Adrienne Wilkinson (Eve/Livia) and
William Gregory Lee (Virgil)

This convention was the first time I'd seen Adrienne and Greg (I heard Adrienne call him 'Greg', I hope that's the right name to use for him). Both seemed very young and fiiine-looking - Greg reminded me of Brad Pitt - were relaxed in front of the crowd, and seemed eager to chat. Adrienne kicked things off by saying that they were both "all about questions" and went right to the audience microphones.

One of the very first questions was to ask Adrienne whether she enjoyed playing Eve or Livia more. Adrienne promptly answered Livia, and said that everyone she knew, including herself apparently, pretty much agreed that she did bad much better.

Greg was asked whatever happened to Virgil, a very good question. Greg declared that Virgil just disappeared - in real life, he was supposed to go back for more episodes, but he's had a continuing gig on Dark Angel that kept him from returning. Adrienne jumped in to note what a frequent occurrence this is on Xena: "We're just suddenly gone!"

Adrienne's all-time favorite scene was the You Are There cuss-out of Michael Hurst. She said the extras didn't know what was going to happen, and by the time the scene was done, even the crew members had their jaws on the floor and told her it had been cathartic for everyone. She credited Michael Hurst (who also directed the episode) as a genius: he capped off the whole scene by being willing to be the recipient of her stage punch even though a stunt person could have done it, and he sold every take by jumping into the air and hitting the ground.

Both Adrienne and Greg said that Xena was their first experience with stage fighting. And both said that Renee O'Connor, in particular, was incredibly helpful in teaching them the right moves for the fights. Adrienne pointed out that while Renee does the fight moves well, she's really exceptional at "the sell": making it look like she's been knocked back by a blow. "She's great athletically; she's brilliant at getting hit."

Greg gave some interesting background on Virgil's character: he was originally hired to play a one-episode character named Jerrick. By the time he arrived in New Zealand, though, he said Lucy had come up with switching the name to Virgil, and the character had developed into Joxer's son. Imagine his confusion when he opened his script the first day and couldn't find his character's name!

Adrienne's hiring also had some interesting stories to it. When she was hired, her real role was top secret. She knew her character's name was Livia, but no one told her until a week later that she was Xena's daughter. In fact, she had been worried that she looked too much like Lucy to get hired!

Greg declared Who's Gurkhan the episode he enjoyed the most. After episode after episode of worrying about his dad, "I could finally have some fun!"

Adrienne talked a bit about how much she had to learn in Livia about acting "huge" to carry across right on television. She said the director of Livia kept telling her to "be bigger, be bigger." As it turned out, she was so big that when her mother finally got to see her episodes, she called Adrienne in tears because she was certain that Adrienne had tons of repressed rage in her system.

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