    [04] You didn't need to hear all that, I'm sure.

    RUDNICK:
    [05] [laughs] As someone who has to fly much more often than I would like, I am deeply sympathetic, believe me! [Explains what Whoosh! is and what we do here.]

    LEICK:
    [06] I've heard of Whoosh! It's very popular, isn't it?

    RUDNICK:
    [07] I think we have been. We've been getting between 15,000 and 20,000 readers a month and the trend is upward. Those of us who work on the webzine really like the show and many who also like the show seem to like us as well.

    LEICK:
    [08] Great!



    Stage Work

    I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts...


    Each convention appearance is very much like a stage performance.


    RUDNICK:
    [09] I've noticed in following your career that from about 1994 onwards you have worked pretty much exclusively in film and television, but prior to that you did work on the stage.

    LEICK:
    [10] Oh, yes!

    RUDNICK:
    [11] Do you miss the stagework and the "immediacy" of reaction you might get from the audience or do convention appearances help with that?

    LEICK:
    [12] I have not done live stage for so long I have a definite fear of doing it. But I am definitely going to put myself back in class which gives you a similar feeling. Actually, classwork is a more intense feeling because other people are watching you more critically. You learn so much more when you are able to do that [live work]. You don't stop and start. In film and television, you have scenes. That is all you have, little bits of scene that rarely follow each other. In Xena they pretty much follow each other.

    RUDNICK:
    [13] Do they?

    LEICK:
    [14] Pretty much. Except we do the big fights at the very end. That way they don't wear us out or if we get hurt they can send us home after we're done. [both laugh]



    Adjusting to Filming Down Under

    Editors are just so darn *cute*! Makes me almost sorry whenI gut 'em!


    Same costume, but adjustments must always be made.


    RUDNICK:
    [15] From what I have heard, in talking to different people so far, it seems like everything is very well planned out and as soon as you get there they put you right to work.

    LEICK:
    [16] They do. They give you about a day's rest. You arrive in the morning. I have a fitting, always, the same d*mn outfit, that I am so bored with.

    RUDNICK:
    [17] [laughs] I take it in your new appearances they did not give you a costume change.

    LEICK:
    [18] [emphatically] No! [both laugh] Not yet. It's a great costume -- it's stylish and beautiful and N'gila [Dickerson, Costumer for XWP] is very talented. She knows that I'm just bored with wearing the same thing all the time. But my body changes, and they always have to adjust for that with the fitting. After the fitting I can rest for the remainder of the day. Around seven o'clock that night we have a read-through. God knows what time that is in L.A. because by then I am ready to crash. Really hard.

    RUDNICK:
    [19] By the end of your stay there you are probably just getting used to the time change and then you have to do it all over again.

    LEICK:
    [20] No, it's usually just those first two days. It wrecks you for a little while. That first day that you arrive is a killer. We were having a read-through at seven o'clock at night local time and it is three or four in the morning where you came from and you just want to be out heavy. But the next day is mine. So I can do anything or nothing.

    RUDNICK:
    [21] Do you find when you go down there [New Zealand] that you take any time to "play tourist" or do you just want to rest and get ready to do the work you have to do?

    LEICK:
    [22] It depends. Before my job, no, I just want to rest, especially those first two days. But on the weekends, after that, much of the time I'll bring my best friend, her name is Artemis. Or I'll bring my boyfriend, Adam, with me. We'll take weekends off and we'll go driving.

    RUDNICK:
    [23] So they don't work you through the weekend?

    LEICK:
    [24] No, no. Sometimes we work Saturdays, but Sundays we don't. Adam and I traveled all throughout the North Island last time. This was after we were done shooting actually. Next time we're going to go to the South Island.

    RUDNICK:
    [25] [thinking of the last Callisto appearance and the lava] Stay away from the volcano!

    LEICK:
    [26] [laughs]



    After the Game

    RUDNICK:
    [27] Did you make a film in Brazil awhile back? Or am I just confused.

    LEICK:
    [28] [thinks] You're confused.

    RUDNICK:
    [29] The only other film I know of that you made was After the Game (1997) which was going to be released one of these days.

    LEICK:
    [30] I don't know when that will ever be released. No, wait, I know what you mean. After the Game was released in Brazil. You are correct in some of your --

    RUDNICK:
    [31] Well, some of the research has worked out anyway. [both laugh] So the film was released there, but not made there.

    LEICK:
    [32] It was made here and they sold it at Cannes, the film festival, to some people in Brazil. That's what happened.



    Influences

    For my next number, here's something I call 'Scream AlongWith Me!'


    Hudson's artistic tastes are varied and eclectic.


    RUDNICK:
    [33] Who were some of your influences and people you admire, who you liked growing up and learning your craft, and who were people you would like to work with but haven't had a chance to yet.

