ADRIENNE WILKINSON She was both incarnations of Xena's daughter on Xena: Warrior Princess: the evil Livia, who killed Xena's friend Joxer; and the repentant Eve, purged of her demons and horrified at her actions. Adrienne Wilkinson's wide-ranging talents and incredible beauty made both roles stand out over the course of two seasons, and established her as one of the genre's most promising young performers. Born Sept. 1, 1977, in Memphis, Mo. — and raised in Springfield and Branson, Mo.; Prescott, Ariz.; and Jasper, Ark. — Wilkinson took dancing classes from a very young age, and began acting during her senior year of high school. She fell so hard for the vocation that she left to live with relatives near Hollywood two days after graduating — "right before I turned 18," she recalls. "I was trying to get settled and figure out exactly what I wanted to do — school or the acting thing." Wilkinson starred in student feature films, pragmatically got a real-estate license, and made her professional acting debut with a guest spot on a 1996 episode of Sweet Valley High. She appeared the following year on Saved by the Bell: The New Class, and after a stretch of theater roles and additional study, guest-starred on Chicken Soup For The Soul, playing a girl dying of anorexia. In 2000, she landed her breakthrough role on Xena. "It turned out to be the greatest adventure I've ever had!" she later declared. "Those beautiful handmade costumes each week, the unbelievably gorgeous locations. The job had so much adventure and [so many] interesting details that went along with it. I had no idea that my character would change or that I would essentially have different roles to play, that I would be challenged in different ways in every episode." Wilkinson went on to star on MTV's sexy soap-opera Undressed, the as-yet-unreleased film Pomegranate, and the UPN series As If, playing the sexually sophisticated Nicki. Highly active in charity work — she lends her support to nearly two dozen charitable intiatives — she is a voracious reader. She shares her love of reading by working with, among other groups, the Screen Actors Guild's literacy program, Book Pals. close window