It’s never very useful to see your character as a villain. You have to play them the way they see themselves.

I just look at what’s the most fun thing I can do next. I’m not looking to prove anything, or to break out or to break away. I feel so lucky, honestly, that I’m still working.

So yes, the roles are getting more and more like me. But that’s because Xena was so entirely unlike me. Most people aren’t really aware of that.

Very often, I’m part of the deception because the way I play things is that I want you to be able to look back and go, “Oh, my god, I didn’t see that at the time, but now it all makes sense,” and you want to watch it a second time with the benefit of hindsight.

When you decide to become an opera singer, it’s a commitment that allows nothing else to interfere. Even your family – and I have a young daughter – has to take second place.

My plan is to shock people with what I can do, because I’ve got a few sides to me that I’ve never used on screen.

I’ve often wanted to play the victim, or somebody who makes terrible choices. I would love to play the alcoholic mother who horribly lets down her children. That’s a great morally imperiled role.

One of my missions is to get people to go, “Oh, she’s really nice and I really like her, but what were the words she just said?!” I want your instincts to be at odds with your mind.

At first, being a female role model really terrified me. But it hasn’t turned out to be an awful burden. I get a lot of letters from women who tell me that, after watching Xena, they have bought the Harley-Davidson they always wanted or left an abusive relationship.

I was sitting in the looping studio late one night, and I had this epiphany that they weren’t paying me for my acting, for God’s sake, but to own me. And from then on, it became clear and an awful lot easier to deal with.