    LEICK:
    [34] There are so many people that I'd like to work with that I haven't had a chance to. I was just talking about this with my friend. The person I really admire, and I don't know as much about her as I'd like to, is not even an actress. It's Sinead O'Connor.

    [35] She is amazing. She's a phenomenal woman, just by her music. If you listen to her early music she's very angry but if you listen to her music now you can hear she's taken all her power and her anger and turned it around. What I get from her music now is that she's very nurturing, yet she's a very strong and fierce woman still. That is amazing.

    RUDNICK:
    [36] You mentioned that there were a number of people that you'd like to work with that you haven't had a chance to yet...



    Acting Experiences

    LEICK:
    [37] I had an audition with John Voigt. I didn't get the job. It was one of the best acting experiences I have ever had, without a doubt. It didn't even hurt that I didn't get the job, because that was a person I wanted to work with so badly. He and Brian James are just two of the most incredible actors I have ever got the chance to even dabble with. When you can work with an actor like that it's really almost spiritual. They're so open with you -- you can play or do anything you want. [with a smile in her voice]

    [38] I cannot explain it, this audition with John Voigt. I was like a little kid, I was gushing. I could not stop gushing. It was just incredible. I didn't get the part because I was too young -- I was supposed to play his girlfriend.

    RUDNICK:
    [39] So this was like some sort of ethereal or out-of-body experience?

    LEICK:
    [40] Absolutely. Well, not out of body because you're still in your body, but with more presence.

    RUDNICK:
    [41] Things just seem sharper and clearer?

    LEICK:
    [42] I'd say that. And there's somebody else giving you energy, and playing with you, and really open as a creative being, with you. Which is hard to do. It's hard to open yourself up because life is scary. But when you can, it's incredible to be around.



    Callisto

    RUDNICK:
    [43] Along that theme of life being scary, or certainly sometimes unpleasant, I was reading some things about your early years and found myself feeling badly when I read about how people gave you a hard time in your high school years and such. Yet your strong personality carried you through. Do you find yourself reaching inside to those earlier years and experiences when you're playing such an intense part like Callisto?

    LEICK:
    [44] Yes, but I don't think it's really conscious. I don't think "OK, I'm in high school and they're calling me 'Junk', bring up the emotions." It's more internal. If you've been through something very difficult, and I went through that for three years, it stays with you. It becomes a part of your defenses. I think Callisto has a lot to do with that. Callisto is probably like a 14-year-old, a really angry young woman. That's what she reminds me of. Not an adult. Not mature. But it definitely plays into it. It's not a constant thing where I think about it but I know it's there and I know where the anger is coming from.

    RUDNICK:
    [45] Callisto is certainly a popular character. The episodes of Xena that Callisto is in consistently rate the highest in terms of Nielsen measurements. Worldwide Callisto is certainly popular too. I got a note just the other day from someone in the United Kingdom who wanted me to specially mention that Callisto is a favourite character there.

    LEICK:
    [46] That's amazing. That's really flattering. If the show [Xena] is on and I happen to be watching television I'll see it, but I'm not a big television watcher.

    RUDNICK:
    [47] I've gotten that comment from many other people that I've spoken with.

    LEICK:
    [48] It's strange, because it's my business, and I probably should know my business better and watch it. I love Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1997-). I don't seek it out, but again, if it's on when I'm watching, I'll watch it. I really do love watching Xena, and it has nothing to do with me being on it. I would watch it. It's gotten better and better with time. It's darker and juicier -- it's good!



    Upcoming Projects

    RUDNICK:
    [49] What has your work schedule been like lately? I know you've been able to appear at some conventions, which fans really appreciate. Do you have any other projects going at the moment?

    LEICK:
    [50] I just auditioned for a really big movie. I don't know how it went. I'm in the process of changing agencies. Since I've changed and I have a manager now, things are happening so fast. Even when they weren't happening -- I didn't go on many auditions, which was really odd, because I can act. I have heat right now because of Callisto. If I get sent out and get callbacks, I'll get the job. But my agents weren't sending me out. I had talked to them, but I don't know what exactly happened. It just wasn't working out. Now that I'm with a manager, I'm getting sent out much more. So I think I'll be working more soon.



    Typecasting

    Charging extra for the 'Discovery' channel, eh? Take*that*!


    Could anyone *else* be Callisto?


    RUDNICK:
    [51] Do you worry about being typecast?

    LEICK:
    [52] No. Usually I play bad people anyway. I have for awhile. I don't think I'll be typecast as a psychotic. I'm not really worried about it. I think that the dark roles are easier for me to play. They're easier to access. They're less vulnerable. There's vulnerability in it, I think that's what makes it interesting. I feel safer, playing roles that are really defensive and angry. There's safety in it for me. Or crazy. Especially crazy.



