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Monday, February 21, 2005

FANTASTIC FOUR'S JULIAN MCMAHON

SAN FRANCISCO -- As Julian McMahon likes to say, "The Doctor is in the house." Of course, McMahon isn't talking about his role on FX's Nip/Tuck. He's talking about playing that other Doctor -- Doctor Doom -- in this summer's Fantastic Four movie from 20th Century Fox.

McMahon was featured at a panel at WonderCon on Saturday and then sat down with the press for a roundtable interview.

Following is a transcription of that interview.

Question: What's up with the hat (which said "Von Doom," see photo above)?

McMahon: I wanted to try to bring something from the movie, but they wouldn't let me by the end of the day, for obvious reasons. This was made for me by the guy who designed everything on the show, including all of the prosthetics, the mask and the cape he wears. This is my own little tribute to being on set.

Question: Was the mask hard to wear?

McMahon: No, it wasn't actually. Everything was very specific and very fitted, if you know what I mean. I can't tell you what you went through for this job ... full-body scans and the prosthetic process you go through. Everything was done very specifically to fit you perfectly. The mask was really easy, I've got to be honest.

And it was great, actually, because it allowed you to get into the character a little more than without it, if that makes sense. It made you step over that kind of boundary and go into something totally different. It's really interesting.

Question: You're actually the fifth member of the Fantastic Four at the start of this movie?

McMahon: It starts off with five of us heading into space. I come back and the four of them have gone on the very happy trip of being nice, super-hero type of people, and I go the opposite direction.

Question: Was it fun going the opposite direction?

McMahon: Well, you know, it's certainly always fun to play the bad guy at the end of the day. And, secondly, it's kind of fun when it's you versus them. It was me against those four and that was in many different ways. It could have been manipulation or through physical fights that we had or through trying to kill one another -- or whatever it might be.

Question: Can you talk about the physicality of the role? Did you have to do much wire work?

McMahon: You know, there was not much wire work for any of us actors to do because the extent of what they did was so huge. They wouldn't just throw you from this table to that wall. They'd throw you from that wall to twice as far as that wall there. I'm not kidding.

There's no way I'm going to do that, first of all. And secondly, there's no way they're going to allow you to do it. So there really wasn't that much to do in regards to that type of stuff. It was all done by all the stunt people -- and very well done by all of them.

Question: What about the effects? Were there a lot of blue screen involved?

McMahon: There was a lot of blue screen, green screen, but not as much as you think. We had kind of blue-screen days and green-screen days, but a lot of the time it's set in New York City and so you're at the diner or you're on the bridge or you're in my office or you're in Reed's office or something like that.

There was a lot of green screen happening without you realizing it, if that makes sense. With our spaceship, there were green screens the whole around all the way around the outside of the spaceship. It wasn't just you standing around on a green screen. Where with a lot of green-screen work, it's just you on the green screen and you have to pretend everything. So you have all those kind of tools. You didn't have to worry about creating everything in your mind.

Although I must say the whole green-screen thing is a great thing for an actor.

Question: Did you read Doctor Doom in the comics before this?

McMahon: Oh yeah. Very much so. I used to watch the cartoons when I was young, like 6 or 7. I used to wake up at 5 o'clock in the morning and I remember it was on at 5:30. I used to watch Fantastic Four and then I think the next one was Spider-Man and the guys with the Wonder Twin powers in it.

And then I got into the comic books after watching the cartoons. I was a huge fan when I was kid of all of these Marvel characters.

Question: Do you see Doctor Doom as misunderstood or as a villain?

McMahon: I see him as both. Initially, and this is how we start him off in the movie and it was really taken from the original comics, he's a man who is pretty much, reasonably egotistical, pretty set on what he wants to get out of life and will do whatever has to do and can do to make sure that he gets that. With that kind of person, with that kind of mindset, I think when the circumstances happen to him that happen to him in the movie and everything kind of turns against him, it's almost a natural progression for him to go, if that makes sense.

