Pins and needlesbr>
'Nip/Tuck's' Casanova of cosmetic surgery is hot stuff on TV, but does he need a lift on the lanes?<
By Rick Press

When the devil comes strolling into a bowling alley, he won't be holding a pitchfork or sporting a pair of pointy horns.

More likely, he'll have a killer set of sideburns and a smoldering look in his eye. He'll have slept with his best friend's wife. And he'll have the power to alter people's looks and change their lives forever.

His name, believe it or not, will be Christian -- Dr. Christian Troy, playboy plastic surgeon and the amoral center of FX's hit drama Nip/Tuck.

He's been called everything from a cold-blooded predator to an arrogant, oversexed, antichrist -- and that was just in one episode. But critics are also calling Dr. Troy one of the most compelling characters on TV.

Julian McMahon, the 35-year-old Aussie who portrays the lipo lothario, has played a prince of darkness before. For three seasons, he was Cole, an underworld demon on the WB series Charmed.

And he admits there are similarities between the two characters.

"One's the devil, and one's not far off," he says. "I loved playing the devil on Charmed. Just because it was the devil, ya know . . . But this show and this character are just so extraordinary. There are parts of him that are close to me. And parts that are not."

Decked out in denim and 2-day-old soap-opera stubble, McMahon looks like a young Burt Reynolds as he spreads out his lanky 6'2" frame in a plastic chair at AMF Showplace Lanes in Euless. I can only hope he isn't as silky smooth on the lanes as he is on Nip/Tuck.

The series, which has generated ratings and controversy by showing the ugly side of making people beautiful, focuses on the practice and relationship between Dr. Troy and Dr. Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh), two very different doctors and friends. Sean is the stable one, a gifted surgeon stuck in a dead-end marriage with two kids and a gurney full of guilt over the superficial nature of his work. Christian cares more about his flashy clothes, fancy sports car and six-figure salary than he does surgical precision. In one episode, he sews a severed finger on backward.

"All the characters on the show are flawed, and that's what's great about it, because for me that's a little more realistic in regards to the way my life has been," says McMahon, who admits to "screwing up" two marriages, including one to former Baywatch actress Brooke Burns. "I met this producer one day, and he said: 'I don't get your show, man. Everybody's so screwed up.' And I'm like, 'Isn't that like life?' "

After the first frame, I get the distinct impression that McMahon's life in the fast lane hasn't included many pit stops at the bowling alley. He opens with one pin and a gutter ball. But he looks great.

"Literally, the last time I bowled was 10 years ago," McMahon says, raising one of those eyebrows the Los Angeles Times deemed "perfect."

"As a kid, I used to bowl quite a bit. The bowling alley was the cool place to hang. [It] was also the first place we got Space Invaders."

McMahon wasn't like all the other kids, though. His father, Sir William McMahon, was prime minister of Australia for two years when Julian was a toddler.

"I know it sounds like a really kind of aloof life, but my parents were really good at maintaining a realistic lifestyle," he says. "It wasn't a big deal, really."

After a stint in law school, McMahon was spotted by a modeling agent. He landed some high-profile commercials (Levis, Coca-Cola) and became a pseudo-celebrity in Australia. "Kinda like the Dell [computer] guy, ya know."

The exposure led to a shot at acting. "When I first started it was brutal, because I had no idea what I was doing," he says. "But I got a lot of coaching from some of Australia's best actors."

After doing some theater, he was cast in the American soap Another World and then in the popular NBC series Profiler as Detective John Grant. The experience on network TV makes him appreciate the freedom he has on FX.

"The differences are huge. If you're standing over a dead body on network TV, it's not really good if you're laughing. That's just how they look at it," he says. "But here I am on FX operating on somebody's breasts and . . . I feel like there's almost no limit to what we can do."

That's almost true. No F-bombs. And no frontal nudity. But Nip/Tuck has definitely stretched the boundaries on advertising-supported television. Some of Dr. Troy's sex scenes border on soft-core porn. And there was that matter of a drug dealer threatening to inject botox into his privates.

"Oh, that was a tough day of filming. I don't like needles, I don't like the sight of blood, so the whole show makes me squeamish," says McMahon. "It's extreme stuff."

So extreme, that a national plastic surgeon's association has criticized the show for its cavalier depiction of plastic surgery and its graphic shots of scalpels slicing into flesh, and tubes pulling out fatty tissue.

McMahon doesn't mind a little controversy -- or the occasional over-the-top storyline.

"I know the plastic surgery board was up in arms about us," he says. "Then I've spoken personally to a number of different plastic surgeons and they all said they loved it. We're not trying to show you a truly, 100-percent realistic view of an operation. If we did that we'd just take a camera into a surgery and film that. What we're trying to do is create a dramatic show. Something you will want to sit down and watch for 46 minutes."

Nearly 3.5 million viewers a week (big numbers for basic cable) have tuned in to Nip/Tuck, which airs its season finale at 9 p.m. Tuesday. McMahon says fans can expect a cliffhanger, as the show tiptoes closer to revealing whether Dr. Troy is the father of Sean's son.

Unfortunately, there were no cliffhangers in our bowling match. McMahon displayed flashes of surgical precision, picking up four spares, but I showed no mercy. Final score: Dr. Troy 98, Rick 232.

Take that, you devil.

Final score

Dr. Troy | 98 Rick 232