    Directors and Callisto

    RUDNICK:
    [53] Do you find that you're minutely directed or are you allowed to find the character more or less on your own?

    LEICK:
    [54] [laughs slowly] I love your questions. They're so well put. For Callisto, I'm not really directed very much at all. Neither is Lucy. She knows her role. Same with Renee. We know the roles so well because after the characters were written, we made them into flesh. In the read-through, which is such a beautiful thing when Rob Tapert is there and the director is there, or if R.J. is there, if we don't feel our character would say something the way it's been written down, we can change it. You might have to fight for your point, but we can say "I don't think my character would say that." If it's not something that could roll off my tongue we all can work with it and try to figure out something else we could say. On the set, I can add things occasionally and make it more interesting, make it more mine. Especially when I'm taunting Xena.

    RUDNICK:
    [55] Is this something that varies from director to director?

    LEICK:
    [56] If I go to the director and say "I don't want to say this," he'll say "OK, what do you want to say, let's get someone on the horn. Let's talk to someone and see if it's OK for you to change it." They'll cover themselves too. But I've never been told "No, you can't say that," unless it's really drastic. T.J. [Scott] is amazing. He helps a lot.



    Getting the Role of Callisto

    It's my long killing thing.


    Maybe it's best she *didn't* have a sword at the audition.


    RUDNICK:
    [57] T.J. Scott directed the first two Callisto episodes, so there was some consistency there. But even going back a little farther, I remember talking to R.J. Stewart regarding your audition for the part and he said there was just no doubt about it, that you were the one for that role.

    LEICK:
    [58] [laughs]

    RUDNICK:
    [59] He said that it was a particularly good day for casting, but when you read for the part there was just no doubt about it. There was no question -- that was your part.

    LEICK:
    [60] [laughs] I love that. Did I tell you this story? I have told this story before.

    RUDNICK:
    [61] Please do, I'd appreciate hearing that.

    LEICK:
    [62] This is my version of what happened. [laughs]

    [63] I was going though a really hard time then, and I was in a bad mood, a foul mood, when I was auditioning. We were sitting in this cramped, tiny little office. I definitely get holier-than-thou sometimes. It's true -- it's unfortunate and it's ugly but it's true. [both laugh] I didn't like it.

    [64] There was a whole bunch of actresses in there and I didn't feel that we were respected enough, waiting in this little office. Everyone was talking really loud. We all had to go in and audition, and we needed to prepare but it wasn't quiet. All the production people were talking and it was noisy. That's annoying, when you've got to bring something in and try to center yourself in a roomful of other people. I remember really not liking that, sitting still and just emanating that. I didn't say anything, but all my energy was going in that direction.

    [65] By the time I got in, I was p*ss*d. I came in and there was a group of people. So many people. And they were like, "OK, let's go!" That's intimidating, when you walk into a group and you're going to audition and give something. I wanted to know who everyone was. There were about seventeen people there. Or maybe not, maybe it just seemed that way. Perhaps there were eleven. But there were a lot of people, and I went up to every single one of them and shook their hand and asked their name. All of them. And I think that impressed them and made them a little wary of me. [both laugh]

    [66] It wasn't very friendly, either. I said [abruptly] "Hello. What's your name." Then I auditioned. I had seen Hercules and how scantily clad the women were. I was not going in that direction. I wore a skirt down to my ankles and covered up every part of my body. I didn't do any action stuff. A lot of the women in the waiting room had little outfits on and they were supposed to do kicks or something. I didn't understand how you could possibly add kicks and flips and things during the audition. I mean, she's a psychopath, she's a psychopath, she's discussing something. She's not going to go into a rage and start kicking the air. It didn't seem appropriate. So I didn't, I just stayed still.

    RUDNICK:
    [67] You were in a cramped space for this?

    LEICK:
    [68] That was the waiting room. But it wasn't the space that annoyed me as much as it was what I thought was a lack of respect for the actresses as human beings. It was a "Yeah, yeah, yeah" kind of thing.

    RUDNICK:
    [69] "Next!"

    LEICK:
    [70] I'm sure they had their own things going on and were busy and frantic, and I understand that, but at the time I didn't like it. [laughs slowly while drawing breath] I didn't feel "honored". So I read the script, I read with the casting agent. They all kind of stared at me after I was done. It was very quiet.

    The way I read was very quiet and very low and very twisted. They said "Can you...do anything?" I had a long skirt on, and I said "What do you mean?" They said "Can you kick or do anything like that?" I said "Yeah!" I did a high kick and I threw a prop chakram and I left and said goodbye to everyone. I heard R.J. say "She is so scary! That is such a weirdo. She is so, so scary." Then Rob said "Then she should get it!" [both laugh] They loved that! It felt so great. That's courageous [of them] because I could have been, literally, a big weirdo. And that would not be fun to work with.



