Julian McMahon Interview, Premonition

MoviesOnline recently sat down with Australian actor Julian McMahon to discuss his new film "Premonition,” directed by Mennan Yapo from a screenplay by Bill Kelly and starring Sandra Bullock. An actor who delivers a heady combination of charisma and intensity to his roles, McMahon has impressed critics and audiences alike with his work.

McMahon was most recently seen on the big screen in "Fantastic Four" playing 'Victor Von Doom,' a role he will reprise in this summer’s sequel "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer”. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Drama for the FX original drama series "Nip/Tuck." He was previously nominated for a Golden Satellite Award in the Best Actor in a Drama Series category.

McMahon recently completed work on the independent film "Prisoner" for writer/directors David Alford and Robert Lynne.Previously, he made an impression on television audiences as 'Detective John Grant' on the award-winning NBC drama series "Profiler" and the tortured demon, 'Cole Turner' on the popular WB series "Charmed."

In "Premonition,” Linda Hanson (Sandra Bullock) has a beautiful house, a loving husband and two adorable daughters. Her life is perfect, until the day she receives the devastating news that her husband Jim (Julian McMahon) has died in a car accident. For this devoted wife and mother, it’s the worst she could imagine. But did she imagine it? When Linda wakes up the following morning her husband is very much alive. At first, Linda believes the accident must have been a nightmare. Then it happens again; some days Linda awakens to find Jim is next to her alive and well, while on others she awakens a widow. Inexplicably, she is living the days of her life out of order. Linda’s traumatizing premonition sets off a series of puzzling, time-altering events. Her world is turned upside down as the surreal circumstances lead her to discover that her perfect life may not have been all that it appeared. Desperate to save her family, Linda begins a furious race against time and fate to try and preserve everything she and Jim have built together.

The role of Jim Hanson had to be the perfect counterpoint to Linda; a good husband and father, who although worn down by his role, is practical until the end. McMahon says when he read the script, he was immediately hooked. "The first few times I read it I was just fascinated by the juxtaposition of time vs. the traveling of the characters, and what they mean to each other. Then I started getting into the whole psychology of it, and after the fifth or sixth time I read it, I realized how draining the whole thing is. It’s a devastating psychological thriller.”

Jim, says McMahon, is the catalyst for everything that is happening in the movie. "This isn’t a character I have played before: a more middle-American regular guy who is just living his life while his wife is going through an extraordinary experience. There were so many interesting things for me to dig my teeth into...the character, the script, the director and, of course, Sandy,” explains McMahon.

Here’s what Julian McMahon had to tell us about his latest role:

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

JM: 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 liked 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 kind of stuff, you can make it look fancy, but if you don’t have some kind of basis, some kind of reality behind it, then I think you’re missing something. For me it was really more about this couple, this husband and wife that you know hadn’t communicated for a very long period of time and really didn’t know how to communicate any more. There was this kind of 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 kind of stuff. It was just something that I felt that I could relate to and I felt was very sad, you know, and then to actually make a choice to instead of having an affair, run away, get a divorce, they actually made a choice to get back together, come back together and I thought that was an interesting way to look at it.

Q: Given the emotional intensity of the scenes, 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. So, she was there everyday, all day, so I had to be a little careful, just because I’d be out playing golf or sampling the local cuisine or whatever, 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, you know, we had pretty intense scenes. That scene where I’m cleaning up the glass got cut down to a pretty small scene, but it 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 like the first scene in the movie was the first scene we actually shot, and that was just a giddy kind of scene. So that was fun, we were just laughing around and having a good time—plus it was our first day of shooting.

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

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

Q: Was there any levity or 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 know 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 you had to…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 kind of 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.

Q: 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)

Q: 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 going, ‘Alright, where are my keys? (Laughter) Why can’t I get out? Why am I not getting out? Because it’s jammed…it’s jammed. How long is it jammed for?’ You know, 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 kind of 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, you know 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, you know, it wouldn’t have made the movie, I don’t think.

Q: Why has it taken you so long to make a big movie? You’ve done "Charmed” and "Nip/Tuck.” You’re a big star and yet you haven’t done any movies during your hiatuses. Why?

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 10 years, 8 years or whatever it was, you don’t have time. You’re shooting usually ten to eleven months a season, and, so, your one month is just your month of recuperation. And, you know 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, at least you kind of 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 three months off, or six months on a movie and it just comes down to 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.

Q: Why don’t you do a lot of big movies?

JM: 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 know you kind of have to make different choices for different things.

Q: Now that you’re 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 have 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 fun—a lot of great characters.

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

JM: (Laughter) Uh-ha [pauses] I don’t think so…I don’t think resistance is going to be a part of it, no.

Q: He’ll still be Christian?

JM: Yeah, definitely. He’s evolved a lot over the series, you know 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, I mean, basically it is.

Q: Can you talk about Fantastic Four 2 for a second? I’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 without the cape and stuff but its pretty extraordinary. It’s a darker suit than the one that he had last time. It’s kind of 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]

Q: So even with all the new characters, do 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 just had to make it applicable for some reason, I don’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 don’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 don’t know. Maybe its team work, I don’t know, it was just good.

Q: 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 -- it 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.

Q: Can you give an impression?

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

Q: This movie brought to mind another movie, a temporal romantic movie called "Another Day” that you made a few years ago with Shannon Doherty. Do you have 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 don’t know 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 like going to different places. Like this movie went to Louisiana and shot in Shreveport. I always love to absorb myself in the culture of the place you get to go to and I did that with that movie. We shot in Winnipeg in Canada. It’s a great place, weird place though, it’s the weirdest place on earth. It’s like so cold for nine months of the year, right, that nobody goes out, you can't go out. No, you can’t. I swear to God your eyeballs freeze over. That was a 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. Right? 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 mesh screen. "Don’t go out, no, no, no! Mosquitoes are out there!”

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

JM: I wouldn’t want to compare it to anybody but just working with her is… you know, I’ve been as big a Sandy fan as everybody else has for however long we've known her for. 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 it’s also different from Fantastic Four stuff and whatever else. 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 so 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 or whatever so you really got to…..we both do what we do because we love it. So it’s kind of one of the most important things in your life, aside from your children, your family and your really good friends. To work with somebody like that in that kind of 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.

Q: 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 know you just don’t know. I thought it was pretty out there…

Q: It’s on the main network in Canada,

JM: Oh is it? What is it on?

Q: CTV.

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

Q: 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 well written pilot, and I knew that I was going to have a commitment for only six months 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 kind of delivered that show, and executed that show and I felt like if there was any place to be, it was kind of the right place.

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

JM: Ah ha! I can't go there.

Q: Ioan (Gruffold) already did.

JM: Doesn't mean I am.

Premonition (2007) The Making of	Premonition (2007) Clip: That Woman	Premonition (2007) Clip: Somethings Wrong	Premonition (2007) Clip: Promise	Premonition (2007) Clip: Monday Morning
Premonition (2007) Clip: Inconsistent	Premonition (2007) Clip: Let Jim Die	Premonition (2007) Trailer