Lucy Lawless, best known for her role in Xena: Warrior Princess, portrays Lucretia, who along with her husband, Batiatus (The Mummy's John Hannah), own the Ludus gladiator camp, as well as Spartacus (Australian actor Andy Whitfield). The couple has fallen on hard times financially and has bought Spartacus hoping his fighting prowess will help them regain their status in the brutal world of gladiatorial contests.

Spartacus is a soldier in the Roman Auxiliary who has been taken prisoner and, as punishment for defying a Roman Legate, he has been sentenced to die in the gladiator area. But after surviving numerous fights, his sentence is commuted and he has been sold as a slave to be trained as a gladiator.

Actors Lucy Lawless and Peter Mensah, who plays Batiatus' most loyal and trusted slave Doctore, joined DeKnight, Tapert and Raimi at the Television Critics Association Press Tour to discuss this entirely new vision of the ancient legend.

Q: Clearly, there's a 300 influence with this. What inspiration did you take from that?

Tapert: Yes, 300 had a particular look and style. Zack Snyder brought that hyper-realistic style to a period piece. Prior to that, Sin City had been all digital backgrounds, and there are other shows, currently on television, that have digital backgrounds, from Blue's Clues, all the way through to Sanctuary. What 300 did so well was make a great deal of money, so everyone said, "Hey, the audience will accept that." It was very easy to point to something and say, "well, it worked, in that style." Plus, having a digital environment and not having to have ultra-realistic back-drops and an arena, like in 300 or Gladiator, it allowed us to actually bring this to the screen. There was no way to do it without having the artifice, so to speak.

Q: Was there always the idea to do something heightened like that, versus doing something like HBO's Rome, which was more of a realistic version?

Tapert: This stands on its own. It's right for the drama. It's right for the storytelling. I lovedRome. I really enjoyed it, and they did a brilliant job of bringing that world to life.

Q: Lucy, this has a very male presence to it. How do you fit in?

Lawless: My character's husband is Batiatus, and she's his Lady Macbeth. If he has to do something psychotic to do business and it's against the rules of the time, and there were not very many things against the rules at the time, she's going to shore him up. She's going to say, "Don't talk about it. We're going to make this happen." And, I think she sees herself as the power behind the throne of Batiatus. Initially, they're an upstanding Roman couple. She loves her husband. It just happens that it's a slightly toxic love between them. Modern people might call them the bad guys. But, there's no nudge nudge, wink wink. Tonally, this is like nothing else I've ever done. It's very naturalistic acting, and we try to keep it real.

Q: For the producers, where are we going to find ourselves at the end of the first season? How far along is the rebellion going to be?

DeKnight: We start the first season before Spartacus is sentenced into slavery. And, by the end of the first season, there will be the revolt where he breaks out of the ludus -- the gladiator school. So, that will be the scope of the first season. Historically, there's very little written about Spartacus before he breaks out and starts the rebellion, so we had a lot of leeway. He's a slave in a gladiator school, so we just took it one step further and actually had him become a gladiator. He becomes one of the top gladiators in Capua, and actually loses the mission statement, gets sucked into the gladiatory life and the limelight, and it's only later in the season that he discovers it's all
a lie, and he gets back on track.

Q: Why New Zealand? What was the reason of shooting there?

Tapert: We've done a great deal of production there. Sam and myself did Hercules and Xena, and we did a few of our Ghost House movies down there. There's a financial reason for doing it. It's relatively inexpensive. There is a huge pool of technical people that have been trained up in digital visual effects, due to Lord of the Rings and Narnia, and all the movies down there, and those resources are available.

Lawless: And, they speak English. That's a big one.

Q: Is there any reference to the Kubrick film, in terms of the "I am Spartacus" scene, or perhaps even a reference to Kirk Douglas?

DeKnight: Oh, yeah, absolutely. We love the Kubrick film. I was blown away by it, when I saw it as a kid. And, I loved it, years later, when I actually discovered what it was really about, and the
political and social statement. There are nods to certain things that happen in the Kubrick movie. You will hear "I am Spartacus," but it will be in a very, very different way.