    Revisiting the Character

    There'll be a new vacancy on my staff. Soon.


    Theodorus lasted almost three episodes, which considering Callisto's record, isn't all that bad.


    RUDNICK:
    [71] At the time, when you did that episode, which was near the end of the first season, did you have any idea you'd be coming back?

    LEICK:
    [72] I knew that it had options to be more, but the truth of it is I had never seen Xena, and I knew it was a spinoff of Hercules , but I really wanted to go to New Zealand. That's what drew me there. I wanted to travel. I love traveling. When my agent called and told me about the job he also said it was a bad character, which I liked, and that it might be recurring. All of that seemed appealing. But then he said "It's in New Zealand," and went "I'm there!" I remember walking the dogs that morning and saying "Please can I have this role? Please, please, please, please can I have it?"

    RUDNICK:
    [73] There's no question that after that episode [CALLISTO (#22)] first aired, it generated more discussion about a "new" character [besides Xena and Gabrielle] than any other single character before or since. People can get into some really intense discussions about the character.

    LEICK:
    [74] How? I'm not aware of that, actually. Where are they at?

    RUDNICK:
    [75] [thinks] How can I put this...

    LEICK:
    [76] No, say it!

    RUDNICK:
    [77] [thinks again] There are some people who think that Callisto may be "right" in doing what she does. Some people would side with Callisto against Xena in thinking that Callisto was correct in doing what she does. As opposed to R.J. Stewart's interpretation -- and we had an interesting chat about this -- he said he wouldn't go that far, that Callisto was certainly evil and has a reason for being the way she is, but that she is not good. She's definitely not good.

    LEICK:
    [78] [laughs] Not someone to emulate.

    RUDNICK:
    [79] Not someone you want to take home to dinner--

    LEICK:
    [80] No.

    RUDNICK:
    [81] --at least not with any hope of anyone leaving the table alive.

    LEICK:
    [82] [laughs]

    RUDNICK:
    [83] But some people just don't make that connection. Not in many cases, but in some cases.

    LEICK:
    [84] They feel sorry for her. They think she's righteous,

    RUDNICK:
    [85] It's not that she doesn't have motivation--

    LEICK:
    [86] Which makes it wonderful for me! She's not a boring bad guy.

    Callisto! If you kill Perdicas, um, many people will be,sorta upset, a little...


    Gabrielle comes up one husband short in RETURN OF CALLISTO.


    RUDNICK:
    [87] When you came back to do RETURN OF CALLISTO (#29) that looked like a pretty intense episode for you. It was, even more than CALLISTO (#22) perhaps, pretty much non-stop action, especially during the last segment.

    LEICK:
    [88] I was really sick during that. I was not well. I was very ill, and I lost a lot of weight. That was a very hard time. Yes, there was a lot going on. There was a lot of physicality. But I love physicality. The thing I don't like is being cold. I love being physical.



    New Zealand Weather

    RUDNICK:
    [89] I've heard that comment from a number of people, that sometimes it just doesn't get very warm. I hear it can get pretty steamy in the summertime.

    LEICK:
    [90] Oh, it does! Especially in February, it bakes you. It's like nothing I've ever experienced. You feel like you're in a microwave, or what I could imagine being in a microwave is like.

    RUDNICK:
    [91] Is it a very humid kind of heat?

    LEICK:
    [92] No, they say the ozone hole is right above New Zealand. So it's a burning feeling. You can feel yourself cooking, that's what it feels like. In the winter time, because there's not much to my outfit, it's freezing.

    RUDNICK:
    [93] I've heard Lucy Lawless make the comment that sometimes even when it's cold they'll have her go underwater and such.

    LEICK:
    [94] I haven't done that yet! Lucy is so much braver than I am with cold, she really is. I'm kind of chicken-boned in that I don't have a lot of flesh on me.

    RUDNICK:
    [95] You feel it a lot more readily then.

    LEICK:
    [96] [a smile in her voice] Yes, it goes right through me. They have pictures of me with robes and robes wrapped around me, and "hotties", hot water bottles. They know. Everybody there knows "Hudson's here, get the hottie!"

    RUDNICK:
    [97] [laughs]

    LEICK:
    [98] Which is lovely, I love that. They're so good to me.



    INTIMATE STRANGER

    Stay, Joxer! Good boy!


    Hudson Leick is imitating Xena in Callisto's body
    in INTIMATE STRANGER (#31).


    RUDNICK:
    [99] And after that intense RETURN OF CALLISTO (#29) episode, Lucy had her accident and production was put into some turmoil, let alone concern for Lucy herself. Did they call you back right away?

    LEICK:
    [100] No, that's where most people get confused. I did that right after, I didn't even leave.

