I Really Wanna Know…What Do You Ask Nip/Tuck Actors?

I Really Wanna Know…What Do You Ask Nip/Tuck Actors? by Roxanne McDonald

As per the interactivity efforts of a number of shows, Nip/Tuck actors take turn answering fan questions. But what do you ask?

A few weeks back, you could post a question at the FX interactive fancast section to Joely Richardson (Julia), then to Ryan Murphy the absolutely brilliant—we’re not worthy!—creator of Nip/Tuck), Julian McMahon (Christian), and others…. This week you can “talk to” Dylan Walsh (Sean)!

But how do you avoid babbling, blubbering, bungling your rare chance to get close to the wings of the genii? How do you avoid asking whether Annie goes to school or has a tutor, or if Matt takes lessons from mentors on or off the show, or if Dr. Liz is gay in real life, or if Peter Dinkle (Marlowe) feels somehow redeemed in the best-played “little person” role ever?

I am in love with Julian McMahon and have been since he

was Cole on Charmed (the only reason I tuned in to Nip/Tuck to begin with), so what would I ask? I am profoundly taken by his acting technique, which has his character(s) showing passion, love, rage, egotism, solitude, desperation, and disappointment (and many other emotions and states) in a myriad of facial rather than vocal/tonal or bodily gestures.

His performing skills are so subtle, so acutely on point that I could ask a technical question, but have no knowledge of character acting versus Stanislavski versus…well, you get the idea, so I wouldn’t elicit a response I would get anyway.

So do I ask, “Do you miss being the ruler of the underworld?” Does he look like he misses it?

Or, could try to get more intimate than a stalker should be allowed, and ask whether he is as well-endowed as his character purportedly is. (Hey. A girl can dream.)

Or, I could ask any number of obvious, been asked a zillion times questions, such as, “Are you like your character? Well, he is a hottie who makes the show sizzle and pop every time the camera is on his naked backside, but he is also so good an actor that his emotions play almost all in the eyes…so yes, he likely gets the women and might even scare the piss out of them when he gets pissed. Just one look in his angry eyes, for instance, and you would so snap to his every whim and wish, if you aren’t already seduced by his sensuality and self-centered stoicism. Oh, wait…. That’s Christian. See how easy it is to get the characters confused?

When the daytime soaps were at their peak popularity (obviously way before reality TV, et. al), viewers would write in to chastise or glorify the characters—rather than remembering the characters were just that and they were really writing to the actors.

Can we really write to a star and 1) avoid asking a ridiculous question that has been asked a zillion times,

and 2) avoid confusing the actor with the character, especially when each and every one is so convincing you almost can’t help but want to nudge Sean, tell Julia to quit whining, or warn Matt that a marriage to Kimber is nothing more than Oedipal repeat that will likely get him if not blinded (which he is now?) then blind-sided?

In journalism circles, one of the first strategies the reporters learn is to know the difference between an interested (good) question and an interesting (not so much) question. But maybe the actors will forgive us for asking the same old same old…if we know no better than to ask what we are dying to know because we are die-hard devotees to one of the best shows on television.

Of course, now you can even upload a body pic and ask whether you should get a little nip here a big tuck there…. Sean and Christian won’t tell you (remember, they are not “real”, as much as you might wish), but fellow Nip/Tuck fans will.

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