Standing almost 6′ tall, with her natural honey brown hair dyed black and exhibiting a distinctive flair for martial arts, Lucy Lawless went from being an obscure New Zealand actor to international fame as “Xena: Warrior Princess” (syndicated, 1995-2001).
As a college student, Lawless (born Lucy Ryan) decided she did not have the passion for opera she had thought and dropped out of school to travel throughout Europe. Joined by her high school sweetheart Garth Lawless, she landed in Australia where she found herself pregnant. After a hasty marriage, Lawless and the family (which now included a daughter) moved to British Columbia for a short spell so she could study acting. Returning to New Zealand, she landed bit parts in international co-productions. In 1994, Lawless made two guest appearances on the internationally syndicated series “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys”, as a renegade Amazon lieutenant and an unrepentant villain who gives birth to a baby centaur. American actress Vanessa Angel had been cast as Xena, the female counterpart to Hercules, in three episodes of the series. When she fell ill, the producers turned to Lawless to make additional “Hercules” guest shots. A three-part storyline turned into the “Xena: Warrior Princess” spin-off series, which became the international syndication hit of the 1995-96 season, and garnered a devoted fan following on par with fans of “Star Trek.” Lawless not only convincingly embodied Xena’s combative, tough-as-nails demeanor, she was also extremely potent in the series’ more emotional scenes and had fun with the are-they-or-aren’t-they? relationship between Xena and her sidekick Gabrielle (Renee O’Connor). Her marriage to Garth Lawless was a casualty of her burgeoning career, ending in divorce in 1995, but she married “Xena” producer Rob Tapert in 1998.
After the series went off the air in 2001, Lawless had a key role in a two-part episode of the even bigger cult hit “The X-Files” titled “Nothing Important Happened Today: Part 1 and Part 2,” playing a “super solider” who claims to have driven the missing Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) into hiding. Demonstrating a knack for snappy one-liners and physical comedy, Lawless was next seen in a cameo as a Punk Rock Girl commenting on “Spider-Man” in the superhero blockbuster (directed by her friend and “Xena” executive producer Sam Raimi) and as the sexy/scary dominatrix Madame Vandersexxx in the funny frat-mentality comedy “EuroTrip” (2004), bolstered by especially amusing guest stints on the sitcoms “Less Than Perfect” and “Two and a Half Men” in 2004 and 2005, respectively. She returned to genre fare with turns in the horror feature “Boogeyman” (2004) as the mother of a traumatized young man (Barry Watson), and the telepic “Locusts” (2005), a less-than-impressive insect invasion-fest that cast her as an investigator for the Department of Agriculture struggling to protect America from a deadly breed of bioengineered locusts. Much better was her recurring stint–complete with her natural accent–on SciFi’s high-quality reimagination of the cult series “Battlestar Galactica” as D’anna Biers, a journalist allowed unprecedented access to the starship who is also secretly a Cylon spy.
- Also Credited As:
Lucy Frances Ryan
- Born:
on 03/29/1968 in Mount Albert, Auckland, New Zealand
- Job Titles:
Actor, Picked grapes in Germany, Worked in gold mine in Austria sawing rocks
Family
- Brother: Daniel Ryan. younger
- Daughter: Daisy Lawless. born in July 1988
- Father: Frank Ryan. born in 1932; formerly served as mayor of Mount Albert, New Zealand
- Mother: Julie Ryan. born in 1937
- Son: Julius Robert Bay Tapert. born on October 16, 1999 in New Zealand
Significant Others
- Husband: Garth Lawless. high school sweetheart; married in 1987 when Lawless became pregnant; divorced June 1995
- Husband: Robert Tapert. born c. 1955; executive producer of “Xena”; married on March 28, 1998
Education
- Auckland University, Auckland, New Zealand, languages and opera, 1986-87
Milestones
- 1986 Traveled throughout Europe at age 18 (date approximate)
- 1987 Moved to Australia with then-boyfriend, later husband
- 1992 Acted in the film “Rainbow Warrior”
- 1994 Made two guest appearances on the syndicated series “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys”
- 1995 Starred in her own syndicated series, “Xena: Warrior Princess”
- 1997 Broadway debut as Rizzo in the revival of the musical “Grease”
- 2001 Made guest appearance in the two-part season opener of “The X-Files” (Fox)
- 2002 Cast as herself on an episode of “The Simpsons”
- 2003 Cast as Kathleen Clayton on the WB series “Tarzan”
- 2004 Appeared in the comedy “Eurotrip,” as Madam Van Der Sexxx
- 2005 Cast in the thriller “Boogeyman” opposite Barry Watson
- Born and raised in New Zealand
- Returned to New Zealand; appeared in small roles in numerous international co-productions
- Studied acting in Vancouver, Canada
