Julian McMahon is yet another notch on the ever-fattening belt of sexy Australian actors making it big in Hollywood. Following stars like Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, Naomi Watts, Hugh Jackman, and Mel Gibson, McMahon is climbing the ladder and becoming a name-brand just like his fellow hunky, talented Antipodeans.
McMahon was born on July 27, 1968 in Sydney, Australia, the second of three children to Sir William McMahon, the former Australian Prime Minister. The young Julian had an upper-class childhood due to his family’s prominence, and was educated at the prestigious all-boys Sydney Grammar School. He toyed with college, studying law and economics in his native country, but soon decided that a career as an entertainer was in his future. He quickly became gainfully employed as a fashion model, and traveled to catwalks around the world as his profile increased. Though his performances make him out to be a consummate professional, he merely stumbled onto acting after accepting a role in the long-running, enormously popular Australian soap “Home and Away” in 1990. The surprisingly talented model-turned-actor caught the performing bug quickly, and appeared in various television and film projects through the 1990s. His most successful bit was playing Det. John Grant on the popular NBC crime thriller “Profiler” for four years.
McMahon’s best gig to date is “Nip/Tuck,” the taboo-breaking F/X series that follows the lives of a group of rich, arrogant plastic surgeons. As Dr. Christian Troy, McMahon commands the series with his confident swagger and promiscuous behavior, making the show one of the sexiest on television despite all the icky scalpel antics (one might call these scenes the show’s ‘money shots’). McMahon has also appeared as a regular on “Charmed,” and won the coveted role of Dr. Doom for 2005’s superhero extravaganza “Fantastic Four.” He is set to reprise his role in 2007’s “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer” after things get steamy with Sandra Bullock in the supernatural thriller “Premonition.”