Emmanuel Itier: When you first read the script, did you get it immediately, or did you get lost?

Julian McMahon: Well, I don’t think, to be honest, I got it at any point in time. I still don’t think I get it really. But I like the concept of it and… more than anything else, I was touched by the story of the family. The story of the family was the integral part of the movie to me because, without that, you didn’t have the body of the movie. You can do the psychological drama thing, you can do all that stuff, you can make it look fancy and all that stuff, but if you don’t have some basis, some reality behind it, I think you’re missing something. And so, for me, it was really more about this couple, this husband and wife that hadn’t communicated for a very long period of time and really didn’t know how to communicate anymore. And there was this void in their relationship and, at the same time, they’re taking care of two kids–one of them is doing one thing, taking care of the house and the kids, and the other one is taking care of the finances and all that stuff. It was just something that I felt that I could relate to, and I felt was very sad, and then to actually make a choice to… instead of having an affair, run away, get a divorce, blah-blah-blah, all that stuff, whatever it may be, they actually made a choice to come back together, and I thought that was an interesting way to look at it.

EI: What was the mood like for Sandra and you behind the scenes?

JM: The mood was very variable. It depended on what was going on. I had a lighter schedule than her, obviously, because she’s in every frame of the movie, right? So she was there every day, all day, so I had to be a little careful just because I’d be out playing golf, sampling the local cuisine or whatever, you know what I mean? And I’d come in and go, “Hey, there’s this fantastic restaurant down here!” (Laughter) And they’d be like, “get out of here.” But you’ve got to be a little sensitive to the fact that she’s going through what she’s going through, so sometimes it would be a little…it was tense. Sometimes it was tense when the two of us were on set–we had pretty intense scenes. That scene that got cut down to a pretty small scene, but that scene where I’m cleaning up the glass was an intense scene and the mood was bad. It was bad all night long, and it was so bad that we didn’t even get the scene right, we don’t think, and we went back and re-shot it because we didn’t feel like we got it. And everyone was so angry and the scene was a lot longer and a lot more intense or whatever, but…and then the first scene in the movie we actually shot,and that was just a giddy scene, you know what I mean? So that was fun, we were just laughing around and having a good time–plus it was our first day of shooting.

EI: You’re not saying everyone was angry off-camera as well, are you?

JM: Oh, no, no…but the mood…well, maybe (laughter).

EI: Was it always intense and serious?

JM: No, not at all, but it’s a pretty intense movie and it’s a pretty intense role. And you do have to play, once we got into that house. We had that house, me and Sandy and the two kids, and it just felt like this little family we had. It was just weird, you know what I mean? And I felt like we had to say a lot without actually doing and saying a lot. That void that I was talking about before, that had to be there no matter what, so you have to be able to play that, so it does create a certain mood. It’s not like her shooting one of her fun movies–it’s a little different.

EI: Nevertheless, if your car was stalled in the middle of the highway and an 18-wheeler was roaring towards you, would you try to start the damn thing, or…?

JM: I’d get out of the damn thing! (Laughter)

EI: Did you question that scene?

JM: You know, I can’t remember what ended up in the movie. It felt like I was there for 20 minutes. I’m going, “All right, where are my keys? (Laughter) Why can’t I… why am I not getting out? Because it’s jammed…it’s jammed. How long is it jammed for?” It was like, I had to play that for a very long period of time. They were like, “Do it again!” “I feel like a goose here. Let me just…this is ridiculous,” and you have to put your faith in the fact that the director is going to make it work and the editor is going to make it work. But yeah, I would have attempted an escape route different then…I would have smashed my head through the damn window if it came to that, but, whatever. It wouldn’t have made the movie, I don’t think.

EI: Why did it take you so long to do a big movie?

JM: Well, firstly, when you’re doing a TV series like “Charmed” or “Profiler” or something like that, which pretty much was my bread and butter for a good ten years, eight years or whatever it was, you don’t have time,. You’re shooting usually 10 to 11 months a season, and so your one month is just your month of recuperation and, they’re also different types of shows…like when I was on “Profiler”, I got asked to do a couple movies but they wouldn’t let me out of my contract. They wouldn’t let me, whereas like now at FX, and with the way that I work on “Nip/Tuck”, I was able to shoot “Fantastic Four” and “Nip/Tuck” at the same time. It was a grueling schedule and not something I would like to do often, but you work things out. And with “Nip/Tuck”, you got six months of the year. We shot this movie for five months, so “Nip/Tuck” is that schedule where we’re shooting 13 to 16 episodes a year, so you get six months off and six months on, so you get six months to go do what you want. And you can do two months on a film and two months off, or six months and…it just comes down to–then you know choices that you make. I made the choice to go on Charmed which I never regret whatsoever, because I loved working on that show and the people were just fantastic. In fact, it was one of the greatest experiences I’ve had in the business. That choice I made just because I’d just had a baby and just gotten married. I felt like I needed to make money at that point in time, so it’s not like I could just go, “Well, let’s all move us to an apartment down on Yucca and I won’t take a job for the next two years and just wait for a film to come.” You have to make different choices for different things.

