When you’ve spent the most memorable years of your career battling gods and single-handedly defeating an army, what’s left for a warrior to do? For “Xena: Warrior Princess” star Lucy Lawless, the answer was making her directorial debut with a doc about a fellow New Zealand icon, daredevil CNN war camerawoman Margaret Moth.
Her spellbinding feature, “Never Look Away,” which premieres Jan. 18 at Sundance, was selected for the fest’s World Cinema Documentary Competition. It’s a remarkable achievement, especially when you consider that she hadn’t even helmed a short before making it. “I received an email from [CNN cameraman] Joe Duran saying, ‘Would you want to make a movie about my best friend Margaret?’ It took about 90 seconds for me to say ‘Yes!’” says Lawless, speaking from her home in Auckland, New Zealand.
She had no direct connection to Moth, other than recalling the moment the famed journalist was grievously injured in the early 1990s. “She was Australasia’s first female cameraman, a trailblazer and a shocking iconoclast without even trying,” Lawless says. “She refused to participate in anything one might call ‘normal’ and became the ringleader of this group of misfits and thrill seekers, the queen of the night. Eventually she got a job at CNN and went off to war, which changed the trajectory of her life massively.”
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The film captures its protagonist’s complicated personal life through interviews with two of her lovers, tracing the roots of her behavior to a troubled childhood before chronicling her fearless career through her tumultuous war footage and remembrances from colleagues like CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “It took me a really long time to understand what drove her and enabled her to push through the challenges of her life,” Lawless says. She’s been asked to do a Moth biopic — “I know some terrific stuff that couldn’t fit in an 84-minute film” — and would be an ideal choice to play her equally bold and statuesque countrywoman.
Lawless also served as a writer and producer on the doc, which is repped for international sales by XYZ Films. It’s just one way the star is taking more control of her career. Since acting in hits like “Parks and Recreation,” Jane Campion’s “Top of the Lake” and the animated blockbuster “Minions: The Rise of Gru,” she’s been exec producing and starring in the crime comedy-drama “My Life Is Murder,” all without the involvement of her producer husband Rob Tapert (“Evil Dead Rise”). AMC Networks’ Acorn TV recently picked up “Murder” for a fourth season, due out in July. She’s now working on two narrative projects she’d potentially helm, including a religious horror film.
“I’ve often been asked to direct — my husband has asked me — and I’ve never found anything important enough,” says Lawless, who still has no idea why she was approached to make this doc. “He probably sent this letter to a hundred people and I answered [so quickly] because I could not let somebody else jump on this. I thought, ‘I’ll produce it. I’ll find the money.’ And it wasn’t until somebody said, ‘Why don’t you direct it?’ that I dived into the decision to make it, and I was a little horrified after I accepted. I thought, ‘Who the hell am I to this?’ But the spirit of Margaret grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and booted me through the door before I could back out!’”
And there’s still the possibility of playing a different role in an often-discussed reboot of “Xena.” Her husband was an exec producer on the original. “I don’t believe anything’s been greenlit,” she says. “But I am extremely hopeful.”
