As kickass warrior princess Xena, all the girls wanted to be her, but Lucy Lawless has only one role model in her life - her
mum. The 36-year-old mother-of-three presents a series about some of history's greatest women, starting this week, and for her there's no greater heroine than mum Julie.'I'm crazy about my mother,' she says. "I try to live up to her, but I fall short of her example all the time.
"But apart from her, I think that you just have to learn to be your own [role model].
"I've learned by my many failures to be as good as my mother, that you can only be as good as you can be."
When it comes to parenting, she says that means telling your children they can achieve anything. "My parents told me that, and I never disbelieved them. I think that's the number one thing. It's very, very potent when a father says to his daughter, You are going to do great things.' She believes him, because he is the ultimate male for her for a very long time."
The five-port series. Warrior Women, profiles heroines like Joan of Arc, Irish pirate princess Grace O'Malley and red-headed queen Boudicca, who brought the Roman Empire in Britain to its knees.
While admitting that Xena had a profound effect on people's lives, Lucy doesn'l see herself as a warrior woman.
"I'm a mother of three children and that takes all of the strength and character I've got," she says. There are heroes right there - any parent who strives to do a great job and to enable their kids to grow up well-adjusted and be great citizens and contributors to the planet.
"I'm a mother of three children and that takes all of the strength and character I've got," she says. There are heroes right there - any parent who strives to do a great job and to enable their kids to grow up well-adjusted and be great citizens and contributors to the planet.
"You've done a great job if you've done everything you can to fulfil your role as a parent. That's a warrior to me."