Many thanks to Kelly for the transcript and the scan
Unterrified Democrat
(Newspaper in Linn, Missouri)
That's not a typo - that is the name of the paper *g*

January 31, 2001

Page 11

 

wilklinn.jpg (47609 bytes)
Adrienne Wilkinson is in the middle with boots on

Shawna is the President of the Adrienne Wilkinson Official Fan Club and has kindly offered the article for reprint here from the newspaper. Many thanks Shawna

Adrienne Goes Back to School!

by Shawna Pedego

Adrienne visited Linn High School in Missouri, Friday, December 22 to talk to some drama students about acting and performing on the show Xena: Warrior Princess.

Adrienne talked to the students as they came in the room, even asking to look at a student’s senior pictures that she had brought in with her.

Adrienne then talked about her photos that are offered for sale through Creation Entertainment. She said she
didn't like the
pictures that Creation was using. "I thought they were
odd choices and unflattering, especially when Geoff
Short had taken so many AMAZING ones." Sharon Delaney of Creation told her that the ones chosen were the only ones where she wasn’t covered in blood or mud.

Adrienne’s aunt who teaches at the school was in the class and said she couldn’t stand watching certain episodes. Because of the "gross factor"? Adrienne asked. Adrienne explained how it doesn’t bother her because she knows that it’s all make up. That all blood is pancake syrup.

She talked about how wearing lots of different make up on a character alienates the actor from the others. That it was a sort of psychological thing, to be hidden by the cosmetics and prosthetics, and that usually the other actors won’t talk to you afterwards. She also talked about the psychological affect of being chained or in shackles on the set, and how even though you can get out of them, it still gets to the actor. She described the scene in "Coming Home" where the Amazons have her in the collar and ropes and how disturbing that was.

Adrienne mentioned what a talent, inspiring genius Kevin Smith was. And how she learned so much working with him. She was really impressed by him professionally and personally. Kevin had told her a story about how a charity had asked him to do a charity run and he had happily agreed. She said he doesn’t usually do aerobic type workouts, mainly lifts weights but had thought the run would be fun. Until he found out that it was a 21k run!!! He decided to try it, and within 4 miles or so, was vomiting on the side of the track!

In reference to Eve, Adrienne talked about several things. She talked about how initially; her character was to be brought in to be an adult, part of the team with Xena and Gabrielle, but now that has changed. Her character tends to cause problems for the duo. She said in her 10 episodes, she has died once and come close to death in just about every other show. She thinks are character may return for future episodes, but that they have resolved most of the issues Eve had, so that she could also be done with the show.

Adrienne said that she didn’t think the powers that be had the finale of the series planned out yet. She didn’t think that Rob Tapert was ready for the show to end so that she didn’t think he had the resolution yet. Her guess was that the final episode would be a regular episode, with Xena doing her usual fighting for the greater good resulting in a happy ending and the characters going about their business. This was strictly her opinion, but she didn’t think anyone would get killed off in the end because she thinks Rob wants to leave the show open ended for possible TV movies down the road.

She talked about where Eve went after "Who’s Ghurkhan?" She said it just wasn’t in the script, so she doesn’t really know. But when William Gregory Lee (Virgil) was shooting "The Abyss", the first episode Virgil and Eve hadn’t been in together, he kept joking on the set each time he’d show up asking, "Where’s Eve?" Adrienne also talked about the one year time jump that occurred in the Norse trilogy. She just said, "I guess Eve’s been off preaching!"

I had the episodes "Eve" and "Motherhood" playing in the background, and occasionally she would point to a scene and give us some insight. At the beginning of "Motherhood" at the scene in the desert, she talked about how hard it is filming with all of the different elements sometimes. She said she had a wind machine on her for about 5 hours and had to constantly wash the sand out of her eyes. She said that there are several airports in the area as well, so they frequently have to wait for planes to pass by overhead, since no planes could logistically appear in a shot.

In the big godly battle in "Motherhood" she said they deal with lots of fire, smoke, and rain. She said it rains virtually every day in NZ, so it’s difficult to schedule filming. And usually in scenes where they want rain, they are using rain towers instead of real rain, because the rain towers show up on film better than the real thing. Often they have to filter real rain out of scenes where it’s not needed or wanted. Not only do they have to schedule around or filter out rain, shoot around airplane schedules, but they even have to consult sky experts, to alert them to when the sky is the precise right color to film, so that it may match a scene they shot earlier!

When asked about the shooting procedure, she explained read throughs, rehearsals, looping and shooting. She talked about filming on the sound stage, and how they usually have smoke in the shots because it adds to the look, plays with the light, makes things look more ancient. They use lots of candles and torches, too. And that once the Eli tent she was in for "Motherhood" caught fire!

She mentioned her blooper from the season 5 blooper reels where she’s on the beach to be baptized and how the tide came in. I mentioned her Livia blooper where the sword fell off the handle. She said they also had lots of bloopers of her hairpiece constantly falling off during fight scenes. They even had one scene where Adrienne, Adrienne’s double, and Lucy’s double all lost their hairpieces at once!

After being asked about how she prepares and analyzes her character she gave more insight on Livia and Eve. She explained that she had to create all of the backstory for her characters, had to fill in the past 25 years herself. Her thoughts on Livia: the only way she could get respect and attention was from conquering others. She didn’t want to be Empress for the title and the duties, she wanted the attention. She also said that Livia was very smart, always knew the plan, always understood what was happening and what everyone’s role was. But that Eve has started to be written as being almost clueless, and that really bothers Adrienne. She tries to play Eve, not as being ignorant, but as looking at things differently now, trying to use different judgment, trying to solve problems in a more pious manner. She also argued that she didn’t think that Eve suddenly disliked fighting, that Eve loves to fight, she just knows that she can’t do it anymore. Eve is more honorable and devout.


Adrienne’s upcoming episodes are "You Are There," "The God You Know," and "Path of Vengeance." Information on "You Are There": [CENSORED due to top secret spoilers]!

Adrienne said that after Xena, any other job will seem boring. She said the costumes and locations and things she gets to do on Xena are always amazing and that working on Xena as been an adventure.