EI: Coming back on “Nip/Tuck”, how is Christian going to rule LA?

JM: Ha! Did you see the last episode of us under the Hollywood sign? Wasn’t that hysterical? It’s very rare that you get to shoot that sign–I thought it was pretty incredible. You know, I don’t really know exactly what we’re doing. We’re going to have a sit-down in the next few weeks and talk about what we’re doing. But they set up their practice right on Rodeo Drive, which is obviously pretty central to where you think it should be, and then it’s funded by Rosie O’Donnell’s character. It’s going to be a lot of fun–a lot of great characters.

EI: Do you think the LA scene is going to faze Christian’s way with women? Will he face some resistance?

JM: (Laughter) I don’t think so. I don’t think resistance is going to be a part of it, no.

EI: He’ll still be Christian?

JM: Yeah, definitely. I mean, he’s evolved a lot over the four years, but I don’t think he’s ever had any resistance. I don’t think that’s going to stop. That’s the fun of the character, basically.

EI: Does Doom have a more classic look in the film? Do you have scenes with the Silver Surfer? What are you allowed to say? I know I’ve asked a lot.

JM: Yeah, you have. I’m really slow, okay?

EI: Okay, start with the classic look of Dr. Doom.

JM: The classic look of Doom… well, it’s weird, man, because, first of all, you start with Dr. Doom who’s been in a casket for a couple of years and wakes up a few years later, and he’s pretty pissed off. He just rips off his mask and all that stuff. He gets very ugly, and then he’s got his lair set up in some castle in Latveria (we’re talking comic book stuff, so you have to go with all this) with all these monitors–I don’t know where he got them all from, but they’re pretty cool. He sees this entity which is the Silver Surfer. Just knowing the comic books, Dr. Doom is Dr. Doom, so what does he do? He goes and he tries to destroy everybody and get everybody’s powers and all that. That’s basically what the character’s about. But then Dr. Doom becomes me for a certain period of time, which I think is very strange but let’s not get into that. And then the final costume is pretty amazing. It’s a similar mask. It’s a larger type of fit and probably a little more sturdy look to it. The chest plate… it’s a very heavy outfit. It weighed about 45 to 50 pounds without the cape, but its pretty extraordinary. It’s a darker suit than the one he had last time. It’s more Batmanesque in a way, but with the mask, it’s obviously very Dr. Doom and it’s a great looking outfit, and he’s got like a…God, I can’t remember. Look, I got so many outfits, it’s ridiculous. [laughs]

EI: So even with all the new characters, they still give you a lot to do with Dr. Doom?

JM: Yeah, I had quite a lot to do, actually, because he went through all these transformations different from what happens in the comic or the cartoon, but we just had to make it applicable for some reason, I don’t know.

EI: Have you always been a fan of comic books?

JM: I have, yeah. Fantastic Four in particular, yeah

EI: What did you like about it?

JM: I don’t know. I think maybe I just liked the fact that there were four people with different types of powers, but I was a big fan of other stuff too. I was a big fan of Batman and Spiderman and Superman, but Fantastic Four in particular. I got into it, actually, with the cartoons. We used to watch the cartoons every morning, and I don’t know–maybe it’s team work and… I don’t know. It was just good.

EI: The director and Sandy would talk in German and you’d go, “What is this schnitzel talking stuff?” Did they do that a lot? Did they talk in English?

JM: They did that a lot. Whenever they felt like they wanted to leave me out of something they would talk German. It was very upsetting and it was very annoying, so I came up with this whole character that was “Hitler’s coiffeur” that I started to become, so I became Hitler’s coiffeur and I came up with this German accent and I was commenting on Hitler’s mustache and how he should cut it a little shorter, a little tighter.

EI: Can you give an impression?

JM: No, we’re going to make a movie about Hitler’s coiffeur.

EI: I have to ask a question about… this movie brought to mind a movie, a temporal romantic movie, “Another Day” you made a few years ago with Shannon Doherty. Any memories of making that particular film?

