What Dr. Doom-ism from the comics did you incorporate into your performance?
I guess the most important thing is the infiltration of his hand, what his hand is in the glove and all that kind of stuff. It’s everything. I tried to build on everything. You literally see him as this guy, as I am. And then he gets a cut on the side of his face and then it spreads around his face and his hands start to turn into things. What I tried to do because you know Dr. Doom, you pretty much know Dr. Doom is the guy with the mask and the hood and the glove and the hand, so I wanted to give you that evolution.
There [are] many times when you see Doom pulling on his glove or pulling off his glove or hiding those things. I tried to bring as many of those things in as possible. But I think that the hands particularly had a big thing for me. It was so weird because when we first started shooting I had like these scenes and I had this thing going on with my hand. I didn’t know why it was happening. I had this weird thing going on with my hand and Tim comes up to me and goes, “You know, you’re always doing this [touching things] with your hands.” I’m like, “I know. I don’t know what’s going on but you’ve got to go with me on this one.” He’s like, “Alright. Whatever dude.” (Laughing) And then I realized what it was and it was the fact that there was so much about the hands, and so I wanted that to start off early. He’s kind of a man who never stands around without his hands twitching a little bit. That’s kind of the evolution of that guy and eventually what we know Dr. Doom to be.
The director wanted you to sport an accent. What was that about?
Well he comes from a place called Latveria – Dr. Doom does.
So it was a nod to the comic book?
Very much so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I can’t tell you how many accents I went through. It was an absolute nightmare. At the end of three weeks of shooting different accents, I just said, “I can’t do this accent thing.” And he’s like, “That’s good because we can’t understand you.”
Will you have any kind of accent in the movie?
No. Actually, I pretty much talk like myself. Every now and then I try and make it a little more Englishy or a little more rounded, as opposed to clip vowels. And get rid of my ‘r’s a little bit maybe, not so American. But it’s pretty much the way that I speak. Every now and then I’d find a moment where I could be a little more Europeany.
I wanted you to get a feel 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 very difficult to come in with some kind of Germanic accent. It’s very difficult. All of a sudden all you’re thinking about is your accent and not your work. And then also, I think Fox just wanted a standard accent kind of thing [that] everybody could understand easily.
In the comic books your character always hated Reed Richards. What’s his beef with the rest of the team?
Well you know, he has a relationship with Sue Storm and things go astray once they head in their direction and he heads in his. Johnny and him really don’t have much of a beef with each other, aside from the fact that Johnny just becomes one of the Fantastic Four and has to set about getting rid of Victor because Victor’s kind of not the nicest guy on the planet - and quite powerful. And then Ben and Victor have always had a beef with each other. Ben’s kind of the gruff, aggressive, let’s do it kind of guy. Victor’s the more sophisticated, snotty guy who’s full of himself.
How did you enjoy working with the rest of the cast?
I loved working with them all. I did a lot of stuff with Jessica [Alba] because of obvious reasons, once you see the movie. I worked with everybody. Once Victor turns into the Dr. Doomy kind of Victor, which he’s still got my face but he’s kind of turning 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, whatever that may be. So I got to work with everybody quite a lot.
It was great. For me it was such a breeze. I’d come off of “Nip/Tuck” and I was shooting 20 hour days, and you’re shooting fast dialogue really quickly. To go into a movie set, it just was like going for a walk in the park. And then Jessica and Ioan [Gruffudd] and Chris [Evans] and Chicky [Michael Chiklis] are just all great people. They really are and they’re all very talented.
Julian McMahon on Favorite Scenes, "Charmed," and "Nip/Tuck"
