All the Fun of the Warfare
Kevin
Smith is a man of many parts. The versatile actor has made himself a terrific
living of late portraying Ares, the formidable god of war, on
Hercules: The
Legendary Journeys,
Xena: Warrior Princess and
Young Hercules,
all of which shoot (or were shot) on location in his native New Zealand. Actually,
he's played several other characters as well, including Hercules' mortal sibling
Iphicles and a character named Jerry Patrick Brown (in the
Hercules episode,
"For Those of You Just Joining Us"). Smith's pre-
Hercules credits
include such stage shows as
Into the Woods and
Glengarry Glen Ross,
the film
Desperate Remedies, television shows including
Marlin Boy
and
Shortland Street, and stints as a rugby player and a member of a rock
band.
Just before the announcement was made that Hercules would return only
for an abbreviated final season, Xena Magazine spoke with the friendly and open
actor about his Hercules, Young Hercules and Xena experiences,
as well as other aspects of the actor's career.
Smith started out on Hercules playing Iphicles, Hercules' brother, then
played Ares, Hercules' other brother. He then turned up once on Young Hercules
playing Bacchus, which he refers to as a "prosthetics number" and
yet another half-brother of Hercules. "I really had the whole brother thing
going on there," he jokes. "In a couple of episodes I played jerry
Patrick Brown. He's one of the writers from the show. Oh, and I played the god
of love in the weird alternative universe shows we've done [among them "Stranger
in a Strange World"]. The nice thing is that each of the roles comes with
a wide degree of latitude. So, it's quite nice. Ares is obviously the main-stay
and it's one of those roles that's very easy to slip into. The other roles are
different. I don't do them as often, they're quite fun and they help keep things
interesting."
And no, Smith never wandered on to the wrong set, though the notion amuses
the actor. Actually, something amuses him even more than that: "Hercules
and Xena sometimes use the same location," he explains, "and
since I wear the same costume we've toyed with the idea of a bit of mischief.
We've talked about having me wander through the back of a crowd scene in Xena,
without explanation, while I was actually on location to shoot Hercules."
As
a veteran of both shows, Smith certainly can speak of the differences between
them, in terms of the acting styles and how they apply to him. He notes that,
from his personal perspective, the contrast in tones between the two shows is
governed by his character's relationship with the protagonists. "On Hercules,
the basic driving force behind the relationship is one of a jealous sibling
and his intention to destroy Hercules," he says. "Of course, that's
complicated by the fact that he's not allowed to destroy Hercules. In Xena,
the relationship is one of seduction. He was pan of her previous life, her dark
past. She's trying to confront her own demons as well as those outside her own
making. So, he's trying to woo her back. From my standpoint, they're very different
relationships. In one, I'm trying to find a loophole to get around the 'Do Not
Kill Hercules' clause, and in the other it's a seductive thing. That makes me
more Machiavellian on Xena."
There are major differences as well, Smith notes, between Hercules and
Xena when it comes to the show's respective production styles. "Since
the time that Ares first appeared on Hercules, we've had huge scraps,
huge fights, and they've son of become the staple of the show. It's the party
piece," he asserts. "You know at some point we're going to have a
donnybrook. But while we have fights on Xena, it's not quite as often.
There's more of a dramatic, darker tone to Xena, and they've affixed
that to the look of the show. It's got a moody look to it. Hercules generally
has a brighter sort of a feel, though there have been exceptions. We did the
'Hind Trilogy' on Hercules and a I really enjoyed that whole arc because
it took the show and the characters to a darker place."
The
actor in Smith welcomes every opportunity to display Ares' many colours. Some
days he's been a real black hat character and at other times he's more like
a swinging rogue. "It's a yin and yang thing," he says. "I need
both to enjoy the whole. A couple of times we had Ares lose his powers, his
god-hood. The first time that happened was in a Xena episode called "Ten
Little Warlords". It got a pretty good response from people. Whenever I
go to conventions, that's the show people bring up. Suddenly you saw some vulnerability
in Ares and you realized that, under different circumstances, he could have
been an entirely different person. People like to see that. I think that people
like to see him fall on his ass, but they also like to see at least some of
his schemes come off. I think that people like that he can laugh, and sometimes
he laughs in the midst of committing some terrible, terrible act. It's like
counterbalancing what's happening.
"You also have to remember that good villains enjoy what they do for a
living. Ares actually had a line in Young Hercules [that touched on that
point]. After creating a lot of mayhem he said, 'It's what I do.' Young Herc
said to me, 'You enjoy it?' and I said, 'I enjoy my work. So kill me.' That's
his thing. He was born to it. He was selected for that purpose."
Ares seems to have another, more personal purpose. Actually, it may not be
so much a purpose as a goal or a deep-seated desire - and it is to win Xena's
heart. But is that really the case, wishful thinking on the part of fans, or
a bit of both? "The first time I ever played Ares on Xena, which
was in 1995, we had a read-through in which we played their first scene as a
straight seduction," Smith recalls. "The director told me, 'You're
just trying to pick this girl up.' Of course, it was more complex than that,
but that was the starting point, where we gave it a tone that would carry through
the rest of it. I think Ares has looked around the world and he keeps coming
back to the same conclusion. There's only one person that's fit to rule by his
side, and that person is Xena."