    RUDNICK:
    [101] So you filmed INTIMATE STRANGER (#31) right after RETURN OF CALLISTO (#29).

    LEICK:
    [102] That's true.

    RUDNICK:
    [103] Gary Jones took over and directed that one.

    LEICK:
    [104] Yes.

    RUDNICK:
    [105] Was that a smooth transition, going from two episodes directed by T.J. Scott? Was there a noticeable difference in direction?

    LEICK:
    [106] There was a difference. T.J. is an ex-stuntie himself. He gets physically involved. He will run around the set and do everybody's part. It is fascinating to watch, he has so much energy. I can't remember Gary all that well. He liked barbecued chicken, that seems to be what I remember most. I think he had a harder time directing than T.J. Scott did. I don't know why, I don't remember.

    [107] Sometimes it's difficult, and I don't think it has to do with the directors necessarily. It's difficult with a transition sometimes to other people as well. Everyone down there is used to working with each other. A director coming in is basically like getting a new boss every week, and I think sometimes that's difficult to get used to, because they're so different. Everybody works so differently.



    TEN LITTLE WARLORDS

    A 'natural' blonde? What does *that*mean?


    Gabrielle has to be convinced it's Xena, not Callisto in the opening scene
    of TEN LITTLE WARLORDS (#32).


    RUDNICK:
    [108] Next you did, TEN LITTLE WARLORDS (#32). I've read elsewhere how you really hated playing Xena as opposed to Callisto, but I have to tell you that you did an absolutely fabulous job.

    LEICK:
    [109] Oh, thank you so much!

    RUDNICK:
    [110] It's amazing. In TEN LITTLE WARLORDS (#32) especially, there's this one scene that lasts only a second, but you put your hand on Gabrielle when she asks if it's really you and you say "Yeah!"

    LEICK:
    [111] [laughs]

    RUDNICK:
    [112] It was just as if Lucy Lawless would do it, and it was wonderful to see.

    LEICK:
    [113] Thank you! Renee helped me a lot with that. I would go, "How would she do it?" And Renee would do that with me. She'd put her hand on me and press down and say "This is how she would do it. She would react like this." So I got a lot of help from other people.

    RUDNICK:
    [114] Was that a call you got in the middle of the night that said "Come down, we need your help?"

    LEICK:
    [115] Basically. They said "You need to come down in seven days. Lucy's been in an accident. You need to play her. Would you do it?"

    [116] My first reaction was "Noooo!! No, please don't make me do it!" Because it's Lucy! It's her role! Everyone watches the show to watch Lucy! Not Hudson playing Xena! I was aware of that too, but it was good to be of service. I knew they were in a tough spot. When I say I don't like playing that role -- and I want to make this very clear -- it has nothing to do with anybody.



    SURPRISE

    And another thing! Your Kull moviesucked!


    Callisto gives Herc a piece of her mind
    in SURPRISE (#H49/312).


    RUDNICK:
    [117] When you did the Hercules crossover SURPRISE (#H49), that was a "surprise" for many fans who were glad to see Callisto again. That certainly looked like "Classic Callisto" when you did that episode, and the way you played off Kevin Sorbo was great.

    LEICK:
    [118] Thank you! I had a hard time with that.

    RUDNICK:
    [119] Did you?

    LEICK:
    [120] Yes, it was interesting to play against a man instead of a woman.

    RUDNICK:
    [121] I have heard stories, too, that the look and feel on the set of Xena is different from that of Hercules .

    LEICK:
    [122] Yep!

    RUDNICK:
    [123] What's really funny is that women who work on both sets say they're very different, but when I ask the same question of the men, they say "I don't notice any difference."

    LEICK:
    [124] [laughs] That's 'cause they're men and they're not wearing some skimpy little outfit! [both laugh] It's definitely more of a boys' club on Hercules , in spite of my yelling "I don't like this! I don't approve!" Kevin is lovely though. The chemistry I have with Lucy is actually sexier. I work off of Lucy very easily, it's like we're dancing. With Kevin, I felt like I didn't know what I could do to get his attention. Everything I did, as Callisto, I wanted a reaction from him. It was really frustrating, because he didn't give me that. It's funny, because when I watch the show, I'm really "out there". I yell a lot and hiss.

    RUDNICK:
    [125] But I think that's really "Classic Callisto". I've had a number of people tell me they enjoyed that episode precisely because of the way you played it. And it's a very interesting comment you make about getting the actor's attention. I mean, here's Hercules, this big demigod, and he's a friend of Xena's too, which doesn't help him in her eyes.

    LEICK:
    [126] Right.

    RUDNICK:
    [127] There's Callisto, wanting to make her mark.

    LEICK:
    [128] Not only that, but he tried to save her, so it was kind of like the little brat going "Hey! C'mon! What's wrong with me, aren't I bad enough?" [both laugh] He changed lines, too.

