It’s a sad coincidence. With the release of the new Marvel Studios movie The Fantastic Four: First Steps just a few weeks away, the actor who brought his own brand of refined menace to the role of Dr. Doom in Fox’s 2000s FF films, Australian-born Julian McMahon, died last week at 56.
A native of Sydney, Julian was born in 1968. His father, William McMahon, was a leading Liberal politician who served as the country’s Prime Minister in 1971-72. After studying law and economics in college, the younger McMahon switched career tracks and left to work as a model in Europe. Returning Down Under after his father’s death in 1988, Julian did commercial work and soon landed roles on the popular Aussie soap operas The Power, The Passion and Home and Away.
His motion picture debut came in the 1992 Australian-U.S. beach comedy Exchange Lifeguards, released in America as Wet and Wild Summer!. McMahon came stateside the following year and won a recurring role on the NBC soaper Another World. He later played Detective John Grant on the 1996-2000 crime drama Profiler. Julian was both evil and romantic as the half-demon Cole Turner, sent to destroy the Halliwell sisters only to fall in love with Phoebe (Alyssa Milano), in Seasons Three to Five of the supernatural series Charmed. During this time he also had supporting turns in such indie films as 2000’s Chasing Sleep and 2004’s Meet Market.
Leaving Charmed in 2003, McMahon hit the ground running when Ryan Murphy cast him as womanizing plastic surgeon Dr. Christian Troy in FX’s acclaimed drama Nip/Tuck. He got to play a very different kind of doctor when he was tapped to co-star in 2005’s Fantastic Four as the superhero team’s masked archfoe Victor Von Doom, aka Dr. Doom. Comics fans were mixed on the villain’s on-screen depiction but generally liked McMahon in the role, and he returned to menace mankind again in the 2007 sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
Julian co-starred with Sandra Bullock in the time-travel thriller Premonition (2007); portrayed a filmmaker taken hostage in an abandoned penitentiary in the suspenseful Prisoner (also ’07); and played the U.S. Vice President in the espionage actioner RED (2010), with Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman. His later movie résumé included the 2013 action tale Paranoia; the 2018 dark comedy Monster Party; and his final film role in the 2024 drama The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat.
After starring as Special Agent Jess LaCroix in the 2020-23 CBS series FBI: Most Wanted, McMahon’s last recurring TV role was as–of all things–the Prime Minister of Australia in Netflix’s satirical The Residence earlier this year. After battling cancer for several years, the actor passed away on July 2 at his Florida home.