Julian McMahon's spent a good deal of his career involved in television projects. Roles in Charmed, Profiler and the critically acclaimed series Nip/Tuck have kept him so busy he hasn't had much time for feature films. He did manage to squeeze in both Fantastic Four movies while working on Nip/Tuck and also found time for a co-starring role in the twisted thriller, Premonition, opposite Sandra Bullock.
Following the Story of Premonition: Asked if he understood the plot the first time he picked up the Premonition script, McMahon replied, “Well I don’t think, to be honest, I got it at any point and time. I still don’t think I get it, really. But I like the concept of it and I liked, more than anything else, I was kind of touched by the story of the family. The story of the family was kind of the integral part of the movie to me, because without that you didn’t have kind of 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 and all that kind of stuff but, if you don’t have some kind of basis, some kind of reality behind it, I think you’re missing something.
For me it was really more kind of about this couple, this husband and wife that 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 kind of felt that I could relate to and I felt was kind of very sad, you know?”
The Mood Behind the Scenes: “The mood was very variable. It depended on what was kind of going on. I had a lighter schedule than her, obviously, because she’s in kind of every frame of the movie, right? So she was there everyday, all day, so I had to be a little kind of careful, just because I’d be out playing golf, sampling the local cuisine or whatever. You know what I mean? I’d come in and go, ‘Hey, there’s this fantastic restaurant down here!’ (Laughing) They’d be like, ‘Get out of here!’
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. We had pretty intense scenes. That scene that kind of got cut down to a pretty small scene—but that scene where I’m cleaning up the glass was an intense scene and the mood was bad. It was bad all night long. It was so bad that we didn’t even get the scene right we don’t think. We went back and re-shot it because we didn’t feel like we got it. Everyone was so angry and the scene was a lot longer and a lot more kind of intense or whatever. Then like the first scene in the movie was like the first scene we actually shot, and that was just kind of a giddy kind of scene, you know what I mean? That was fun. We were just laughing around and having a good time - plus it was our first day of shooting.”
It wasn’t always intense. “No, not at all. But it’s a pretty intense movie and it’s a pretty intense role,” explained McMahon. “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? 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. It does create a certain mood. It’s not like her shooting one of her fun movies. It’s a little different.”
Working with Producer/Actress Sandra Bullock: McMahon confessed to being a fan of Bullock’s work for years and years. “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 other’s characters and so everything just got laid out on the table. And so I really got to work with her in a very kind of deep and thoughtful way. We would go in and do scenes and me and Mennan [Yapo] 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. 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. 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.
We both do what we do because love it. It’s kind of one of the most important things in your life, aside from your children, your family and your really good friends. So to work with somebody like that, in that kind of capacity, is really kind of getting to know them in a very significant way. Then on top of that she’s just an absolutely extraordinary person.”