    RUDNICK:
    [129] Really? How so?

    LEICK:
    [130] My character was written so sassy that I think Kevin felt it took away from the hero. There's a point where I'm supposed to whack him, and he wouldn't let me do it. He said "Oh, come on, I'd catch her." Which is -- I don't know, I think it would be far more interesting if he had let that go. There would be more interaction. Not that I don't think Hercules could stop her from bapping him, but just for the drama. I don't think Kevin wanted an opponent too equal to him. But that's true, and it's also quite gentle the way I said it. [smile in her voice]



    A NECESSARY EVIL

    Think it'll leave a mark?


    Callisto tortures Gabrielle (psychologically)
    in A NECESSARY EVIL (#38).


    RUDNICK:
    [131] In the last episode people have seen you in, A NECESSARY EVIL (#38), Mark Beasely was the director, coincidentally enough is the director for the episode you recently shot, MATERNAL INSTINCTS. But in NECESSARY EVIL, there is that one scene at the campfire, where you and Renee have a dialogue that goes back and forth. Robert Field told me he cut that quite deliberately, and you made the comment that you felt it was like "the ticking of a clock".

    LEICK:
    [132] It was a great scene. Renee worked that scene so well, too.

    RUDNICK:
    [133] I found myself, the first time I watched that, literally holding my breath as the dialogue was going back and forth between you and Renee.

    LEICK:
    [134] Rob Field is amazing. He is so good at what he does.



    MATERNAL INSTINCTS

    RUDNICK:
    [135] I know you're pressed for time at the moment. Do you have anything you want to say quickly about MATERNAL INSTINCTS coming up, and/or how you feel the character of Callisto is evolving?

    LEICK:
    [136] I found MATERNAL INSTINCTS difficult to do. I think the episode is phenomenal. It's really good. It's not my episode, I'm like a sidebar. But that's not why I found it difficult. I have to bow down a little bit, and that was hard to do as Callisto. It's not something you can change with a word change. I did bring it up, though. Callisto is a god, and she doesn't really have much reverence for anything. She doesn't care, and she's not afraid to die. It was hard for me to find that connection and make it believable. But the episode as a whole is spectacular.



    BITTER SUITE

    RUDNICK:
    [137] You also get to sing in a new episode, BITTER SUITE.

    LEICK:
    [138] Very, very scary.

    RUDNICK:
    [139] But something definitely to look forward to. Again, I know you're pressed for time, so let me say thank you very, very much for your time. I hope we can follow up again later in the season.

    LEICK:
    [140] You're very welcome.

    RUDNICK:
    [141] Best of luck!

    LEICK:
    [142] You too!

    Duhya, duhya, that's all folks!


    Hudson Leick waving good-bye to her fans at the Valley Forge XENA Convention, October 4, 1997



    Biography

    Bret Bret Ryan Rudnick
    WHOOSH! Token Guy Who Lifts the Heavy Stuff
    IAXS Executive Committee
    "You can't be too rich or have too many Amazons."
    When he's not working for a big Science/Engineering company that (amongst other things) designs, builds, launches, and operates exploratory spacecraft, Bret writes fantasy novels and short stories. Bret is a man of many skills, having also previously been an Olympic-qualified archer, a drummer in the Butch Grinder Band, a news reader for Public Television Station KVCR, and a Deputy Sheriff for the County of San Bernardino, California. He also collects Japanese swords, armour , and art. He and his dog hunt down stray Bacchae in New England.
    Favorite XWP episode: HOOVES AND HARLOTS (#10), WARRIOR... PRINCESS... TRAMP (#30), and THE QUEST (#37)
    Favorite XWP line: Xena: "What's this?" Gabrielle: "I'm... an amazon princess?" Xena (rolls eyes): "Great." HOOVES AND HARLOTS (#10); Xena after being goosed by Joxer : "Are you suicidal?" WARRIOR...PRINCESS...TRAMP (#30); Joxer: "Ha. Ha." A COMEDY OF EROS (#46); Autolycus: "I'm not just leering at scantily clad women, you know, I'm working!" THE QUEST (#37)
    First episode seen: CRADLE OF HOPE (#04)
    Least favorite episode: GIANT KILLER (#27)

http://www.whoosh.org/issue14/ileick2.html#callisto
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« Reply #1 on: September 23, 2020, 11:35:40 pm »

Hudson Leick:
Mad, Mad Love


by Michelle Erica Green

Hudson Leick sounds just enough like Callisto, Xena's immortal nemesis, to give one chills, even over the telephone. "I love being a villain," she cackles. "It's like a little kid's dream. All of my demons balled up, screaming...I am a three-year-old throwing a fit, and everyone's saying, 'Yeah!'"

