Australian Women's Weekly - "A Cut Above" (giugno 2004), Magazine: foto e articolo

A CUT ABOVE


Nip/Tuck, the hit TV show about two plastic surgeons, has made Julian McMahon a household name in the US. With the second series being screened later this year, the Aussie actor is enjoying the sweet smell of success.

Does he or doesn't he? Julian McMahon's eyebrows head north and his killer smile parks just this side of wicked. The question is, does he or doesn't he have a fling with acting icon Vanessa Redgrave in the new season of Nip/Tuck? Now that would be a first, the son of a former Australian prime minister between the sheets with the iconic daughter of British theatre royalty. Julian, son of the late Sir William McMahon, is inscrutable in response. "We have a thing," is all he concedes about his relationship with the show's guest star, refusing to detail the extent. In other words, you have to watch if you want to know.

Not that this is the only reason people will tune in again to Nip/Tuck, although a McMahon/Redgrave "thing" would be worth its weight in publicity. The truth is the show has become a break-out hit in no small part due to Julian himself, who has generated much critical acclaim for his portrayal of Rubik's Cube-like Dr Christian Troy, a cocky Miami plastic surgeon with a penchant for beautiful women, money, fast cars and sex.

"From the very first time Dr Troy asks a patient to 'tell me what you don't like about yourself, the audience -- and the camera -- can't get enough of McMahon," wrote one critic, echoing the pack.

"He's the most complicated character I have played," says Julian, 35. "Intense, intelligent, quippy, fast, very sexy -- it's all there. And when the show was critically received, it was the first time in a long time I felt like -- and I don't want to sound too cosmic -- everything lined up."

We are sitting in his trailer on the Paramount lot in Los Angeles. He is tanned, buff and drips copious amounts of both charm and dry wit. Though an easy, open talker, you note his accent is now thoroughly American.

After 17 years working as an actor, first in Australia in The Power, The Passion and Home and Away, then in the US on Another World, Profiler and Charmed, Julian is arguably at his peak, with a hit show (nominated for a Golden Globe), adoring websites and attendant buzz that has crowned him this season's TV It Boy.

He is, he says, exactly where he hoped he might be, playing a character that he, along with the audience, can really sink their teeth into. It's just he didn't realise, he says, laughing now at his naivety, "the journey would be so hard".

He makes it clear he knew building an acting career would be hard work, that he was ready to study and do his time in the trenches. Yet he wasn't quite prepared for all the obstacles of working in America.

"When I arrived here, I was in Home and Away, and had experienced a bit of stardom at home and in the UK. Then I came here and the Americans are like, we don't understand you [the accent], we don't care what you have done."

Rather than retreating, Julian saw the rejection as a spur. "I just took everything as a learning experience. When they said the Australian accent wasn't going to cut it, I knew I had to get an American accent. I began auditioning as an American, which meant taking all the Australian credits off my resume.

"And when I got a part in Another World, I had to make another adjustment. I didn't come here and say, 'I am going to be a soap star', I had other ideas, and yet here I am, on a soap. And the lesson for me was, welcome to reality. It told me how much hard work was still ahead."

Which is why Julian appreciates the success of Nip/Tuck, a culmination of nearly two decades of working his way up from model, to commercials, to ensemble player, to support star, to lead -- "every show was a blessing, teaching me how to better work with actors, directors, cameras".

In Australia, he says candidly, doors both opened and shut because of who his family is. "I'd say it closed as many doors as it opened. When I got Home and Away, they didn't want to see me, it was only through persistence they did.

"The hard thing for me was I never knew, if a door opened or closed, whether it was because of my name. In America, I felt I had more of a clean slate. I wasn't the son of somebody, I wasn't somebody they thought they knew. It was just up to me, every single step came down to me, my choices. What happened in auditions, good or bad, I felt like I owned it."

And now that he has "blown up", as they say in the US, what a way to go. Nip/Tuck isn't your average TV drama, more like TV on speed. Created by Ryan Murphy, Nip/Tuck also stars Dylan Walsh and Joely Richardson (daughter of Vanessa Redgrave), and focuses on two plastic surgeons -- an alpha male (McMahon), and a family man (Walsh) -- whose life-in-the-fast-lane practice forces them to deal with, among other things, a murderous drug lord, extortion and infidelity, while handling an endless stream of patients desperate to be sliced open and "fixed".

Couple the hair-raising plot lines with queasily realistic depictions of surgery and it's no surprise the show has come under fire from both parents, for it's questionable morality, and from plastic surgeons, who decry its cavalier attitude to surgery. (In one episode, Dr Troy sews a severed finger on backwards.) Then add such brazens lines as, "the world is our oyster and we're going to suck that ***** down with a champagne chaser", and you have yourselves a perfect bonfire.

"I love him, but I couldn't live with him," Julian says of the doctor-cum-cowboy, who's had his genitals Botoxed by an angry drug lord and who has also traded his girlfriend for a sports car.

"But I do admire his honesty. He has moments of self-doubt, but he addresses every challenge. I don't want to sound crass, but I think in life we do whatever we do to achieve whatever goal we have, and we are slow about it. Christian does it at speed."

Does he identify on any level with him? "I do, I just wouldn't allow myself to be that way."

How so? "The obvious manipulator, the competitiveness, the challenged human being, I know those traits are there in me, but I know you can't exhibit them."

Julian read the Nip/Tuck script while working on Charmed, thought it brilliant and raw, and asked to audition. So, too, did every other actor in Hollywood. "They didn't want to see me. I remember thinking, I can't take no for an answer."

So in his home in the Hollywood Hills, he auditioned on videotape, then delivered it to the show's producer, Ryan Murphy. "I had nothing to lose. I got a call two days later, then it was an audition every second day for two weeks."