JM: Making that film? Well, that was good fun, shooting it. I didn’t think about it at all in regards to what I was making in this movie. I thought they were very separate things, obviously, but that was an opportunity for me to play a very different character. I’m not sure if you saw it or not, but it was a very quiet, sweet guy, and I hadn’t gotten the opportunity to play a guy like that before, and I just enjoyed shooting. I mean, I like going to different places. Like this movie, I went to Louisiana and shot in Shrievport. I always love to absorb myself in the culture of the place you get to go to, and I did that in that movie. We shot in Winnipeg in Canada. It’s a great place… weird place, though. I mean, it’s the weirdest place on earth. I mean, it’s so cold for nine months of the year, that nobody goes out. You can’t go out. No, you cant. I swear to God your eyeballs freeze over. That was the thing on the news, “Don’t go out–your eyeballs will freeze over.” And then, when it gets warm, it’s like they have those worms that drop out of the sky. I mean worms dropping out of the sky. I mean weird–the weirdest thing ever. And literally you’re coming out and your car will be covered in these worms about this big, and then they have mosquitoes the size of cats. So everybody’s house has got this kind mesh stinger out going, “Don’t go out, no, no, no! Mosquitoes are out there!”

EI: Compared to other actresses that you’ve worked with, can you talk about working with Sandra Bullock? What it was like–the dynamics?

JM: I wouldn’t want to compare it to anybody, but just working with her is…I’ve been as big a Sandy fan as everybody else has for however long we’ve known her. I’ve admired her work from a distance for a long time and, like other actors that I’ve admired, I’d love to have had the opportunity to work with her, and I got this opportunity. This was a great movie for me because it’s a little different. I’ve been working on television for a long time, and its also different from “Fantastic Four”. We went down there three weeks early and we just hashed out everything–me, the director, Sandy, the writer–all just sat around the table and talked for three weeks about what we thought was the way to deal with this movie. What were our thoughts and feelings about it, what we thought about our characters, each others’ characters, and so everything just got laid out on the table and I really got to work with her in a very deep and thoughtful way. We would go in and do scenes, and me and Mennan and Sandy would sit around and talk for an hour and a half. The crew would go off and eat and do whatever they wanted to, and we would talk for an hour and half or two hours about what we thought the scene was about. We got that luxury. Mennan gave us that luxury, and then Sandy and I would consistently talk about things. Whenever we thought about something, we’d call each other or just talk about it, so we both do what we do because love it, so it’s one of the most important things in your life, aside from your children, your family and your really good friends. So to work with somebody like that in that capacity is really getting to know them in a very significant way. And then on top of that, she’s just an absolutely extraordinary person.

EI: What were your expectations of “Nip Tuck” when it started?

JM: I didn’t know if it would go past the pilot. I knew it would have a different type of support system because it was on FX than it would anywhere else, unless it was HBO or something like that, but you just don’t know. I thought it was pretty out there…

EI: It’s on the main network in Canada.

JM: Oh, is it? What is it on?

EI: CTV.

JM: Do they cut it down for that, or do you just have different regulations?

EI: No. They do “The Sopranos” on there.

JM: Oh, so it’s obviously a different thing there. But no, I didn’t know. All I felt like it was a pretty great character to play, and what it felt like was a was a well-written pilot, and I knew that I was going to have a commitment for only six months or a year if it did actually go into a series, which gave me freedom to do other things, which is what we were talking about before. I really was a fan of “The Shield” and the way that they delivered and executed that show, and I felt like if there was any place to be, it was the right place.

EI: How cool is it to have Galactus in the movie?

JM: A-ha! I can’t go there.

EI: Ioan already did.

JM: Doesn’t mean I am.

EI: How did you handle the time shift?

JM: It was a very difficult script to put together, and I don’t think that I ever put it together properly, but because everything was so out of order, I had to put together a bunch of different scripts. So I would get one script and I’d rip out all of the pages and I said, “This is Monday, this is Tuesday, this is Wednesday,” blah, blah, blah. But what I felt that I had to do was that he had to live his life normally. With this wife of his who was becoming a little strange, he’s going through his daily routine, doing all of the things that he’s doing, and that’s why whenever you see him, he’s moving through life like he would normally, but with this woman who is telling him, “Don’t go to work tomorrow. Don’t do this. Don’t go there.” Crazy stuff. It’s particularly at a point in time when their relationship isn’t really that great. It’s pretty far on the rocks. So I felt like my part was to solidify things a little bit in regards to the fact that we were, at some point in time, a normal family and that’s the way that we live our lives, while she’s gone all haywire, her days are all out of order and doing all that stuff. Still, whenever she came back to us, it was whatever it was. It was just normal life.

