Post by kay80 on Mar 17, 2006 5:57:48 GMT -5
Julian McMahon goes from "Nip/Tuck" to "Fantastic Four"
By Maria Elena Fernandez
Julian McMahon transforms into Dr. Doom in "Fantastic Four."
HOLLYWOOD — Tim Story was looking for an actor to play the "Father of All Villains," industrialist Victor Von Doom, who turns into the steely-eyed Dr. Doom. In walked Julian McMahon, and within minutes the "Fantastic Four" director was convinced he had found his antihero.
"You have to see this Julian McMahon," Story kept telling everyone, believing he had just discovered "new talent."
New talent?
The actor who drove him to mad effusion is one of the two stars of "Nip/Tuck," FX's dark comedy/soap opera that ended with one of the television season's most-discussed cliffhangers: Miami plastic surgeon Dr. Christian Troy, played by
McMahon, possibly stabbed to death by a masked serial rapist.
"When I started throwing his name out, especially to women, they were like, 'Oh, my God, yeah!'" Story said. "Everybody was on 'Nip/Tuck,' except for me. It was kind of better that way because then you're just watching the actor in the room with you. But it was great to know there's already a following there. I just knew him from walking in the door and thinking, 'This guy is Victor Von Doom.' "
McMahon, 36, who was nominated for a Golden Globe this year for his portrayal of Troy, likes that Story cast him for his first big commercial film solely on the merits of his ability to personify Dr. Doom, even though he's grateful for the fame and popularity his small-screen alter ego has brought him.
The Australian actor, who starred on "The Profiler" and "Charmed" before landing the role of boy-man Christian, says he was taken aback when he got the call, six months after the audition, that Story wanted him to play the insanely jealous, extremely intelligent Von Doom.
"That didn't sound right," McMahon said, "because the Dr. Doom that I remembered as a child was covered with a mask, was just evil, pondering, mischievous and a never-will-die villain."
And how exactly is that not like McMahon? This is the actor who scowled intensely when he tracked down killers on "The Profiler," played a half-demon with sinful aplomb on "Charmed" and wanted to portray the pathos-ridden, sexually maniacal plastic surgeon so badly that he filmed an audition tape in his kitchen and mailed it in because the "Nip/Tuck" casting director wouldn't even put him on a list.
"Don't push me," McMahon said with a smile, relaxing at a Hollywood cafe before heading to the "Nip/Tuck" set. Then he explained that he wanted to play one of his favorite comic-book antiheroes for the same reason he was attracted to Christian Troy.
"Nobody's just a good guy. Nobody's just a bad guy. Nobody's just anything," he said. "We're all everything. We could be fantastic, wonderful, deep human beings one moment and shallow, horrible nasty people the next. That's what interests me as a person and actor. ... Christian is the ultimate of that, and that's why me and the character fit so well."
"What we were looking for," said "Nip/Tuck" executive producer Greer Shephard, "and he really was the only one to possess this, was somebody who had such contagious charm that it would neutralize the character's amorality. We needed somebody who could be both an urbane playboy and a really accomplished surgeon. Or, as we used to joke, someone who could wield a knife as well as a martini glass."
Whatever you do, you'll be put in a category," McMahon said. "If you're Gary Oldman doing 20 characters, then you're put in the 'He does lots of characters' category. As human beings, we have to slot you somewhere, and this is what happens. But if I wanted to step out of this category — which I'm not saying I do or I don't — then I have to find the role to do that."
One option might be the next James Bond, a role for which McMahon is happily still contending.
"Fantastic Four" costars Ioan Gruffudd as Mr. Fantastic; Jessica Alba as the Invisible Woman; Chris Evans as the Human Torch; and Michael Chiklis as the Thing.
"I was ready to go as soon as I met both of them," Story said of McMahon and Chiklis, the star of the FX series "The Shield." "At the end of the day, what's great about television now, especially cable television, is that the line between TV and film is breaking up. I never felt like I was getting 'TV actors.' I was getting really amazing actors. When you think of Julian and Chiklis, you can't wait to see them in a dramatic piece because they're already doing that kind of filmmaking on television."
For two-thirds of "Fantastic Four," McMahon endured hours of makeup and prosthetic applications on his face and hands to make Dr. Doom's disfigured, sinister appearance as realistic as possible.
"I wanted to play a villain we hadn't seen before," McMahon said, "and the script gave me the ability to do that because he started out as a billionaire magnate who pretty much runs the planet. It's fun because it's totally out of the norm. But the scars and prosthetics took from three hours to nine hours to put on, and that was trippy. It was definitely beyond challenging, mentally, physically and emotionally."