To prepare for the part, Julian watched a number of surgical procedures, such as a buttock or breast implant and a nose job (a plastic surgeon on set coaches the cast how to hold the instruments), and says he has no quarrel with cosmetic surgery. "If you get up every morning and say, I hate this body part, and it's totally impacting on your life, why not change it? The concern for me is plastic surgery abuse and obsession."

The consequences of playing Christian can be surprising, says Julian. "I went to a dinner and about eight different women asked my opinion about nose and boob jobs. I thought, am I on Candid Camera? They are kidding, right?" They weren't.

While Christian plays a surgeon by day, after hours his alter-ego is a turbocharged playboy. This means Julian spends a considerable amount of time in bed on set, simulating sex with actresses he often meets that day. "It's like when I first met Kelly Carlson [who plays his girlfriend Kimber] and I said, 'Forgive me if I get aroused and forgive me if I don't'.

"This character is so driven by sex, and I understand that's part of the job," Julian says. "I can't feel uncomfortable because this guy would never be, so I just have to adjust myself. Do I like standing around half naked all day?. No. But the sex scenes are extensions of the character. Depending on how he reacts, they tell you the effect these women have on him."

Given that his own mother knows a thing or two about creating a stir -- who can forget the figure-hugging dress split to the thigh that Lady McMahon wore to the White House in 1971 -- I was curious as to what she thought of her son's incarnation as fictional sex maniac/surgeon.

"She loves the show. I'm not too sure how easy it is when people come up and say, 'Hey, I saw your son's **** last night,' but it's nothing she hasn't seen." And his sisters? "I think Deborah and Melinda love what I do."

What strikes you even after a short time with him is how happy Julian is. Clearly, he has hit his stride as an actor, but even more, he relishes being a father to daughter Madison, four.

"There is no second of my life becoming a father hasn't affected. It gives you a certain perspective," he says. And yet, the man the US press describes as "strapping", "the Aussie Hottie", and "Australia's JFK Jnr" has not exactly hit a home run in the relationship department.

Divorced from Dannii Minogue in 1995 after less than two years of marriage and actress Brooke Bums in 2001 after two years, Julian says he doubts he will marry again. "I might, who knows, but not for now. It's signing a piece of paper that is difficult for me. I have done it twice and it didn't work out. I would be happy to live with someone. As much as I love people, I have a real loner side. After 18 hours a day at work, I need my time alone."

Asked if he is dating at the moment, Julian politely declines to comment. It's understandable, given his two marriages and divorces were tabloid fodder. Yet he appears philosophical about the lack of privacy that comes with the territory.

"When you are a public figure, it's naive to assume the press aren't going to play a role. It [tabloid stories] definitely affects you, but once you have made a relationship public, it happens. When it's about me, I pretty much don't mind, but when it's about my child, it affects me."

In fact, any mention of his daughter Madison arouses an immediate protective instinct. (God help the first man that shows up at his door to date her.)

He shares joint custody with Brooke Bums, who is currently dating Brace Willis, and when Julian isn't cooking for Madison, gardening with her or swimming with her, he is being constantly entertained by her.

"I can just watch her all day. She is very gregarious, a total performer. She likes to play princess, she tells me I'm the prince. She doesn't understand what I do, but she loves coming to the set because she gets doughnuts."

She hasn't been to Australia yet, but Julian is planning to bring her next year. And as for the idea his little princess might want to act one day, he is ready. "I will say sure, just promise me you are in it for the right reason, that you want to express yourself through performing. Not to be famous."

It's interesting Julian's day job sees him wielding a knife, because in his down time he can be found doing the same thing. "Give me a glass of wine, some ingredients and I'm the happiest guy," he says of his passion for cooking. "I have tons of Women's Weekly cookbooks and a folder of menus out of the magazine."

He went through a phase where he cooked from a different country every month. Right now, he doesn't have time. Given his avowed love of food, you have to wonder how he stays in such great shape. The answer lies in running two to five miles every day and working out three days a week. And if there is time, he also goes hiking and surfing.

"I don't diet, I can't live that way." Besides, how could he give up VB? "I love the stuff. It's like mother's milk to me."

He laments you can't get it in America and, when I tell him he'll just have to go home more often, he warms to the idea of working in Australia again. "I would love to do something in the independent film industry, and there have been offers, but timewise it hasn't worked out."

There have also been offers to make movies in the US, but barring Meet Market, a small black comedy in which he recently starred as a soap actor (oh, the irony), he hasn't found "the right thing". He wants, he says, a career in film and TV that is going to continue to develop him as an actor -- it's obvious he's not interested in being a "personality".

"Watching Vanessa Redgrave work [she guest starred on Nip/Tack as her real-life daughter Joely Richardson's mother] was a total education, and my idea of what to aim for. You see her work and you say to yourself, I still have a long way to go. She listened, she took notes, she took direction, she was so humble. Very inspiring."

He plays a doctor now, but I wonder if he has ever thought about playing a politician. He certainly has the genes and the charm. He says, absolutely, he'd like to tackle such a role, yet cautions he has few insights into the politics. "I was three when my father was PM, so I was too small to be an observer. Although I think politics and acting are very similar, they are both performance oriented."

Sir William McMahon died of cancer in 1988, aged 80. There's no question his son bears his ambition and drive. Yet when asked if he thinks his father would have appreciated his career success, Julian pauses. "It's hard to answer that. I was 17 when he died, it wasn't like I understood him fully, but he was always an advocate of enjoying life.

"I loved him as a man, as somebody I looked up to and still do, and strive towards. But I do wish he could see this [success], because that would mean he would be here."


By Sharon Krum