MCMAHON'S NAKED AMBITION
by PAULETTE COHN

Hunky actor Julian McMahon is happy to bare all for his latest hard-fought role
It's lucky Australian-born actor, Julian McMahon doesn't have a problem with ditching his duds for his art. In the edgy new medical drama Nip/Tuck the actor stops just short of full-frontal nudity in outrageous sex scenes. He didn't even feel the need to tone up for the exposure.
"The way we look at bodies these days with everything so tight and so taut, it's all kind of generic and shallow," he tells TV SOAP. "I didn't want to be physically like TarzanI wanted to be just a man."
In Nip/Tuck McMahon plays Christian Troy, one of two Miami-based plastic surgeons. The graphic lovemaking scenes are just his way of boosting business. The unethical medic seduces women to net them as clients.
It's the most dangerously seductive role McMahom has played and he's grateful for the opportunity to sink his teeth into a part.
"I identify with him a lot, but I'm not so openly manipulative." explains the actor. "I think we all manipulate each other, but he faces it on a constant basis."
"He's the most brash and (at moments) honest person I have ever come across. He has an ability to say whatever is on his mind that I don't have, but I think sometimes is extremely constructive."
"At the same time, there are other things he does that I wouldn't do."
Landing the role wasn't easy, but the star's sheer determination paid-off. "I read Nip/Tuck literally two days before leaving Charmed," he recalls. "I called my agent and said, 'I've got to get on this thing'. They said, 'They don't want to see you'.
"I had two days left of employment and I was viciously fighting for my next part. We all have to prove ourselves in life. I had to go in there and fight for it. It was a fantastic part for me. I fought a great battle and I won."
Like his flawed character, the 35-year-old star hasn't led a bulletproof life. He has been twice married and divorced. His first marriage to actress-singer Dannii Minogue lasted a year, while his second to actress Brooke Burns, with whom he had daughter Madison (three), lasted two years.
Rumour has it that an alleged fling with his Charmed co-star Shannen Doherty was the cause of the second split.
Nowadays McMahon claims to be "footloose and fancy-free" both in his personal and professional life - he's more prepared to take career risks. While a regular job on US shows Another World, Profiler and Charmed have made the swarthy, Sydney native financially stable, walking away from a guaranteed pay cheque is never easy. But a passion for his work drives the actor to explore.
"I love to play the most horrific character but then have the audience rooting for him," he says of Christian Troy and his demonic Charmed character, Cole.
"When you can involve people so much that they follow the character and have a sensibility for them, that's an extraordinary challenge as an actor, really. That's what fires me up."
During his early years in the US, McMahon didn't get to choose roles because no one understood a word he said. He even auditioned for the part of an Australian on the hit sitcom Friends, but lost it to an American actor with an Aussie accent!
"In New York they just can't be bothered." says McMahon, "so eventually you have to speak with an American accenr just to get your groceries."
The star hired a dialect coach and learnt to speak 'American'. The result was worth it - especially since it kept the wolf from his door.
It's this ability to adapt and a fighting spirit that has taken this Sydney boy from humble beginnings on Hone and Away into the Hollywood spotlight.