As
for other questions raised in the show, there's the issue of whether or not
Ares is Xena's father. "We've had a flirtation with that idea," Smith
acknowledges. "Several episodes strongly alluded to the possibility of
that, but I think it's one of those things where it's more interesting to leave
it open-ended and ambiguous. We nearly resolved it in an episode called The
furies. But there had been so many things that we did in previous episodes that
if he had been her father it would have made some of their earlier dialogue
just a little bit icky' Mind you, though, Greek gods were always keeping it
in the family"
Speaking of family, after working so long and so closely with the likes of
Lucy Lawless, Renee O'Connor, Kevin Sorbo and Michael Hurst, Smith practically
considers them blood relatives. Lawless and Smith have known each other for
nearly a decade, since she first got into acting.
During the years before Xena, they acted together on shows in New Zealand.
"So," explains Smith, "to a certain degree, there's a comfort
thing with Lucy. You know when you turn up on the set that everyone has come
to play, especially Lucy. We've been doing Xena for several years now, so the
comfort level is even higher. The benefit of being comfortable is that you can
chance around a little more. Lucy is always up for raising the stakes.
"Renee and I have gotten to do several episodes in which our characters
were heavily involved with each other, too. She's been great. She also directed
one show ["Deja Vu All Over Again" - see O'Connor's comments on this
episode in Issue 1], which was a pleasure to do. I have a lot of fun on Xena,
working with Lucy and Ren. They also both embrace challenges and danger [for
example, doing their own stunts], which raises the ante.
"My
link on Hercules is Michael Hurst [lolaus]. I've worked with him in the theatre
and I've known him for many, many years. He's a leading theatre director here,
very respected. He's got a vast knowledge of Shakespeare and the classics. He's
actually directed me on the stage. So, you know on Hercules that you've
got to be [at your best]. With Kevin, we're both frustrated jocks, you know.
We like to play."
And now it's time to shift focus to Young Hercules, which attempted
to explore the mythic Hercules universe from another, younger perspective
and provided Smith with even more opportunity to explore different facets of
Ares. Though popular in some circles, the show never quite caught on with viewers
and won't be back for the 1999-2000 television season. "I'd done the Young
Hercules television movies two years earlier and it was noted that it may
go to series. The crew had printed some shirts when we made the movie,"
he recalls. "On the back it said, 'There's no such thing as too many spin-offs.'
It made sense to do it - to use one of those American phrases I'm still learning
- while Hercules still had legs. The whole idea was to engineer the thing to
kids. Hercules and Xena, even though a lot of kids watch them,
have some very adult themes and sophisticated storylines. I guess Young Hercules
was designed to access young kids. The storylines and the fights were modified
to fit that age group. "It was great to go backwards, if you like, to make
some discoveries that translated for subsequent episodes of Hercules
and Xena. The feelings Ares has towards Hercules are very raw, very primal.
17 years in god terms is a heartbeat, the blink of an eye. You can see the hatred
he builds for Hercules. For me, it was strange to be one of the oldest actors
on the show. I wasn't exactly the father figure on the set because the boys
were vastly wise for their years. Ryan [Gosling, young Herc himself] had been
acting forever and he's very mature. He's also very professional and carried
himself like a much older man. On a personal level, he's very open and is a
cool guy to get on with. He did some work on the show that I thought was absolutely
splendid. We did one story arc with Bacchus, where he found love with one of
my disciples, and Ryan was splendid. Dean [O'Gorman, the young lolaus] I'd known
for a few years, too. Chris Conrad [the young Jason] is the funniest man to
pull down underpants. Some of my fondest memories of the show are of just breaking
up with him. If someone laughs during a take we call it 'going up', and he was
the root of so many of those going up instances with me."
All
things considered, Kevin Smith is doing rather well for an actor who just sort
of fell into the business. Initially, all he ever intended to do was play rugby,
and then fate stepped in. "When I was about 24, I was playing senior rugby
and I got concussed for the third time that season," he remembers. "It
had also happened a few times in the previous two or three seasons. So I was
getting a bit punchy. The doctor suggested that I take a wee while off. I went
back to University at 24. I'd married young and I came home one day and my wife
showed me an ad in the paper seeking people to audition for a touring version
of Are You Lonesome Tonight? [a stage musical about the life of Elvis
Presley]. For reasons that escape me even now, she put my name down. She said,
'You've got to go down to this place and audition.' It appealed to me because
I'd played in bands for most of my teen years. I ended up getting the part and
there was an epiphany. I thought, 'This is better than anything I've done.'
And that was it."
Though Hercules: The Legendary Journeys is about to end, Xena
will go on, and Smith will be along for the fun. As the conversation concludes,
though, the actor contemplates what of his other work he would recommend to
some- one just now becoming familiar with him as a result of tuning into Hercules,
Xena or Young Hercules. "I did a movie in 1992 called Desperate
Remedies, which was an extremely high-camp, very operatic corset-buster,"
he says. "It did very well in Europe. I did a movie called Channelling
Baby, which has what I think is some of my best work. I also just did a
TV movie called Lawless, about an undercover drug cop, which I feel good
about. That's what I'd recommend to people, I guess."
Better check them out, or Ares will be after you.
All the Fun of the Warfare Official Xena Magazine December 1999 Ian Spelling p18-23.
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