Karl Urban, Ceasar-Cupid-Mael

Karl Urban's a nut. A talented nut, but what a nut. Over the course of his question-and-answer time, we were visited by Elvis and Robert DeNiro. We got to see Karl's impression of Caesar: "Uh! (collapse on the floor like a wet sack of flour)" We were all treated to the waistband of Karl's underwear when he was asked the Great Question: "Boxers or Briefs?" (After telling us that he sometimes prefers none at all.) Despite requests for further proof, the waistband was all he showed. By this point in the con I was starting to think that it must be the New Jersey air that somehow inspires everybody who walks onto the stage to new heights of goofiness.

Karl has already shot another Xena episode as Caesar and has at least one more on the way. There's no new Cupid episode planned so far, though.

So what's the difference between Cupid and Caesar? Karl talked about how everything Caesar does is subtle and calculated, while Cupid lives the in-the-now life of a 17-year-old. He even demonstrated the difference between them, showing the precise attention stance and measured turn of Caesar versus the arms flailing, legs wide attitude of Cupid.

Caesar's a much easier physical role, too. Karl praised the "built-in chest" that Roman armor gives him instead of the extra gym workouts he has to put in to play Cupid. Besides, playing Cupid means getting up at 3am to have his wings put on. Karl described arriving at the makeup trailer the first morning, bleary-eyed and wary, to be told by two less-than-trustworthy-looking fellows to turn around and bend over. After getting over his initial "What??" reaction, he spent the next hours crouched over with his hands against the wall like a felon as they put Cupid's wings on his back.

When asked what other episodes of Xena or Hercules Karl had enjoyed, he mentioned A Day in the Life (is there anyone who DOESN'T love that episode?) and Stranger in a Strange World.

An "embarrassing moment" story: Karl described attending a script read-through for one of the Xena episodes. Standard procedure at the read-through is to begin by going around the table to tell everyone your name and your role. After hearing "I'm Lucy, I'm playing Xena," Karl responded in his turn with "I'm Karl, I'm playing Xena... whoops!" Apparently he got an impressive arched-eyebrow evil-eye look from Lucy Lawless (but no real trouble, honest!) for that one.

Lucy, though, gets her paybacks on Karl. He described working on a scene for the upcoming "A Good Day" when the camera was shooting a close-up of Karl. Lucy was supposed to stand off-camera (and off-microphone) and deliver her line for him to react/respond to. Her line was something along the lines of "So, Caesar, not as smart as you thought you were?", but somehow came out as "So, d---head, not as smart as you thought you were?" as the cameras were rolling on Karl. No pressure!

To prepare for playing Caesar, Karl did plenty of research, including reading the Shakespearean play and a huge biography. He says that he doesn't consider his portrayal to actually be of Gaius Julius Caesar himself, but kind of an amalgamation of the legend of Caesar.

So did Caesar ever actually love Xena? "Maybe for about 15 minutes he did," Karl replied. Then he decided to kill her off. Nice guy.

My thanks to Debbie Cassetta and Donna Alexander for helping me fill in some missing photos after my camera's batteries died on Sunday. A note to all: carry extra batteries with you! Especially if they're those blasted lithium kind that no hotel gift shop has!

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