Lucy Lawless, who rose to stardom playing Xena the Warrior Princess, has been sentenced to 120 hours of community service stemming from her staged protest on an oil-drilling ship last summer.
Lawless and several other protestors set up camp on the ship last June to voice their anger at Shell Todd Oil Services for making oil explorations in the Arctic. They stayed for four days before being arrested for trespassing, and Lawless faced up to three years in jail time. Luckily for her, she and the other protesters were given the community service order and must pay a fine of about $550.
The actress says she doesn’t mind the sentence at all and was happy to have brought the actions of the oil company to the attention of others. She’s also happy the judge dismissed the company’s demand for reparations–which totaled around $550,000–and called them “ludicrous”. The reparations were brought up in court because the company’s expedition was delayed by the protest.
Still, Lawless has said this won’t stop her from activism.
“This chapter has ended, but the story of the battle to save the Arctic has just begun. Seven of us climbed up that drill ship to stop Arctic drilling, but 133,000 of us came down,” she said. “We will continue to stand in solidarity with the communities and species that depend on the Arctic for their lives until Shell cancels its plans to drill in this magical world, and makes the switch to clean, sustainable energy.”