Callisto, the cunning, ruthless neophyte goddess who was last seen trapped in a lava pit, will be back on Xena: Warrior Princess during the new season. Leick, who says the part is her favorite ever, couldn't be happier than being the bad girl.

"It's not the power, it's the safety," explains the 28-year-old actress. "If you're bad, you expect everyone to think you are bad, and that's safe. You also have more range of doing whatever you want. I think I have a lot of rage that I can access. It feels real good to get it out, and it is safe--the swords aren't real, I am not going to hurt anyone but myself."

"But if feels absolutely delicious, to run around and play a freak and to be paid for it!" laughs Leick (pronounced like "like").

A former model who studied acting in New York, Leick shares Callisto's gleeful sense of humor, but not her ego. Unpretentious and self-depracating, the actress sounds grateful to be on Xena and has no designs on stealing the spotlight from the main characters - at least, not on a regular basis. "Having Callisto there all the time would be so boring," she points out. "It would be, like, 'Just kill her.' I think Callisto is wonderful when she just comes in now and then."

Callisto is a bit of an enigma. The victim of tragedy at the hands of Xena before the warrior princess became a force for good, Callisto has spent her life in pursuit of revenge. She's violent and unstable, claiming to have no feelings beyond the desire for power and vengeance, but Callisto has shown hints of a vulnerable side, especially when Xena confessed her crimes.

"The death of her family [at Xena's hands, years earlier] has split her, and it is something, like a trigger split in her, and so she must live out carnage to be safe," she explains. But Leick is not interested in seeing Callisto turn to good, as Xena did. "Maybe she could reform and still be manic, really manic. And nobody's perfect, so maybe she could reform and still kill people a little bit on the side!" the actress laughs. "I think she has been in the past such a powerful nemesis for Xena, and [the writers] want that, because that gives Xena a purpose as well, that it wouldn't make much sense if they reformed her, for the show."

One of the hardest challenges for the actress came when Xena and Callisto switched bodies, and Leick played Xena, while Lucy Lawless, whom millions recognize as Xena, played Callisto. "That was a lot of pressure because it is her show - she is the lead. The audience wants to see Lucy Lawless, not Hudson Leick, as Xena, and I was aware of that," Leick notes. "It's not my character, not even my idea of what the character would be like - it's somebody else's portrayal of the character, so I have to copy that and stay true to that."

Lawless and Leick studied one another so that they could play one another's characters convincingly. "We followed each other around, we listened to each other. We would both say lines like how I would say it, like, "Xeeennna," and she would go, "Xeeennna." Discovering each other and trying to copy each other was a lot of fun."

Doing it before the cameras, however, "was a completely different matter." Leick found it much easier to play Xena when her co-star was on the set than when Lawless fractured her hip and had to miss shooting. "There is not a lot of creativity," Leick says of her attempts to imitate Lawless' Xena. "I didn't have the freedom to do the things that I wanted to do; everything I was doing was very planned."

Leick says she has the more fun sparring with Xena than emulating her, anyway. She thinks Callisto has a playful side which Xena brings out. "They are playing together," she points out, noting that Callisto wants attention from Xena more than anything: "[Then] she feels cared about." Callisto finds Xena's sidekick Gabrielle humorous, no more than a minor annoyance - though "of course, she would kill Gabrielle!"

Surprised by the question of whether her character is a pathological liar, despite Callisto's many broken promises and betrayed allegiances, the actress says she thinks Callisto is pretty honest about herself. "Of course I'm going to change allegiance, that doesn't seem like such a lie," she giggles. Then she adds, more seriously, "She assumes that Xena knows her character, and if she can screw Xena, then she is going to." Asked how she feels about the character's power, Leick says, "I see her as very strong and very weak. And I see her as very fragile...I think that is why she is so fierce, and angry, and harsh, because she is so fragile."

Leick keeps herself much more grounded than Callisto, whom she labels "a madwoman...I think that she is very unstable, putting is gently!" The Ohio native says that she craves structure in her own life. "I've been a shut-in for the last three years. I mean, I go to yoga, I go to therapy, I hang out with my friends and my boyfriend," she reports, claiming that her days "are packed."

Having completed a couple of yet-to-be-released movies and several televised episodes of Touched By An Angel, on which she played a sweet angel named Celeste, she is currently auditioning for new projects. "They pulled me back on the second [episode]", she complains of Touched By An Angel. Though she doubts she will be returning to that series, she enjoyed playing "ditzy."

"It just seems boring without the character to it...I think it would get better and better the more I did it, it was so drastic from anything I've ever done. And it was fun, because it was different."

The sister of an ardent Star Trek fan, Leick auditioned for the coveted role of Seven of Nine, the new Borg character on Voyager. "I didn't have my heart in it," she confesses of the audition, which she says she went to mostly for her sister. She would prefer to play a Q on Star Trek - "they're not gods, but they are omnipotent."

