It's quite a jump but Paris Jefferson has gone from Xena to a two-hander in York, reports CHARLES HUTCHINSON

HER name is Paris and she is well travelled. "I've lived in England, Australia, France, Japan and America," says Paris Jefferson, alias Athena in the cult series Xena - Warrior Princess, who has somehow ended up in York for the autumn.

Next Thursday, she opens at the Theatre Royal in the role of world-weary waitress Frankie in Terrence McNally's two-hander Frankie And Johnny At The Clair de Lune.

Welcome to York, Paris, but how come you are here and not in Los Angeles, your base for the last three years?

"It just sort of happened unexpectedly! I didn't come back to England thinking I would do a play; I was just here for a couple of weeks when my agent mentioned this production, and it just seemed a really good gig to do," says the itinerant Paris.

She was born in England, speaks with an Australian accent from her upbringing there, studied Impressionism at the American University of Paris, and now spends most of her time in the actors' hotbed of LA.

"It's six weeks in York for me, not an eight-month tour, which might have been difficult. But six weeks in a fantastic play in a fantastic place... fantastic," she says.

Paris was familiar with McNally's 1991 screen version of his play, Frankie And Johnny: the film with Michelle Pfeiffer as the hopeless cynic with television and ice cream rather than men for company, until a brief encounter with short-order cook Al Pacino. So she was in for a shock when she accepted the role.

"I'd say, hands down, this is the most difficult thing I've done. First of all, I didn't even realise it was a two-hander when I said yes. Having seen the film, I thought I'd be sashaying around a restaurant with five other people, but in fact it's set in one room, her apartment, over one night, and it's just two people," she says.

"So I rang my agent and said 'Hey, you didn't tell me it would be a two-hander'!"

Not that she is complaining. The life of the actor is by necessity flexible, unpredictable, and so Paris is suited to its demands. She is a realist, glad for the exposure of her season in Xena - The Warrior Princess but always looking to move on. She does not hanker after a permanent home.

"I have family in England, and family in Australia, and right now I feel most at home in LA, but God knows if I'll finish up living there! I think I'll go back there after this show, though I'm not sure. That's the plan, but then I didn't expect to be here in York, did I?"

She enjoys the Los Angeles whirl.

"It's a misconception that everyone is bitchy. There are some fantastic people in LA, and people forget that by its nature it's transient place, so the best of the best will end up there," says Paris, 30. "It is competitive but if you can manage to swim there, then you'll swim better than you could swim anywhere else."

Yet she knows there is a down side.

"Actors are a dozen a dime in Los Angeles, until you get a job. In London and New York, you're respected as an actor; in LA you have to carve a place for yourself and it takes a long time, but once you do that, you get an affection for the city."

Paris quickly removed her rose-tinted glasses on her arrival there.

"I sauntered into auditions having done this mini-series for NBC, and I thought I'd clean up. I was lucky; I did get work and managed to stay afloat but now, unless I was 18 and starting out, I'd never go to LA unless I had a definite show, as it's so hard."

Perhaps her motto should be: be prepared for anything.

"When I did that one season of Xena, the effect was that I had these fans out of nowhere. I had no idea that it had so many fans or that they were so committed. So I just enjoyed it, and it was nice to be invited to conventions where people want to ask you questions, when usually it's only your friends and your mother," says Paris.

She will take memories from York but not possessions.

"I was 18 months old when I moved to Australia, and coming from Australia tends to make people very adaptable. So I don't feel the need to settle anywhere, whereas some actors don't want to move around, but I'd say that ambition gets the better of an actor nine times out of ten."

There is only certainty: Paris, in the autumn, is in York.

Frankie And Johnny At The Clair de Lune, The Studio, York Theatre Royal, October 3 to 26. Box office: 01904 623568.

Updated: 09:19 Friday, September 27, 2002