EI: Big thinking exercise?

JM: It is, actually.

EI: Is “Premonition” a love story or a thriller?

JM: Love story.

EI: Most have been saying thriller.

JM: Really? Oh God. Thriller, to me, is like… I don’t know. I guess it’s a thriller really. There is no doubt about that.

*SPOILER ALERT*

EI: It’s being marketed as a thriller. Is that a mistake?

JM: It is. They should’ve told me that. No, I remember reading the script the first time, and it was so emotional and touching to me–this whole idea of this couple that hadn’t communicated with each other for six years. They’d been living with each other, raising two children, sleeping together in the bed and not even communicating–not even talking. So that void occurs when something like that happens, but this was for six or seven years. So they’re at a very desperate place in their lives without this mayhem that goes on, without the thriller aspect of it. Then they have these two beautiful children and I said, “What do you do?” It’s very difficult to turn around to your partner and go, “You know what? I haven’t spoken to you for six years, but what the hell is going on?” It’s easier, I think, to make a choice and go, “Lets get a divorce. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t like you anymore. I don’t care about you.” Whatever it is. “I’ve had an affair. Take the children.” I mean, there are so many different choices that you can make, and that’s what I thought was touching about the movie–they actually make a choice to be together at the end of the movie, and then, obviously, I can’t say.

EI: What do you have to say about smoking in the film after the comments you made against it?

JM: Who said that? I heard this yesterday. I’ve never said anything about being an actor and this smoking thing. So no, I don’t know who said that, but whoever said it, take it back, please.

EI: So you’re pro-smoking?

JM: I’m pro-whatever. You make your own choices in life. I’m not going to tell anyone what to do. That was never me. IMDB should be smacked.

EI: In the movie, you are a car salesman. Aren’t car salesmen considered pretty low on the totem pole in Australia?

JM: I think that it was about making him an ordinary guy. I thought that the car salesmen thing was weird, and I had that reaction as well, but you also have to remember that we tried to do this small town thing. I think that it’s a little different in a small town than it is in a big town like this, like Los Angeles or wherever you are. So we tried to make everything as normal as possible, and everything was mainstream and that was just a part of it. I always felt that it was weird, though, and not only that, but the choice of his car. Did you see his car? It was like, “Couldn’t he get a better car? He’s dragging it up the lot.” But look, it was all a part of trying to, I guess, normalize things in a very bizarre circumstance, and that’s the movie.

EI: Your character doesn’t talk much. Do you prefer the exposition or the dialogue?

JM: Well, both. They’re both just very different things. They’re both very different characters. Like my guy on “Nip/Tuck”, for example, doesn’t shut up. You want to say to him, “Just don’t say it. What’s the point?” But that’s the fun of playing the character. He’s obnoxious, and I like that side of him, and then you have other characters who say things very poignantly and are straight to the point. This was about a gap that existed between these two people and this inability to communicate. So inside of that comes a lot of air, a lot of space, a lot of walking around the kitchen and doing things and not even really noticing, trying not to notice that the other person is even there and trying to maybe get out of the door earlier because you don’t want to see him. That’s what this was about. This was a very desperate and horrible place for two people who are married to be at.

EI: Is “Nip/Tuck” moving to Hollywood going to effect the show?

JM: Well, I think that TV shows can get a little stale after a period of time, even for the performers and the writers and the directors and the DPs and everyone. I think that it just breathes new life into a show that has been very explicit and we never held back. I mean, we put everything out there in every episode, so it gives us a new well to tap into. It’s just a new style and a new type and a new thing. I was speaking to the writers and Ryan [Murphy] and Mike [Robin] and Dylan [Walsh] and everyone–we’re just all excited. It’s just fun to work somewhere else, and particularly we’ve been shooting here for the last four years, and now it’ll be nice to use these locations. We’ve been shooting indoors a lot because of that constraint. I mean, it’s also a financial constraint as well, but it’ll just give us an ability to use the scenery.

EI: So you are hooking up with Dawn Budge again?

JM: Yes, Dawn Budge–I think that she purchases the space for us on Rodeo Drive. She’s got a lot of money. That power ball thing–that’ll get you rich if you hit the jackpot.

EI: Are you always amazed by the scripts for “Nip/Tuck”, because it pushes the limits?

