Julian McMahon Talks Fantastic Four 2

Posted by: Sheila Roberts

MoviesOnline recently caught up with Julian McMahon and asked him about his role as Dr. Doom in the upcoming "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.â€ Marvel's first family of superheroes, The Fantastic Four, meets their greatest challenge yet in "Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer" as the enigmatic, intergalactic herald, The Silver Surfer, comes to Earth to prepare it for destruction. As the Silver Surfer races around the globe wreaking havoc, Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben must unravel the mystery of the Silver Surfer and confront the surprising return of their mortal enemy, Dr. Doom (Julian McMahon), before all hope is lost.

Hereâ€™s what Julian McMahon had to tell us about Dr. Doom and the "Fantastic Four 2â€:

Q: Can you talk about Fantastic Four 2 for a second? Iâ€™ve heard that Doom has a more classic look in the film? Do you have any scenes with the Silver Surfer?

JM: The classic look of Doom, well, it's weird, man, because first of all, you start with

Dr. Doom has been in a casket for a couple of years and wakes up two years later, whatever. And he's pretty pissed off, and he kind of just rips off his mask and all that kind of stuff. He gets very ugly. And then he's got his lair set up in some castle in Latveria, right? We're talking comic book stuff so you have to kind of go with all this kind of stuff, with all these monitors and stuff. I don't know where he got 'em all from, but they're pretty cool. He sees this kind of 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 kind of stuff.

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 this pretty amazing costume. It's a similar kind of mask, but it's kind of a larger type of fit and probably a little more sturdy kind of look to it. The chest plate, it's a very heavy outfit. It weighed about 45 -50 pounds, whatever, without the cape and stuff, but itâ€™s pretty extraordinary. Itâ€™s a darker suit than the one that he had last time. Itâ€™s kind of more Batmanesque in a way, but with the mask itâ€™s obviously very Dr. Doom, and itâ€™s a great looking outfit and heâ€™s got like aâ€¦..God, I canâ€™t remember. Look, I got so many outfits, itâ€™s ridiculous [laughs]

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

JM: Yeah, I had quite a lot to do actually, because he went through all these different transformations, you know, different to what happens in the comic or the cartoon but we kind of just had to make it applicable for some reason, I donâ€™t know.

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

JM: I have, yeah. Fantastic Four particularly, yeah

Q: What did you like about it?

JM: I donâ€™t know, I think maybe I just liked the fact that there were four people with different types of powers. But I was 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 donâ€™t know, maybe its team work, and I donâ€™t know, it was just good.

Q: As a comic book fan, how cool is it to have Galactus in the movie?

JM: A-ha! I can't go there.

Q: Ioan (Gruffold) already did.

JM: Doesn't mean I am. (Laughs)

Be sure to check back later in the week for our detailed interview with Julian McMahon. To read our interview with Ioan Gruffold where he spills the beans as well on Fantastic Four 2, and talks about Fantastic Four 3, go here: Loan Gruffold Interview