Major update to Spartacus: Blood and Sand official site

[aerips]

Check out the cast and character info, pics, downloads, etc. Also, premiere will be January 21, 2010 at 10 p.m. On Starz.

http://www.starz.com/originals/spartacus

[Michael]

Hm. Lucy Lawless as Lucretia. I think she is definitely trying to shed the Xena image, what with her role on BSG and all.

Erin Cummings is moving from Dollhouse to Spartacus? It doesn't look like a very happy role. I guess this won't be a family-oriented series with all the mature themes.

Craig Parker should be interesting as the Roman Legate Glaber.

[august]

Originally Posted by Michael

I guess this won't be a family-oriented series with all the mature themes.

Ummm..... no. They said in their initial press release last October that:

Starz promises "intense action and vivid, R-rated storytelling," as well as a "new set of stories rich in character, action, sex and combat."

And with each successive press release, they've amped up the references to the sex and violence, promising blood in the vein (ha-ha-ha) of "300" and "Rome," and close to NC-17 sexuality, right down to the pic released at Comic-Con of Lucy ...well, perhaps not topless but with a completely see-through top.

You can see most of the developments over the past 9 months here.

Originally Posted by Michael

Hm. Lucy Lawless as Lucretia. I think she is definitely trying to shed the Xena image, what with her role on BSG and all.

She's given a number of interviews about this. She's never actively tried to shed the Xena image, any more than Olivier tried to shed the Hamlet or Othello image. She is always happy to discuss the show, appears at conventions, hosts things like the "Warrior Women" documentary series, etc. But like any actor, you just take the roles that interest you. At 41, she's not going to be offered college student roles or grandmother roles, and at close to 6 ft., she's not going to be offered demure shrinking violet roles, and with her look, she's not going to offered homely neighbor roles. So she's played assassins, cyborg-spies, sexy corporate types, aging super-models, heroic scientists, dominatrixes, Cylons, just the same sort of roles that any pretty athletic actress of her age plays. To 99% of humanity, BSG and XWP are exactly the same sort of show, since they're weird make-believe fantasy stuff that few people admit they watch.

But nope, working in the same country, with many of the same actors, for the same producers (i.e. her husband) doing an action series with the same behind the camera people, set in the same time period..... not the best way to "shed" an image, but I don't think she or anyone really worries about any image she may or may not have. It's kind of like the hardcore Goodkind fans who got into a tizzy saying "Seeker will be nothing like Xena and Hercules!" errr... apart from the same locations, producers, directors, costumers, make-up artists, set designers, writers, camera crew, composers and actors, and 100% of the press releases and web materials saying "from the producers of Xena and Hercules," no, it has been nothing like either of those shows. Meanwhile, 99% of the rest of the country says "Huh? Who's Goodkind?"

[Michael]

I think you're being harsh on Terry Goodkind, as I've known his name for many years and I suspect millions of SF fans have at least seen his books on the shelves in bookstores through the years.

I just feel Lucy might be angling toward grittier characters than Xena.

[august]

Are there millions of science fiction book fans? (Or in his case, fantasy?) I think "best seller" kicks in at like 50,000 copies sold? We know Harry Potter sells millions of copies... but do traditional genre authors? But assuming there are indeed 3 million science fiction book fans running around... I was referring to the other 297 million people.

As for Lucy, she's been doing a nice balance of broad comedy (the Dutch dominatrix Madam Van der Sexxx in Eurotrip, the catty concierge in Bedtime Stories, the hook-up chicks in Just Shoot Me and Two and a Half Men, the Mother Superior in Bee-yotch Slap) light action/adventure (the heroines in Locusts and Vampire Bats, the voices of Wonder Woman and Dragonlance's Goldmoon, the client/assassin on Burn Notice) and "serious" roles, like this one and D'Anna.

BUT...serious is as serious does - one would be hard pressed to find too many people, other than a few million fans, to think anything called either Batttlestar Galactica or Spartacus was anything other than mindless children's fluff. They might be wrong, but that's never stopped people before.

I think the key is that she's married to a guy known for horror films and violence, so when either he does a project, or a protege of his like David Eick does one, she ends up in it doing something grittier, and when she does things on her own, she does lighter fare. (BTW, not sure if you know, but Eick had originally tried to get to to play Ellen. Unsure if that was when she was pregnant, or when she was doing Celeb. Duets, but either way, she was busy at the time.)

As for Xena, though, in between the two crucifixions, the dismemberment and the decapitation... she had it pretty gritty.