Xena: Warrior Nutballs

This week we're extending our whānau again! 💜🌿Shell and Lou are donning our fedoras 🤠, dusting off our typewriters 📝, and heading into the Xena: Warrior Princess writers' room with one of the most influential creative forces behind the show ✨ Steven L. Sears ✨

 

As a writer and producer on Xena, Steven helped shape some of the series' most iconic stories, shaping Gabrielle’s hero's journey, and contributing to 100 episodes! ⚔️📜❤️

 

Join us as we talk all things Xena ⚔️🏹 from the non-negotiables the writers had to navigate for her character ✍️✨, to the risks he was willing to take in the scripts, knowing he had a world-class crew of Kiwis and Aussies down in Aotearoa New Zealand ready to bring it all to life 🎬🌟

 

Steven has long been a friend and ally to the LGBTQIA+ community, and it was an absolute privilege to welcome him into the Xena: Warrior Nutballs whānau. 💜⚔️

 

Penny from Xenite Retreat also cameos - giving us the low down on what Steven is REALLY like…AKA he is a bloody legend!

 

🎧 Listen now wherever you get your podcasts!

 

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✨ Follow Steven L. Sears
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/steven.l.sears
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fsuwriter/
🌐 www.stevenlsears.com

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This week Lou and Shell are joined by the amazing Kiwi, Sandi Rayner 🐎🌟 We talk about her time as riding double for Lucy Lawless and Horse Wrangler on Xena: Warrior Princess.

 

Before CGI, before green screens, and before technology could solve every problem, there were talented people like Sandi behind the scenes working with incredible horses, and a whole lot of Kiwi ingenuity to bring us Xena! 🐴⚔️💪✨

 

In fact, Sandi is the very first Xena we see in the series 👀⚔️, riding Argo across our screens in full leathers before we ever lay eyes on Lucy Lawless!🖤 

 

She talks about the enormous generosity of Lucy Lawless who personally paid for Tilly, her main riding horse in the show, and gave her to Sandi, to ensure Tilly had the best life, living out her days after the show with Sandi. 💖  

 

This kōrero is a celebration of Kiwi hard yakka, creativity, and the can-do attitude that made the impossible possible 🛠️✨💪. Expect horses 🐴🐴🐴, stunts 🤯⚔️, laughs 😆, and plenty of appreciation for the incredible whānau who helped create the Xena-verse 🌍⚔️❤️.

 

➡️ Follow and support Sandi’s work caring for animals in Aotearoa New Zealand: https://www.facebook.com/LittleVillageSanctuary/ 

 

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This week Lou and Shell are joined by the wildly talented Joel Tobeck, yes whānau, that chaos gremlin you love to hate (but MAINLY love) 😈🔥🤪👺

 

You’ll know him as Deimos and Lucifer in Xena: Warrior Princess, but he’s known in the wider Xena-verse as Strife from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Young Hercules, serving pure foolishness with a smirk 😏😉

 

Xenites might even recognise him from the Aotearoa short film 1996 “Peach” where he starred alongside Lucy Lawless - OG’s we’re looooooking at you here! 🍑 Link below ⬇️

 

But at the heart of this episode is something really special, Joel kōrero’s (talks) about his close friendship with the late, great Kevin Smith, AKA Ares🖤⚔️ sharing personal stories, behind-the-scenes memories, and the kind of moments that remind you just how much love and camaraderie lived within the Xenaverse whānau 🫶

 

AND! Lou fizzes over as she gets to talk about his time acting in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King turn as Guritz, that deeply unsettling orc 👀🗡️💍🧝🧙⛰️

 

It’s wholesome and heartfelt 🥹 but of course with our usual unapologetic fan girl glee!!

 

Enjoy Nutballs, this is a goodie.  

 

Show notes:

 

📸 Follow Joel on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joeltobeck/ 

 

📺Watch “Peach” on NZ on Screen: https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/peach-1995 

 

🎙️Editing of interview by Michael Allan

 

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*Coo! Coo! Amazons, attack!* This week Lou and Shell welcome the incredible Danielle Cormack into the whānau! The Kiwi legend who brought the stoic, fiercely loyal, and beloved Amazon Queen Ephiny to life 👑⚔️🐴 

 

Long before she became television royalty as Bea Smith in Wentworth, Danielle was ruling over the Amazon’s in Xena: Warrior Princess. In this kōrero, we talk about the REAL stuff - giving birth to centaurs 🤰🐎, arrows piercing boobs 🏹🍈🍈, and what it's like to see Lucy Lawless fully suited up as Xena 🤔

 

Her reaction? 

 

"HOT!"🔥 

 

From behind-the-scenes stories to reflections on a career which has made her a true Kiwi icon and how her time on Xena: Warrior Princess had a hand in this. 

 

This conversation is everything Danielle is herself: warm, generous, funny, and full of aroha.

 

Trust us you won't want to miss this one. ❤️⚔️🌿

 

📸 Follow Danielle on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_daniellecormack_/ 

 

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This week Lou and Shell are catching up with the number one warlord, King of the Horde - Jay Laga’aia AKA the delightfully dark Draco! 🎶 😏⚔️

 

Jay, the iconic Kiwi-Aussie, takes us right back to “Sins of the Past” (S01E01), sharing what it was like stepping into the Xenaverse as the very first villain, including the very moment he saw Lucy Lawless in full Xena glory and knew this show was something special 😳🖤

 

We get a behind-the-scenes story from “A Comedy of Eros” (S02E22) 💋🏹 about an unfortunate fake beard and kiss situation 🤣 and we revisit his memories of “Lyre, Lyre, Hearts on Fire” (S5E10) 🎸🔥 where Jay gives that iconic heavy metal mash up of “Always Something There to Remind Me”⚡🎶🖤

 

This one is FULL of Xenaverse magic - just the way we like it ⚔️🖤✨

 

Follow Jay Laga’aia on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaylagaaia/

 

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