He has villainous qualities because he will trample you. Even just as a businessman before he became this Doctor Doom thing, he'd run over you if he had to. He didn't care. It was all about business, it was all about making money and getting power. So that has a villainous aspect to it to a certain extent, I think.

And on top that, I call it the disintegration of a human being. And that's kind of what happens to him in the movie and also what happens to him in the comics.

Question: Almost tragic.

McMahon: Very much so. So, it's both, I think.

Question: You referred to him as Rupert Murdoch?

McMahon: I know, and I shouldn't have. (laughs) There's only a certain few men on this planet that are virtually those type of men that have type of power and money. I think Rupert's one of them.

Question: Your office is pretty swanky.

McMahon: Did you see it? It was cool, huh? That was a great moment for me because that was like the first moment I felt like I was on this $200 million movie. Up to that point I was shooting these tiny little scenes in little rooms, and then I stepped into Victor's office and it was bigger than this. It's so intimidating and it's all made out of this cobalt, cold material. There's all this material from the moon. It's so bizarre.

And it's made to dominate and made to make people feel inferior, and it was just incredible. Usually when you see a movie and you get on a set, the room is like half the size you thought it was because they can use differnt angles and can shoot around it. This is like the opposite -- well, not the opposite because the footage on the movie looks enormous as well -- the room was just huge.

Question: I'm picking up a comedic vibe to the film. Am I right?

McMahon: Certainly, I remember sitting with Avi (Arad) and we were doing an interview together and he said that's what they want to pull out of it. It reminds me of Harrison Ford in the Star Wars movies, one-liner, screw-you kind of lines. I think it's hard to know if you've succeeded in that until you see it because it depends on how it was cut and how things are set up. There are certainly a number of comedic moments throughout it.

What they want to ultimately do is take you on a ride of everything, if you know what I mean. It needs to be an emotional ride, it's a physical ride, it's a comedic ride -- it's all of those things.

Question: From what you've seen in Fantastic Four in post-production, how does it compare with when you read the script?

McMahon: The script went through so many transitions. You know, this movie's been on the way to being made for 10 years and literally has been made once before. So it's had so many different transgressions and so many whatevers.

The final script that we got when we started working was real good. So then it was one of those things where we were allowed to play with anything on the day. Sometimes you get a note from Tim (Story) the director, or sometimes you'd come up with a line or sometimes the prop guy would say, "Hey, why don't you think about this." Or Tom Rothman would call and say, "Get Julian to say this." And it was all great input. It was part and parcel of really everybody coming together as a conglomerate and trying to do the best with what we had. I think that basically, at the end of the day, you're doing a movie for the visuals and the prosthetics. It's kind of the monkey in the room, if that makes any sense. That's the biggest thing. For the rest of us, it's to fit in where we can make everything else work as well as it can.

I don't even know what the final script will end up being. I tried so many different things. I was even in ADR the other day and we tried a few different lines just to enhance things a little more. You just continually try to get it to a place of where it's the best it can be. Because it is a computer-generated, graphic movie and you want to try to make sure ... because we've seen all those movies where you have that, but then the characters don't work. We don't want that to happen. We want you to enjoy the characters' ride as well. It's continually a work in progress, I think.

Question: If you're not a comic book fan, will you understand the movie?

McMahon: Without a doubt. That's one of things we tried really hard to do is make it for people who don't know the comics. You want all the kids to go see this movie. I want kids to walk out of this movie absolutely blown away. And if it doesn't make sense, then they're not going to be blown away.

We tried to get to things as quickly as possible because we want to get to the meat of the movie. But we set it up and we understand who the characters are and why they're doing what they're doing and their relationships with each other. We tried to give you as much information as possible.

You could have never known about the cartoon or the comic and see this and be well fulfilled.

Question: As a comic-book fan, how does it feel to be on set with The Thing and you're in the metal arms and the green hood?

McMahon: to me, I was the type of kid, I'd strap a towel around my next and jump off the deck and I'd knew at some point in time I'd end up flying because Superman was a part of who I was. I was such a ridiculously stupid child in regards to that kind of stuff. I had all the little toys and I'd make them fight and I'd burn and I'd kill them.

