'Xena's' Lawless Tapped for 'X-Files'

July 30, 2001 -- Here's news that will appease both those mourning the death of Xena: Warrior Princess and those unhappy about the trickling away of talent from long-running sci-fi series The X-Files.

Lucy Lawless — who played the leather-skirted, sword-wielding icon Xena — has signed on to appear on several episodes of The X-Files, with the possibility of an extension.

Character Remains a Mystery

Details surrounding the character she'll play on the Fox series are being kept under wraps, but she will be in the season premiere on Nov. 4.

"We're thrilled to have an opportunity to work with Lucy, whose work we've admired for a long time," X-Files executive producer Frank Spotnitz tells Reuters. "We think we've found an interesting and unexpected way to have her join the family."

The news about the addition of Lawless, who has a devout lesbian following thanks to her role as Xena, comes just as folks on the Web are speculating about the sexual orientation of X-Files Agent Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish), who attended the birth of Agent Scully's baby last season, during which she told Scully (Gillian Anderson) that she looked "amazingly beautiful."

Another of the show's executive producers, John Shiban, told TV Guide that he and fellow producers Chris Carter and Spotnitz "talked about [taking Lawless' character in that direction] … but we [ultimately decided] that it's the kind of baggage that we didn't want to deal with with this kind of character right now. We had other ideas that we were more excited about."

Shiban isn't ruling out the possibility, however. "On The X-Files, anything can happen," he told TV Guide. "So, I don't want to discount anything. Life is complicated."