Tapert: There's a great deal of nudity, both male and female. And, some guys are not as well-endowed as other guys, so we had to create the Kirk Douglas, as it was aptly named, so that certain actors would have a prosthetic that they could wear and feel comfortable.

Lawless: That thing gets shared around, though. At the moment, it's pinned to the wall next to all the merkins in the make-up truck.

Tapert: Someone lovingly called it the Kirk Douglas, and the name stuck.

Lawless: That was Erin Cummings, who plays Spartacus's wife, Sura. She thought she should have the right to name it.

Q: Sam, how hands-on are you going to be with this project, since you have so many of your own projects in the works?

Raimi: Well, I was most instrumental in getting it started with Rob and our other partner Josh Donen. And then, I met Steven and was most involved in the early conversations about the direction that the series would take, and the casting. Unfortunately, Spiderman is going to take me away from the project, but there's already a few episodes that are complete. But, I will be going away to do my duty with the web-slinger.

Tapert: And, Sam certainly was instrumental in the trailer, the graphics and the casting process, in
the birthing stages.

Q: Obviously, there were a lot of gruesome things with gladiators. In researching this, what was the most gruesome and horrific gladiator weapon, form of death or torture? Was it the animals that were hidden? Was it a specific tool?

DeKnight: This time period is a little before they started using animals. Really, the most gruesome, violent, twisted stuff happened in Imperial times, as the empire started to decay. Death basically consisted of getting stabbed, hacked, slashed and beaten to death. One of the most gruesome things that I had never heard of was that, if a gladiator wasn't quite dead when the guy would come out with his big hammer, he would smash him in his skull to make sure he was gone. That was one of the most gruesome things that I remember reading about.

Raimi: And, there's the ball with the spikes in it that sticks in the guy. That's just awful.

Mensah: There was also an incident where, at a death, the victor could take off the other man's face and wear it.

Q: How do you go about creating these historical weapons of death, and the look of the characters?

Lawless: The make-up department is amazing because we're on a TV budget. It's awfully expensive to do all this technical stuff, with the backgrounds and the effects. Shooting with a phantom background takes a lot of time. The make-up department is told, "We're writing this, where this guy has to go and cut the other man's face off." And, they're like "Holy cow, we've got two days to produce a face that works." That's got to be practical. You've got to see something coming off. He's got to put it on, and then probably do it for several days, so we have to have multiples. It has to be something that behaves like you might imagine a face would. How would any of us know how a face might behave? It's really flying by the seat of your pants. That's one of the scenes where I had to go, "Oh, my God, I've never seen something like that on film before." They're so accomplished and have a lot of intuition about how to make things. That's actually the Kiwi way.

Tapert: Sam and I had worked with the same make-up department, both on Xena and then later on 30 Days of Night, and they're very accomplished. They are constantly trying to be accurate.

Q: How big is your crew?

Tapert: It's 200 plus.

Q: The interesting thing about "Rome" was that it had balanced this pre-Christian civilization morality with the action. Are you guys trying to do something similar, or is this more of an action series?

DeKnight: There's a lot of morality in it and a lot of struggle. It was a very, very harsh and violent time. Pre-empire, gearing towards the last days of the Republic, every day was a struggle. We don't get into so much classic Judeo-Christian religion. We do delve more into the religions, at the time, with the Gods. And, one of the fascinating things that I found out about with the Gods was that it wasn't worship like we consider worship at all. Most times, how they worship is that they would pray for good fortune. It was really about, "What can you give us? And if you're not giving me what I need, I must have done something wrong to offend you, so let's do some sacrifices and clear that up." It wasn't praying for salvation, like we think of it today at all.

Lawless: There's a lot of sex and violence in this, and they don't run along the same morals as we have. It's really just the backdrop. What strikes me, having worked in this and dragging slaves around and behaving a certain way towards them, is that there's just a singular lack of empathy. Human beings are just chattels, and all about status. If you're at a lower status, forget about it. I can kill you tomorrow and buy another two of you with my spare change. The high stakes for every slave, every gladiator and even high status people was shocking.

Q: Even though the show takes place in historical reality, will viewers see some of the mystical tales that the people tell about minotaurs and monsters?

