Lucy Lawless

 Lawless has been known best as a heroic warrior woman called Xena in the initial season of Hercules. In March 1995, she first appeared in "The Warrior Princess" which aired on ABC. R. J. Stewart is one of Pacific Renaissance Pictures' in-house writers, dramatised the teleplay of a novel that Robert G. "Rob" Tapert commissioned John Schulian to write. The character was popular with fans. Vanessa Angel was initially cast as the character. However, she was ill and could not travel to New Zealand to film. Lawless had her hair dyed black to differentiate between her character as well as Lysia. The hair she wore was previously ash blonde. Lawless also wore a more dark costume. Lawless was back in the role of Xena in two additional episodes of the initial season of Hercules that showed her turn from villainess to a heroic, good character.The characters were so popular that a spin-off television series was created: Xena: Warrior Princess premiered on the 4th of September in 1995. Xena: Warrior Princess, like its parent programme was a massive success and enjoyed high ratings and importance in the culture, running for six seasons. Lawless was a huge celebrity and the show garnered her a lot of media attention. In the month of October, 1996, Lawless was appearing on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. While filming, Lawless broke her pelvis when her horse in the parking lot of the studio lost its footing. Lawless was able to recover completely, but several episodes of the second season of Xena were written to concentrate on the background characters, reducing the time Lawless was needed on the set.