Lucy's sexy secrets ‘I FOUND COURAGE IN MY 50S'

The Kiwi actress reveals her private passions and how she’s ageing fearlessly

- Nicky Pellegrino

Lucy Lawless hasn’t heard the news that middle-aged women aren’t supposed to be sexy. Onscreen as private investigator Alexa Crowe in the new season of TVNZ 1’s light-hearted drama My Life Is Murder, the actress is fabulous and flirty.

“There are two hunky younger men on the show, so naturally you’ve got to have sexual tension – and we let it fly!” laughs the 53-year-old former Xena: Warrior Princess star, who reckons it’s time for older women to reclaim sexiness.

“People are much more curious about women’s stories generally and older women are a huge market force, although we seem to have only just realised it.”

Rather than freaking out when she hit middle age, Lucy is revelling in the power it has given her.

“In your 50s, you get courageous, you realise how much you know and you’re willing to go hell for leather in the direction of your dreams,” she enthuses.

That is pretty much what she did with the latest series of My Life Is Murder, spearheading a plan to move filming from Melbourne to Auckland, with new cast members including those hunky younger men Joe Naufahu and Rawiri Jobe.

Almost three decades have passed since Lucy first burst onto our screens as the action heroine of Xena. Now, as the older, wiser Alexa, she might get to do more flirting, but she’s not executing high kicks and somersaults anymore, and that’s fine by her.