Jenya Lano (Mavican actress)

Posted by ShobuyaDude@reddit | xena | View on Reddit | 23 comments

So my 8-year-old daughter is making her way through Xena and became enamored with the Succession episode (TBH, not my favorite episode).

But I decided to reach out to Jenya Lano to say my little one loved her in that episode via IG and to my surprise she responded with the sweetest message for her! She also gave me some really cool behind-the-scenes info on shooting that episode:

1) Lucy Lawless and Renee O'Connor were dreams to work with. Both were really warm and professional.

2) The fight scene between Mavican and Xena took the longest to shoot. They edited down the scene to have Xena dominate when originally it was Mavican who was really taking it to Xena. Jenya Lano said her biggest disappointment was they shot a part of the fight where Mavican delivered a kick that knocks Xena down and she got to have a one-liner along the lines of "I was expecting a bigger challenge." But they cut that part.

3) She was told that they had ideas for character to come back in season 6, but obviously things changed.

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FunCase8801@reddit

I like this episode, but I’m a fan of s5, and no one else in the fandom is, which is a little sad for me.

carz4us@reddit

I like S5. Maybe the naysayers are just louder

Hmm, maybe.

One of the reasons I love it is cause Gabrielle and Xena are more equal than ever before, especially as fighters.

Yes I appreciated the growth in Gabrielle. I wanted to see her learn to fight since S1

summer_james2@reddit

They are closer in fighting ability than they were before yes. But definitely not equal.

Pop_Stensbold@reddit

I am a fellow liker of Season 5 so you're not alone.

I love that for us both. 🙂

I’m right there with yall.

🙂🙂❤️

Latte-Catte@reddit

I can't believe they cut that part where we get to see Mavican sorta manage to become Xena's equal.

Distinct-Value1487@reddit

That is so cool!

Agent8699@reddit

Lano had potential - the right balance between credibility and camp. It’s a shame the costuming and the writing / editing let down the character of Mavican. It would have been good to see Mavican as a more credible threat to Xena.

I’m guessing they made Mavican … weaker so it was more realistic that Gabrielle would be able to hold her own against her? Or just because season 5 in general seemed to favour making Xena impossibly strong and invulnerable.

godsibi@reddit

Oh wow! That's really kind of her! They should invite her to the next Xena convention!

I'm not the biggest Mavican fan but only because it felt she was a pawn played by Ares in order to get Gabrielle. But it would be so cool if she got a bigger role in season 6! I'm sure she would have even more fans!

BlueSonic85@reddit

That's cool. I like that episode - one of S5's strongest

IseQween@reddit

That is so nice to hear. I wasn't fond of that ep either, but thought Lano did a good job with the character. What's your daughter's reaction to XWP so far?

ShobuyaDude@reddit (OP)

Oh she is obsessed with it. I couldn’t have imagined how enamored she would be by it, but we’re at a point where we’ve had to limit it to one episode a day! Love seeing her be taken by a strong character like Xena.

I'd love to know if at some point she expresses particular likes or dislikes.

Lovely to hear about Jenya reaching out, that's so cool. Shame they edited the fight scene down though to make Xena more dominant - I like it when there's more of a challenge to go up against and it would have been more exciting to see Xena take that kick.

Quiet-Childhood7533@reddit

I love that she responded. It's so nice when actors are willing to share some behind the scenes stuff with fans ❤️

Oh yeah it was very cool and unexpected. She said Lucy Lawless was very much a catalyst in Mavican being more formidable

Lucy always being a girls girl!!!

aliensxblairwitches@reddit

Kudos to her for being so good at making me hate Mavican. Lmao.

cherrytree79@reddit

That's really neat that she took the time to respond, and give you behind the scenes tidbits.