The doctor is in
Whether on the big screen as "Fantastic Four's" demented Dr. Doom -- or on TV as "Nip/Tuck's" caddish plastic surgeon -- Julian McMahon is one smooth operator.
By Michele Hatty

"Tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, onion, lettuce, parsley, rosemary, watermelon. And carrots."

No, this isn't a grocery list fashioned by a hungry vegetarian. Rather, it's a list of the seeds Julian McMahon recently planted in the garden of his Los Angeles home with his precocious daughter, Madison, 5. It turns out that this sexy single dad has quite the green thumb.

That's just one of the surprising things the star villain of "Fantastic Four," the new superhero flick, revealed recently. The dark-haired, green-eyed ex-model with the square jaw plays metal-masked Dr. Doom, an evil scientist who plots to become the most powerful person on Earth.

"There's no better villain in all of comics," insists McMahon, his Australian accent prominent. "He's complex, he's intense, and," he adds hopefully, "he's impossible to kill." (The actor is banking on a sequel.)

Playing a supervillain is not entirely foreign to McMahon. Consider, for example, the role that has made him buzzworthy in Hollywood: the caddish and charming Christian Troy on FX's "Nip/Tuck." The show, which will begin its third season in September, follows the drama-heavy lives and careers of two plastic surgeons in Botox-happy Miami. It is basic cable's highest-rated original series and this year led to a Golden Globe nomination for McMahon.

He admits that his "Nip/Tuck" alter ego does infiltrate his personal life: "Last week I was out to dinner, and a whole table of women came up to me and asked if they needed plastic surgery. Most of the time, I dodge those questions. But I couldn't help myself. I told them they all needed boob jobs!" Despite his success as TV's favorite man for the job, McMahon says he's amazed by Americans' obsession with plastic surgery. And no, he wouldn't rule out getting a nip or tuck of his own -- in the future: "I never say never."

McMahon's real-life romantic travails boost his intrigue factor. At 25, he married Australian pop sensation Kylie Minogue's younger sister, Dannii. The marriage lasted only a year. At 31, he walked down the aisle with actress Brooke Burns, with whom he had Madison. That marriage was similarly short-lived. Since then, the single McMahon has been linked to perennial Hollywood bad girl (and his former Charmed co-star) Shannen Doherty. All this, and he's only 36.

"Again, I never say never," he says, slowly, when asked if a third marriage is in his future. "But right now, the most important woman in my life is my daughter." McMahon counts time with Madison as sacred. "She always comes first," he says firmly.

"He's an amazing parent," "Fantastic Four" director Tim Story enthuses, unprompted. "Madison would spend two weeks on the set with us, then she'd go back home for a couple weeks, then come back again" over the course of the four-month shoot. The little girl didn't seem bothered by her dad's Darth Maul-esque Dr. Doom costume, either. "She would say, 'Daddy, you look funny!' But she was never afraid of him," Story says.

Although he was in his 20s before he started acting, McMahon grew up in the public eye. When he was 2, his knighted father became prime minister of Australia. His mother, Lady Sonia, was a fashion icon, and the family was followed and photographed by press around the world. McMahon grew up planning to become a lawyer or a doctor. But at 19, he went through, as he puts it, "a bit of rebellion," scuttled college after just one year and moved to Los Angeles to become a model. Modeling led to acting, and soon he had credits in Aussie soaps with names like "The Power," "The Passion" and "Home and Away." Back in the States, a contract role on the NBC sudser "Another World" led to prime-time work in the drama "Profiler," and then "Charmed," before "Nip/Tuck."

But he admits he does allow room for other passions as well, like cooking ("Last year, I devoted each month to learning a different cuisine: Southern, California, Texan, Tuscan, French ...), running ("It's therapeutic for my mind") and music ("Right now, I'm listening to a lot of [mellow rocker] Jack Johnson").

And, although he eschewed it in the past, McMahon says he hasn't ruled out following in his father's political footsteps. "I used to think I would never want to do that. But now, I don't know. There's a lot of acting in politics, and a lot of politics in acting. There are reasons someone who is good at one might be good at the other." And after all, he wouldn't be the first foreign-born California actor to enter politics. /font>

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