Healing Hands
Timothy Omundson was at home in Los Angeles when Xena Magazine caught up with him shortly after the Xena: Warrior Princess episode Seeds of Faith aired for the first time in the US. The actor was more than happy to fill Ian Rentoul in on his recent antics as faith healer Eli.
Official Xena Magazine: Issue 09
“I call him 'Peace and Love Boy',” says Tim Omundson of his on screen alter ego, smiling at the thought of the name he has given Eli, the memorable faith healer who first came to the attention of Xena and Gabrielle in the season four episode Devi. Following his on screen debut, Omundson went on to star in five further episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess: The Way, Ides of March, the season five opener Fallen Angel, Chakram and, most recently, Seeds of Faith.
While Omundson made his debut appearance in Devi, the episode didn't mark the start of his dealings with Renaissance Pictures. “I had previously read for parts in both Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena,” Omundson explains. ‘‘For Hercules, I read for the role of the god Haephestus, while for Xena, I read for the role of Xena’s brother, Toris. I had been friends with Ted Raimi since the days of Seaquest DSV.”
It was thanks to his friendship with Raimi that Omundson had the opportunity to read for the part of Eli. “Ted told me that they were looking for a holy man,” he recalls. “The funny thing is that they wanted anyone but Caucasian for the role, and look who ended up with it! I can’t remember anymore who was at the audition I had to attend, but I do know that Rob Tapert was there along with R.J. Stewart and Chris Manheim.
“The scene I read was the one from Devi in which Eli and Xena are in the Temple, and Eli asks Xena if it is Gabrielle who is the Devi. I think the producers had been seeing actors for the part for quite a few weeks, and weren’t able to find him. I’m not quite sure what I did right, but the next thing I know, I’m on a plane to New Zealand!
“I was very attracted to the part of Eli, who was discovering who he was: his human side, ‘warts and all’,” Omundson remembers. “And I decided that Eli should be a prophet, discovering what he was and not particularly liking it, but at the same time, also realising his potential and not accepting it.
“I didn’t base him on any one individual. R.J. Stewart and Chris Manheim pointed me in the direction they wanted Eli to go in, and then they let me loose. Rob Tapert also helped guide me along the way. Their confidence in me was a very freeing thing as an actor.
“I did a lot of different kinds of research on the lost years of Jesus as some scholars think that he went to the East from the age of 13 to 29 or so,” Omundons recalls. “I also read the book Jesus was a Magician and did research into street magicians of ancient times and into Gandhi. Plus I did have some knowledge of Eastern religions, which helped a bit.”
Omundson initially signed up to appear in Devi and The Way, which didn’t give the character a lot of scope for development. But with his third appearance in Ides of March, the actor felt that he was given more room to let the character evolve. “Eli was no longer in self-doubt, but was focused on peace,” he explains. “It was at this time that I drew in part on the lives and teachings of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, as well as Jesus.
“The hardest thing about the character was always playing him on ‘the same beat’, as Eli is not the most ‘glamorous’ of roles. I wanted to make him exciting for the audience, so I tried to find flashes of Humanity for the character in specific scenes, such as in Fallen Angel, where he is confronted by Amarice, who sends him packing, blaming him for Xena and Gabrielle’s deaths; or later in the same episode, where he is praying and the Angel Callisto appears; or in Chakram, when he finds that his friend has been killed.”
Omundson took up acting at a young age, and although he trained on the stage, soon moved into television. “I decided in Junior High School that acting would be preferable to athletics as an extra curricular activity!” he says, grinning. “My friends were into football and wrestling, but I decided there was no longevity in those. You can carry on acting until the day you die, and besides, I have very few athletic talents (although I did play Little League baseball at one point). I remember that on one particular day, there was a try-out for the team in Junior High, but on the same day there was an audition for a play. I went to the audition and baseball has wept ever since!”
Whilst starting out, Omundson admits that he had to do other things to pay the bills. “All struggling actors do other jobs,” he says. “For me, this included working as a waiter and in bars. When I was in High School in Seattle, I worked as a hot-tar roofer.
“I was born in Missouri, but my family relocated to Seattle [in Washington State] when I was one year old,” Omundson reveals of his childhood. “I started drama classes in Junior High School around the age of 12 or 13. I also started studying at the Seattle Children’s Theater from that age, and continued with these for a number of years. Who were my influences? Well, two come to mind. The first was a Seattle actor, David Pichette, whilst the second was a local playwright, Carl Sanders. They were two of the first artists I met.
“I carried on acting throughout my years in Junior and Senior High School, eventually studying for the summer between my Junior and Senior years at the American Academy of Dramatic Art (AADA) in New York when I was about 16, as I was able to stay with my sister who lived in New Jersey. I then went to the University of Southern California (USC) and got a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in their Theatre Program. When I was about 21, I got my Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Card. That was one of the best days of my life, as they are very hard to come by.
“It's ‘Catch 22',” he explains, “as you can’t get a card unless you have a job, and you can’t get a job unless you have a card! At the time, about the only way to get into their union was to have a producer say that you were the only actor who could play the part and hire you for it. The job I got was three lines on Seinfeld. I’ll always have a soft spot for Jerry!”
Omundson later took on the role of Dr Joshua Lexan in Seaquest DSV, appearing in four episodes, whilst other television credits include guest appearances on Married... With Children and Frasier. “Financially, you can't survive in LA just doing theatre,” he says. “Theatre gives you an intimacy which television and film don't, and gives you the satisfaction of going through a whole story in one evening.