DeKnight: No, not minotaurs and monsters. There is an episode, called "Legends," where you find out how some of these gladiators became legendary, like Crixus the undefeated Gual and Barca, the beast of Carthage. Those are bigger-than-life stories. But, we never go to the fantasy land part of it. It's always based very heavily in reality. And, we do have a fearsome gladiator. It's like the gladiator version of the boogie man, called "The Shadow of Death," that plays pretty prominently in it, but it's never a fantastical creature kind of thing. It's all very, very real.

Q: Rob, people sometimes describe the Xena and Hercules time as being a fun time because you guys were all down away from Hollywood, making up your own rules and doing a different kind of show. Was that a really special time for you? Did you enjoy it a lot? Did you miss having a series down there, and is it fun being there again?

Tapert: The answer to all of those is yes. The time we were doing Hercules and Xena was a very special time and we knew, at the time, that that would never, ever happen again. We had pretty much untold creative freedom. We could do musicals. We could do comedies. That was wonderful, but when it came to an end, it was time to do something different. So, I had the ability to go off with Sam and build a dedicated horror company, and that was wonderful and challenging, and brought us into contact with great partners that we continued to be partners and friends with.

And then, Spartacus was really a chance to really be part of something that is entirely different than what Hercules and Xena were. It's serious. It's dramatically moving. It always strives to be genuine. It embraces a lot of what I loved about Rome, The Sopranos and Deadwood. It's part of a natural evolution. And, it's great working with a lot of the same crew people that we once did. They equally know that they are on a different and yet very special ride. This is something that is going to be entirely different than Hercules and Xena, but equally is going to boldly go where few things have gone before. Somebody asked about this being an action show, and the action is just a component. What's wonderful about it is that it only builds the characters rather than being a point that stops to show you an action scene. What we're happiest about is that it's a really well-written show.

Lawless: With an amazing new star.

Q: Sam, you usually have a personal connection with the projects you produce. What was it with Spartacus?

Raimi: When our partner Josh, who isn't here, and Rob came up with the idea, I was fascinated by it because Spartacus is this legendary character who goes through this tremendous transformation of a slave, who has been captured and forced to fight for his life, to a very unexpected leader of slaves, who goes on to lead this tremendous rebellion and faces down the Roman Empire. It's such a great story, and only some of it is recorded, pretty much only from the point he became a leader of this rebellion. Very little was known about him before that. No one really cared enough to know about some poor slave, until he became this great man. So, t allows Steven and his great staff, and Rob, to create a history for this character that still might be the real history, and they treat it very realistically.

I'm connected to it because of its great legendary story about a man who was deemed worthless, but who found great stuff within him, enough so that others could look up to him, and he could actually lead this most unexpected revolt of the oppressed against the oppressor. This is stuff of great drama. And, that's why I was so excited about it. When Rob introduced me to Steven, we thought he was a great writer, and I was doubly excited, in a different way.

Q: Lucy, this is your second period drama. What did you find in this that made you want to do it?

Lawless: Oh, I never think about the costumes. It's never about that. It's about the role and the company you are in. I nearly didn't take this role. I was so nervous. I'm so happy in L.A. But, the universe always knows what's good for you. And, not only has this been great for my family, but the role is just knock-out. I'm so grateful to them for writing such brilliant women's relationships with a lot of intrigue. It's terribly deadly and very subtle. I don't know how Steven wrote it. Perhaps he's been watching women for a long time. That's what attracted me.

Q: How important was it to create a buzz for this at the San Diego Comic-Con? Do you take the feedback that you get from the rabid fans there very seriously?

DeKnight: Comic-Con is always great. We always love to go down to Comic-Con and connect with the fans, and that was the first time we ever showed the trailer to anybody, so we were very excited to see what the reaction would be. As to feedback from fans, it's a little early since all they have seen is the trailer. And, quite frankly, by the time they actually see episodes, we'll be done with the first season. We are actually at Episode 12 out of 13, right now, so we are very far along the lines. But, it's always great to go down and connect with the fans. We wouldn't have shows or careers without them.

