Q&A: Lucy Lawless gets witchy on 'Salem'
TV's favorite warrior princess is feeling pretty witchy.
Lucy Lawless is bringing what she calls the "ultimate villain" to the supernatural drama Salem, premiering its second season Sunday (10 ET/PT) on WGN America. The New Zealand actress' Countess Marburg is part of an ancient line of German witches who come to 17th-century Massachusetts looking to take power away from magical up-and-comer Mary Sibley (Janet Montgomery).
Lawless has been on TV screens for a while, from the syndicated adventure series Xena: Warrior Princess — which turns 20 this year — to cable favorites Battlestar Galactica and Spartacus: Blood and Sand. But one recent Salem scene she filmed in Shreveport, La., is the craziest thing she's ever filmed.
"You may be turning someone on a spit with an apple in their mouth and basting them with butter, with absolutely no surprise whatsoever," Lawless says. "I now find myself playing someone who is basically a female Dracula."
Before she heads back to her home country to begin work on Starz's upcoming Ash vs. Evil Dead — the next chapter of the horror franchise co-created by Lawless' husband Rob Tapert — the actress checked in from Salem's Louisiana set:
Q. What's your favorite part of Shreveport?
A. Truthfully? I have this habit of any town I go to, especially if I don't know people at first, I go to the courthouse and snuggle up to the bailiff and find out what cases are going on. If I get a day off, I will be at the courthouse.
Q. Seen anything interesting so far?
A. They're all interesting. Even jury selection is fascinating. Not only the mechanics of picking a jury but you get to hear very intimate details of real people's lives and you realize how harder other people's realities are than yours. It brings you down to reality with a bump.
Q. It sounds like the countess would be found guilty of some bad stuff.
A. She's the most powerful villain I've ever played. We don't see her with wands or shooting lightning bolts out of her fingers, but she can move around in space and time and suck information out of people in tremendously unsettling ways. She's beyond toxic.
Q. What inspired her?
A. My father would tell the most incredibly intricate, horrendous horror tales as we would go on long drives to visit grandma, of entering Count Dracula's castle and how the walls will reconfigure behind you and you never go downstairs because you'll never come back up again. It's part of the history of my imagination. It's pretty natural for me to play this.
Q. Who are you playing in the Evil Dead show?
A. I'm in what Meryl Streep calls the "witchy-poo" phase of life, going straight from this very high-end drama in the horror genre to splatter comedy. I'm playing Ruby, who will no doubt be revealed as a bit of a crazy woman. She's stuck on Bruce Campbell for one reason or another — she wants to bring him to justice, but we'll see whether her motives are pure or not. Or if she's just bonkers.
Q. Were you an Evil Dead fan before meeting Rob?
A. No, I was disgusted by it. When I was 17, my very first boyfriend and I went to his friend's house and we were going to watch this "great" movie called Evil Dead. And when the tree starts to brutalize the young woman in the first five minutes, I got up and left. I was furious: "Whoever the filmmakers were are complete misogynists and they're sick!" I was full of young woman angst. Cut to 10 years later and I'm married to the guy.
Q. Did you tell him that story early on?
A. Yeah. Don't mess with karma, man.
Q. Xena was the first time you both worked together. Do you have some mementos around the house from your projects?
A. I've got swords. There's a Necronomicon or two somewhere. You name it. That big stupid dog that fits in the entry way to the house of Batiatus (from Spartacus), that's taking up a lot of room upstairs. But I'm not really a collector of stuff. Some things are just too cool to leave behind.
Q. Are your kids as big horror fans as you and Rob?
A. Two of them are — my daughter and my youngest son love it, the middle one will not watch anything. He does watch Game of Thrones but not absolute horror because it scares him too much. It's very wise — if you're a person who gets afraid, do not be watching horror because nothing should disturb your sleep. I'm the kind of person who can watch any old thing and not be bothered by it.