“Starship Troopers was the first ‘big’ film I appeared in,” Omundson recalls of his part in the 1997 science fiction blockbuster. “When I saw the script, my part had ‘VO’ next to it, which meant that there would be a voice over for my character. I didn’t notice that when I auditioned. So I get the job and I go to the set, and Paul Verhoven, the director, says ‘Ya, you read the lines nice on your audition tape. You read them in the scene.’ It was only then that I realised I was supposed to be a featured extra!”
Omundson is undoubtedly more than a featured extra in Xena, and the actor has enjoyed making his frequent excursions to the New Zealand sets to film his appearances as Eli. The first two episodes he filmed, Devi and The Way, were shot during a single trip, but since then, he has travelled across the world for each separate episode, something an extra wouldn’t be expected to do. “On trips for single episodes, I normally spent two and a half to three weeks in New Zealand and worked a five-day week,” Omundson explains. “For each trip there wasn’t a lot of time in rehearsals before shooting started. If you were travelling from the US, you would leave on a Wednesday and arrive in New Zealand on Friday. That evening, you do a ‘read through’. The next opportunity you get is on the set, so you are rehearsing for the camera.
“We did a ‘table read’ every time I went down to New Zealand. There wasn’t a lot of ‘play the scene like this...', as the directors were usually nice enough to let me ‘go’ with the character. Two directors I have worked with on the show are Garth Maxwell and John Fawcett, who are great with the actors. Normally, [when we got on set] we would rehearse and then have up to about half an hour before we shot the episode. This would give me a chance to go over the script - normally with Renee [O’Connor] - and talk about the scene.
“Most days were different, but all days started with your being picked up when it was dark and cold and driven to the set. You would then normally grab a coffee and a bite of breakfast while getting into make-up, head off for the set and find out what was going on that day. “Lucy [Lawless] and Renee were always a lot busier than I was, so I ended up waiting around and playing a lot of chess with Ted! Once the day’s shooting was over. I’d go ‘home’, grab a bite to eat and then sleep.
“I couldn't have been treated any better," he remarks of his times on the set. “They absolutely spoilt me. It’s rare that a guest star gets to do so many episodes of the same show. The best thing about it is that you get to know the people you're working with both as actors and as people. I loved working with Lucy and Renee. They are very generous and giving as actors. I was made to feel right at home.
“I remember about a week into shooting Devi,” Omundson recalls, citing a specific incident. “We were working on the goodbye scene with Lucy and Renee, setting up the camera angle and just sort of standing there trying to keep our focus. The camera operator asked me to adjust my position for the camera, and Lucy looked up and said to him and Renee, ‘Doesn’t it feel like Tim’s always been here?’ It was a little thing, but it really meant a lot to me.”
Despite their kindness, however, there have been frequent stories of one or other of the regular cast members playing the odd wicked but good-humoured trick on other actors who have appeared on the show. Omundson has been no exception. “Ted Raimi had a little surprise in store for me when I got to New Zealand,” he recalls.
“He was back home in the States, so l was on my own and I didn't know a soul. About 12 hours off the plane, I had to go to read through with the cast and producers. I was really looking forward to meeting Lucy and Renee, because for years, I had been hearing from Ted about how great they were.
“So I go into the room and I’m introduced to Lucy and she barely looks up from her script. Renee walks in and I’m introduced to her and I get the same response... cold! I ask if anyone wants coffee when I’m getting some, and they barely toss me a ‘no’. They're not talking to me... they’re not laughing at my jokes and I’m really starting to sweat. I'm thinking to myself, ‘Great! I’m stuck on the other side of the world with two actresses who won’t even give me the time of day. This is going to be horrible!' So the read through ends and they just get up and walk out without a word of goodbye and I’m sitting there for about 20 seconds dazed and confused.
“I’m thinking that they hate me, when the door bursts open and Lucy and Renee come rolling in bursting with laughter! ‘We’re sorry,' they both say, ‘Ted made us do it! He told us to be really mean to you!’ That was my initiation into the Wonderful World of Xena! Lucy was kind enough to call me the next day and let me know that they were happy I was there and to make sure that I wasn’t running away!”
Omundson readily admits to being a fan of Xena, even before he starred on the show. “I have always watched the show because of Ted,” he says. “He’s always dropping in and out of town and giving us updates on upcoming episodes. It’s one of my wife’s favourite shows, and she's gotten a lot of her friends into it.
“I have no idea if Eli will be back. I got a call about a possible appearance again, but later I got another saying that they had decided not to write me back in. Since shooting my last episode as Eli, or ‘Peace and Love Boy’, as I call him, I have done five episodes of a show called Jack & Jill playing an arrogant theatre director. I’m constantly looking for new work. Most actors have the ‘I’m never going to work again’ syndrome. A few years ago I was a regular on a show called Medicine Ball. I would love to get a regular spot on a show again because it would mean that I could more fully develop a character.”
Rather than acting, would he like to move more towards directing at any time? “I’m still trying to figure out what I’m doing as an actor,” Omundson confesses. “It’s the kind of thing that you never master. There’s always more to learn and always places to improve. In the long run, I think that's what keeps you alive. As far as directing goes, I don’t think I'd want the headaches. Just let me sit back with my coffee and play make believe.”
Does he have any ambitions to write either film scripts or stage plays or, for that matter, a book or two? “No” he says most definitely. “I have written an article for a newsletter that is produced by The Joel Tobeck Fan Club, but that’s about as far as my writing aspirations go. A lot of friends are actors/writers. It seems like everyone in Hollywood has a script they are working on. But basically, I don’t really think I have anything to say that anybody wants to hear! It’s like acting or any other art form. You've got to have a passion for it. If not, then what’s the point?”