Lucy Lawless’ character of Xena in Xena: Warrior Princess will be openly gay in the upcoming reboot of the show, its new executive producer has confirmed.
Last year it was announced that NBC were working on a reboot of the original series, which ran from 1995 to 2001.
Following suggestions over the extent of the relationship between Xena and comrade Gabrielle (Renee O’Connor), executive producer Javier Grillo-Marxuach has now confirmed via a Tumblr Q&A that the new series will “fully explore a relationship that could only be shown subtextually in first-run syndication”.
“Xena will be a very different show made for very different reasons,” he said. “There is no reason to bring back Xena if it is not there for the purpose of fully exploring a relationship that could only be shown subtextually in first-run syndication in the 1990s.”
“It will also express my view of the world – which is only further informed by what is happening right now – and is not too difficult to know what that is if you do some digging,” Grillo-Marxuach added.
In 2003, Lawless told Lesbian News that Xena was “definitely” gay: “There was always a ‘Well, she might be or she might not be’ but when there was that drip of water passing between their lips in the very final scene, that cemented it for me.”
“Now it wasn’t just that Xena was bisexual and kinda liked her gal pal and they kind of fooled around sometimes, it was ‘Nope, they’re married, man.’”
The Xena reboot is expected to air later this year.
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