Hercules - The AppleHercules - The Apple
Iolaus is faced with one of his hardest decisions. He's asked to choose the most beautiful goddess between Aphrodite, Artemis and Athena. If that's not hard enough, Aphrodite acts more like the goddess of war than of love when she casts a spell that makes Iolaus the apple of a princess's eye. Hercules has his work cut out for him when it's up to him to break the spell and make sure that Thera ends up with her true love, Epius. Hercules' task is further complicated by the fact that their fathers, Sidon, the king of Cyrus, and Diadorus, the king of Delos, can't stand each other. Kevin Sorbo's take: You know what? A total ball, a total kick, a total blas. It introduced a new goddess, Aphrodite. This was my first time directing, but I had a few things in my favor. Number one, I know the show. Number two, I know the characters. Number three, the crew is great and they were there to protect me and work with me. And number four, I had a three-week Christmas break, so that gave me the time that most directors get to prep for a show. I was able to read the script a thousand times, to break the scenes down, and get to the locations. I took photos of everywhere we would film. I talked to the heads of wardrobe and makeup and locations. And it was summertime [Christmas in New Zealand coming at the peak of summer]. It was sunny in January, and beautiful. And everybody was glad to be back. We had a great episode. We put three beautiful women in scanty outfits, so the crew loved me. Everybody was happy. And it was just a fun episode to do. The other two actresses were really momdels.... In one of Iolaus' dreams, where I'm getting beaten up and he saves me, I added a bit: During our lunch breaks the crew always plays Hacky Sack. And I said, "Why don't we make a human Hacky Sack of Hercules? These guys are kicking him and we'll send me up in the air and we'll do slowmotion shots of me just falling around and screaming out, 'Iolaus, save me!'" In another dream scene [where Hercules appears a foolish foil to Iolaus' wise man] Rob Tapert had a problem with that because he said, "God, you know, you are the hero, and you are making fun of yourself." I said, "But Rob, it's a dream. Who cares?" We made this an over-the-top episode. I put in [words like] "tubular," the whole idea about Iolaus surfing in on a board, and Aphrodite's windsurfing. And we made up things [as we went along]. For example, having Michael and the fisherman he's with on the beach drop their poles as soon as they see Aphrodite. Michael Hurst's take: The script was already pretty far out. And both Kevin and I went, "Are you kidding, this is really what they want us to do?" And then we thought, what the hell! And Kevin had the sensible notion to go with it, not just a hundred percent but a million percent. And he said, "Whatever we can make up, [do it]." So we went for it. Man, did we go for it! ...Yes, he did make fun of himself [and Hercules], but didn't it actually intensify the truth, which is that he is amazing? The ability to be mocked and to mock oneself makes one bigger. I think any actor worth their salt knows that if you can take the custard pie, the figurative custard pie, that's great! |