Tapert: It probably would have survived just fine without going to Comic-Con. As a man, now departed, once told Sam and I, "Now it's time to go and receive homage." That's what Comic-Con is. We are not blinded enough to know. The big hit of Comic-Con, a few years ago, was Snakes on a Plane.

Lawless: It does create a buzz. The gamers are terribly important in starting a buzz. You've got to love them, and hope that they love you.

Tapert: It's a chance to reach out to the people and to meet other critics, from around the world and from slightly different mediums. Comic-Con is for a specific group of people, and those people can be used to launch you, in a certain direction. Starz did a great job of making a splash down there. It's not the audience that they typically are out cultivating, but hopefully, this show brings that audience to their various distribution networks.

Q: What was their reaction?

DeKnight: Their reaction was fantastic. I hung around to go to a couple of the parties because I not only wanted to gauge the reaction of the fans, but also gauge the reaction of our peers. So, I basically ran around to parties for two days, showing everybody the trailer on my iPhone that would watch. I showed it to Joss Whedon. We showed it to Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, and Drew Goddard, and all of the network of people. I was really interested to get feedback from the people I've worked with, and who we all respect. Overall, the reaction was fantastic. They all loved what they saw. They can't wait to see the show, and a few of them would love to work on it.

Q: For the producers, how arc-ed out are you, in regard to the overall story? Are you just going to let the seasons end where they end, or have you planned things out?

DeKnight: Oh, we will get to the revolt. They break out, at the end of Season 1, and we'll
definitely have those 13 episodes. And, honestly, we have the great advantage of knowing where the story is going. Historically, we are leading towards something. So if, all of a sudden, we had to truncate it, it would not be that difficult. But, we plan on this show being around for quite a few years. We have a lot of real estate to cover, and there's a lot of interesting details about Spartacus and what's called the Third Civil War, that you really haven't seen in other incarnations, that I found fascinating. I can't wait to tell those stories.

Q: Rob, you said that the action helps develop the characters. Can you elaborate on that?

Tapert: The initial roll-out is to get something out there. An action show is nowhere on premium cable. Certainly, there are shows that have violence flare up, but what you would consider an action show is still not there. Action is just a component that is a tool that allows you to have a resolution happen differently. You still have to have great drama, so that's what's hiding behind the initial push. This is a show that has action, blood and sex. It has all of those components that you don't get on network television. All of that is just the initial wave from which behind really good drama is awaiting.

Q: Peter, since first signing on for this, what has surprised you the most, and what has changed from your initial expectations?

Mensah: A number of things. Initially, I had no idea what the script was going to be like, or what the entire show was going to evolve as. And, I am really, really amazed at the level of detail that they've gone into, and the can-do attitude of the New Zealand crew to do just about everything to make this perfect. The other thing that has really emerged is the quality of the talent. Andy Whitfield as Spartacus is amazing. He's unbelievable. John Hannah balances everything out with weighted performances. There is no violent act and no sex scene that doesn't have reason, so there's drama attached to every component. I go to work, every day, knowing this is actually really excellent work.

Q: Blood is very often used to sell horror, but it's not very often used to sell action. How did that come about, as one of your selling points?

Tapert: We didn't want to do horror. We wanted to show gladiators battling in the arena. We wanted to bring some of the technological tools that are available to heighten action and utilize that. And, as a by-product of it, blood was spilled in a way that it was different, to give it more of a balletic feel. It's really not something new. Years ago, Sam and I had the great fortune to be involved with Chinese director John Woo. For the decade of the '80s, he did these beautiful gun-play, balletic death scenes with blood. So, there certainly is a tradition, in other cultures, of utilizing action and violence in a visceral way that is not necessarily horrific, so as not to put the audience off, but to highlight what is happening. There is not necessarily an absolutely repulsive aspect to it.

Q: So often, with shows like this, the ancillary revenue is one of the reasons something gets made. Have you had a chance yet to think about what you are going to do with the eventual DVD release? Have you been shooting a lot of extra material?

Tapert: We do archive all of our movies. With Spartacus, there is an archivist there shooting material to create DVD extras, but the downstream revenue is so far removed from the everyday desire to present a great story.

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