JM: No, I thought that the pilot was as out there as we could get, and I felt like you had to keep it out there to keep it consistent with what the show was. I love getting scripts because you go, “Okay, this is great. I get to do that and do different things.” The stuff that I get to say is great. It’s a wonderful experience, but I never didn’t expect it.

EI: Was the future episode fun to do?

JM: Yeah, I’d love to do a whole season like that. Those characters were hysterical, man. I had so much fun with that guy. Although, the prosthetic every day is a pain in the ass, but that guy was weird. He had those ascots around his neck and he was grabbing everyone’s ass, and it was the perfect guy that he would’ve turned into. That was supposed to be like 20 years in the future. I thought that it was like 40 years in the future, but it was fun to put that mask on play that guy.

EI: Have you had an intense premonition yourself?

JM: No.

EI: You’ve never felt you were going to get a role?

JM: No, pretty much I walk away, and particularly when I was auditioning too, like, “Ugh. There is no way I’m going to get that.” Most of the ones I walked away thinking I wasn’t going to get, I got. The ones that I thought or walked away going, “Oh, I nailed that thing,” they go, “They didn’t like you. Sorry.”

EI: Can you talk about your role in “Prisoner”?

JM: “Prisoner” is a pretty intense movie. It’s about a guy who’s this arrogant filmmaker who gets in prisons, and it’s a very psychologically-oriented imprisonment. It’s a little trippy like this movie is, and I guess that throughout the movie you wonder if he was actually really in prison, or if it was his own spell that he put himself under. Hopefully he comes out of it at the end as a better man or at least having learned something. It was great fun. It was working with Elias Koteas and we were stuck in a prison cell for five weeks or something. It was pretty intense.

EI: So now are you opposed to green screen after playing Dr. Doom again in “Fantastic Four 2?”

JM: Yeah, I spent a month-and-a-half doing that. That was intense. The last month-and-a-half of me shooting that was me in this outfit which weighed, I think, between 40 and 60 pounds, depending on what cape I had on, which is a lot of weight to carry around. I was up on this jib about 50 or 60 feet high with a half cut-off surfboard and put on this massive tire, and then I had a support system strapped to my back and I had to pretend that I was doing all of these different things.

EI: When you do films like “Fantastic Four”, do you ever think to yourself, “Am I really an actor?”

JM: Yeah, you just wonder what the hell you’re doing there and if someone else should be doing this, but I felt like the Dr. Doom thing was so… I don’t know. I didn’t want anyone else to be doing that. I like doing the little things like the hand stuff. No one else was going to do it the way that I wanted it to be done. I mean, particularly with Dr. Doom, I’ve found, and I only found this through the first movie, everything was happening through his hands. All the metallic stuff–it started in his hands and he was doing all this stuff with his hands. So if they need a close-up of it or whatever, it should be me doing it because I know what I’m doing. It gives it that feel. That’s why I decided to get up on this green screen.

EI: Recently, you’ve done a lot of major films. Do you prefer to work during your hiatus from “Nip/Tuck”, or would you rather relax on a beach?

JM: Well, these last two months I just collapsed. I finished two days before Christmas and you’re going to spend that with the kids and whatever else. After that, I just did nothing, but last year I shot “Premonition” for the first five months, and then I went straight to “Nip/Tuck”, and then a month-and-a-half into the show I was shooting that and “Fantastic Four” at the same time. One of them was here and one of them was in Vancouver. I didn’t know where I was. I literally was on set here on Friday afternoon, and then at 2:00 the next morning I’d be on a glacier in Alaska shooting some scene. So it was pretty intense, but I just like taking the opportunities. I think that this is a good moment for me right now, and the show has been really good for me and I have a couple of movies under my belt, and so it’s hard to say no to the things that you really want to do.

EI: Do hectic, long schedules affect your work?

JM: Affecting it negatively, obviously. I don’t know. The problem is sometimes when you feel like you’re just walking through it. I never walk through my work, but I just enjoy being on set a lot of the time, and when I stop enjoying that, then I know I need to take a break, which is what happened to me at the end of last year and why I took a break for the first three months of this year. But you have to get up for your work because that’s my responsibility. That’s what I do. That’s what I’m getting paid to do. That’s what I love doing. Your mood is sometimes like, “Ugh. I have to go to work again.” Any time someone knocks on that door and says you have to come to the set, you’re like, “Ugh.” Then you know that you need a break for a minute because I know that I usually love it. So I do it that way.

EI: How do you stave off those type of feelings?

JM: Well, I workout a lot. That keeps my sanity in some respectable place–working out and spending time with my daughter. I just try and do things that, when you have time off, you’re doing things as mellow as possible.

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