Callisto has been a god since she consumed ambrosia during her last televised appearance, and Leick has found herself treated as something like a demigod by ardent Xena followers. She sounds both awed and intimidated by the show's popularity. "It is very surreal. I don't think that I grasp it...it just seems very outside myself." While she finds it "juicy and delicious" that people are interested in her and like the character so much, she doesn't want to "start buying into it too much--then when they decide they don't like the character, I am going to go just as far down."

Concerned that fans can be fickle because "we're all fickle," the performer frets that she has no control over whether or not people will gravitate toward the character. "Like Joxer - I think there were some problems. People didn't like his character for a while," she recalls. "And Ted Raimi is an amazing actor. You know, you don't know what people are going to take to or take offense to."

Asked whether she thinks the unpopularity of Joxer might have to do with a sense that his very presence might be a heterosexist network ploy - a response to growing awareness of the show's lesbian subtext, and the desire to have a male regular to balance that - Leick is quick to jump to the producers' defense.

"I don't think that Joxer was thrown in there to prove that Xena is not gay, because that has nothing to do with her relationship with Gabrielle. Nothing...Joxer is like a moron on the side," she insists. "I know Rob Packard, and I don't think he is homophobic at all - and I love the fact that there are so many innuendoes!"

Does Leick play up the sexual tension between Callisto and Xena? "Oh, yeah!" she exclaims enthusiastically. "I love that - it makes it so much more exciting for me. Lucy will say, okay, let's flirt. That's what we do. It is just a big flirt. It's seduction, except it is life or death. It's exciting, it's fun."

Leick does not, however, spend much time reading the newsgroups or web pages about the show. "I don't use a computer - I don't even know how to turn the damn thing on," she admits, confessing that when she got depressed a few months ago, she asked her boyfriend to find some internet feedback to bolster her ego. "I would read and read--and it doesn't do anything for you when you are depressed, because no one is saying anything that will fill you up. It can't make you feel better--well, other people can't do that even if they know you, which even makes it more sad."

Conventions are also a mixed blessing. "It is delightful but very draining [to attend a convention]. I keep giving myself away." While she enjoys the interaction with the audience, she finds herself exhausted afterwards - "I don't get out of bed the next day after a convention." It's hard, Leick says, to find a balance between being herself and performing for an audience. "They want to see Callisto, but they want her accessible, they don't want Hudson Leick," she worries. " Which is funny because the people are so warm to me. They are amazingly warm, and the character is, well... you would think that people would not be warm to the character. Little girls are afraid of me when they come up on stage."

Does Leick like that power? Is fame something she actively seeks? "I would like to break into features," she agrees. "But I am really afraid of it as well, and TV seems safer to me. When I think about being a giant movie star, because sometimes I will go in that direction, I want to be Sharon Stone, I want to be huge, not as an actress but as an icon, it is totally my ego--I think that scares the **** out of me. I don't know if I want that. I can't imagine doing that."

What drew her to performing? "When I was little I wanted to be Cher," Leick laughs, warning that she can't sing, but she loves Cher's long hair and fancy clothes. Leick's long-time interest in psychology and meditation led her to take college philosophy courses, but they didn't hold her interest. Acting class did. "And even before that, I think I knew I would be an actress. I don't know why," she notes.

Though she has been an actress for almost ten years, Leick says that she doesn't know nearly enough about her craft - "I have so much to learn." When she studied at the prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse, the training lasted all day, from nine to six, for two years. Yet Leick learned as much from watching movies consistently. "I would study and study them, I thrived on it," she says.

Is she bothered by the limited roles for women in mainstream Hollywood films? The actress says that the issue is only now beginning to affect her personally, since Xena is just beginning to open doors for her. She has a new agent and manager, and hopes to start working on bigger projects.

"They have a lot of sexism in Hollywood," she agrees. "You'll see an action-adventure movie and they don't know what to do with the woman. The woman has no direction, I don't even know why she is there. What is her point? I don't mean like Sandra Bullock on the bus [in Speed], where it's about her. I mean the babe that sleeps with him," whichever "him" is the hero of a film.

Though she worked in Europe as a model, Leick groans that she was "terrible." Informed that she does not look particularly diminutive on Xena next to Lucy Lawless, she laughs, "I don't have a little spirit - I think when people see me in real life, they realize how little I am. Because I don't come across as little if you know me. I am not little!"

All in all, Leick sounds very happy with where she is in life and where Callisto is going. "I really have a love for the people I work with," she says over and over. " I really like the whole experience. No one has an attitude. Everyone gets along, very professional and kind. It's the best crew I've ever worked with." Her only complaint? Having her stomach bared on days when it's cold.

But Callisto's costumes seem to be the only drawback in a diabolically fun character played by a woman who seems much the same.


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