When the stars of Xena: Warrior Princess gathered in California to celebrate the show’s 30th anniversary in early 2025, the scene felt almost impossible for longtime fans.

Lucy Lawless was there. Renée O’Connor was there. Ted Raimi, Hudson Leick, Alexandra Tydings, Adrienne Wilkinson and other familiar faces from the Xenaverse returned as well, three decades after the series first introduced viewers to its strange, funny and surprisingly emotional version of the ancient world.

Yet every Xena reunion also carries an absence that time cannot fix.

Kevin Smith, the New Zealand actor who gave Ares, the God of War, his combination of menace, humor and dangerous charm, died in 2002. He was only 38.

So more than 30 years after Xena premiered, the cast’s story is not simply a nostalgic look at how everyone changed.

It is also about a friendship that lasted long after the cameras stopped — and a castmate who will never be able to stand beside them again.

Xena and Gabrielle Became the Heart of the Show

Xena: Warrior Princess premiered in September 1995 after Lawless’ character proved popular on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. What could have been a conventional sword-and-sorcery spinoff instead developed an identity of its own.

Across six seasons and 134 episodes, Xena attempted to atone for her violent past while traveling with Gabrielle, the idealistic young woman played by O’Connor who gradually transformed into a formidable warrior herself.

The battles mattered, but the relationship between those two women became the show’s emotional engine.

At a time when television action series were overwhelmingly built around male heroes, Xena placed two women at the center and allowed their relationship to become complicated, affectionate, painful and increasingly intimate. The bond between Xena and Gabrielle inspired extensive discussion among fans and became especially meaningful to many LGBTQ+ viewers.

What audiences could not see was that another relationship was developing behind the camera.

Lawless and O’Connor were becoming genuinely close.

Looking back during the show’s 30th-anniversary oral history, Lawless said she and O’Connor had grown to “really love and rely on one another.”

“To this day, she’s like my sister,” Lawless said.

Twenty Years Passed — Then They Shared a Screen Again

That connection did not disappear when Xena ended in 2001.

But their careers and families took them in different directions, and for two decades they did not manage to act together again.

Lawless moved into roles including Battlestar Galactica, Spartacus and eventually the mystery series My Life Is Murder. O’Connor continued acting while also moving into producing and directing.

Then, in 2021, Lawless finally brought her old partner onto My Life Is Murder.

The characters were completely different. There were no chakrams, staffs or ancient warlords. O’Connor played the mysterious wife of a murder victim opposite Lawless’ investigator Alexa Crowe.

For Lawless, however, the reunion was much more personal than another guest appearance.

She told Entertainment Tonight that she had wanted to work with O’Connor again for 20 years. When it finally happened, she described the experience as a “homecoming.” Speaking separately to Salon, Lawless said their friendship had effectively been forged through the demanding experience of making Xena, leaving them with an understanding of each other that survived the decades.

That may explain why seeing the two actresses together still carries such emotional weight for fans.

They did not simply spend six years pretending to be inseparable companions.

A real relationship survived after the fictional journey ended.

The Rest of the Xenaverse Went in Remarkably Different Directions

The actors surrounding Lawless and O’Connor also built lives far removed from ancient Greece.

Ted Raimi, remembered as the earnest and frequently ridiculous Joxer, continued working across film and television, including projects connected to the Spider-Man and Evil Dead worlds.

Hudson Leick, whose Callisto became one of Xena’s most memorable enemies, eventually moved much of her attention toward yoga and spiritual practice. She has continued meeting fans and has even led yoga sessions connected with Xena conventions.

Karl Urban’s post-Xena career became particularly enormous. After appearing as Julius Caesar and other characters in the series, the New Zealand actor went on to The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Dredd and The Boys.

Alexandra Tydings, who played Aphrodite, moved into work that includes writing, directing and intimacy coordination, while Adrienne Wilkinson, remembered as Xena’s daughter Eve/Livia, continued acting and producing.

Their careers diverged, but Xena never completely disappeared from their lives.

The conventions continued. The fans continued. And eventually anniversaries became reunions.

Kevin Smith Never Got to Grow Old With Them

Among all those changing faces, Kevin Smith’s remains frozen in time.

As Ares, Smith occupied a unique place in Xena’s world. He was an antagonist, tempter and occasional ally whose fascination with Xena created one of the series’ longest-running conflicts.

Smith was not merely a television villain. He was a respected New Zealand actor and musician whose career appeared ready to expand internationally.

Then came the accident.

Smith was in China working on the martial-arts film Warriors of Virtue: The Return to Tao when he suffered serious injuries in a fall on Feb. 6, 2002. He died in a Beijing hospital on Feb. 15. He was 38 and left behind his wife and three sons.

His death came less than a year after the final episode of Xena aired.

There would be no decades-later photographs showing Ares older beside Xena and Gabrielle. No opportunity for Smith to tell convention audiences what he remembered differently with age. No surprise appearance in a revival.

While many cast members were able to turn Xena from their present into a shared memory, Smith never reached that stage of the journey.

O’Connor has continued to remember him publicly. On the 20th anniversary of his death, she described him simply as a “legendary friend.”

The Reunion Is Still Continuing

The remarkable part of Xena’s afterlife is that the anniversary gathering was not a final goodbye.

As of August 2026, another Salute to Xena convention is scheduled for Oct. 2–4 in New Jersey, with Lawless and O’Connor again announced as headliners. Hudson Leick, Alexandra Tydings, Adrienne Wilkinson and several other performers from the series are also on the announced guest list.

Thirty years ago, viewers watched Xena and Gabrielle ride away together from one adventure toward another.

Now the swords are props from another lifetime. The costumes belong to museums, closets and collections. The young actors who spent years filming in New Zealand have become parents, filmmakers, teachers, veterans of entirely different television worlds.

But one of the most important things created on that set survived.

Lawless and O’Connor still have each other.

And every time the cast comes together, the empty place left by Kevin Smith quietly tells the other half of the story: reunions can bring back voices, laughter and memories, but they cannot return everyone who helped create them.