So any one of those characters is like a childhood dream to me in a way. The minute you grow up, you want to be Superman and or you want to be Batman. Doctor Doom for me was just kind of particularly interested because he was my favorite villain. I remember when Star Wars came out and I was one of those nerdy little kids that was like, "He's such a copy of Doctor Doom."

Question: What Doctor Doom-isms have you brought from the comics to your performance?

McMahon: A lot of things are brought through, but I guess the most imporant thing is the infiltration of his hand, what his hand is in the glove. I tried to build on everything. You literally see this guy as I am. Then he gets a cut on the side of his face and then it spreads around his face and then his hands start to turn into things. So what I tried to do is -- because you know Doctor Doom as the guy with the mask and the hood and the glove and the hand -- I wanted to give you that evolution.

Many times you see Doom pulling on his glove or putting on his glove or hiding those things. I tried to bring in as many of those things as possible.

The hands were a particularly big thing for me. It was so weird when we first started shooting scenes and I had this thing going on with my hand. And I didn't know why it was happening, that I had this weird thing going on with my hand. And Tim comes up to me and goes, "You're always doing things with your." And I said, "I don't know what's going on, but you have to go with me on this one." And he said, "All right. Whatever, dude."

And then I realized what it was was that was so much about the hands, and I wanted that to start off early. He never stands around without his hands twitching a little bit. That's kind of the evolution of that guy and what we wanted Doctor Doom to be.

Question: You had mentioned that Tim asked you to do an accent at one time. What was that all about?

McMahon: He comes from a place called Latveria.

Question: So it's a nod to the comic?

McMahon: Yeah. And I can't tell you how many accents I went through. It was an absolute nightmare. It was like the end of shooting of different accents, and I said, "I can't do this accent." He said, "That's good because we can't understand you."

Question: So you don't sport an accent?

McMahon: No, I pretty much talk like myself. Every now and then, I try to make it a little more rounded as opposed to clipped vowels and get rid of my R's a little bit maybe, not make it quite so American. But it's pretty much the way that I speak. Every now and then I could find a moment where I could be a little bit more Europeany because the accent thing wasn't working.

I think it didn't work for a couple of reasons. I didn't have enough time to work on the accent. It was difficult to come in with a Germanic accent. All of a sudden, you're thinking about your accent and not your work, and I didn't want that. And also, I think Fox just wanted a standard accent kind of thing that everybody could understand easily.

Question: In the comics, his beef was also with Reed Richards. What's his problem with the rest of the team?

McMahon: He has a relationship with Sue Storm, and things go astray once they head in their direction and he heads in is. Johnny and him really don't have much of a beef with each other, other than the fact that Johnny becomes one of the Fantastic Four and has to set about getting rid of Victor because Victor's not the nicest guy on the planet and has become quite powerful.

And then Ben and Victor always have had a bit for each other. Ben's quite of the gruff, aggressive, let's-do-it kind of guy. Victor's more sophisticated and snotty guy who's full of himself.

Question: Can you talk about working with the other actors?

McMahon: I loved working with them all. I certainly did a lot of Jessica (Alba) for reasons that are obvious once you see the movie. I did a lot of stuff with Ioan (Gruffudd) ... I worked with everybody.

Once Victor turnes into Doctor Doomy kind of Victor -- where he still has my face but is turning kind of evil -- he sets on this mission of manipulating everybody. He basically manipulates them all to turn against Reed or just to turn against each other, so I got to work with everybody quite a lot.

For me, it was a breeze. I was coming off of Nip/Tuck and I was shooting 20-hour days and you're shooting fast dialogue and that kind of stuff. To come into a movie set, it was just like a walk in the park. Jessica and Ioan and Chris (Evans) and Chickie (Michael Chiklis) are all great people and they're all very talented.

Question: What kind of acting do you use in the fight scenes?

McMahon: The fight scenes become the green-screen kind of stuff. You have to create the situation as much as possible in your head.

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