CHRIS: How'd you know I'd be here? 
Post by Elizabeth Turner on Jun 1, 2015 19:24:37 GMT
ARTICLES
JULIAN MCMAHON
Quenching Julian's Fire
XPosé Issue #76
By Steven Eramo
He's the demon who came in from the cold, saved by his love for a good witch. But now his days are numbered as Charmed's Julian McMahon tells Steven Eramo.
As the old saying goes, "All good things must come to an end," and that goes for bad things who are trying to be good as well. The 100th episode of Charmed, rather straightforwardly entitled "Centennial Charmed," sees the final reckoning for the reformed demon who's stolen the show for the past two and half years. Sometime in late January, Julian McMahon will make his last appeareace as Cole Turner, to the dismay of the many fans who campaigned to keep him on the show last spring.
It was the actor's own decision to leave, and it was not one he took lightly. "This past summer I began thinking that I needed to push myself more as an actor," he notes. "That sort of spun off into 'What else can I do as Cole?' I thought it was best that he go out with a bang as opposed to a whimper, you know? This character has been so good to me and producer Brad Kern and the show's writers have been just terrific that I felt I had a duty to leave them in a way that made them feel 'Wow, that was good. I wish Cole was were still around to write for.' That's a great place to be at with a character."
"After discussing things with Brad, we both thought that we would be drawing things out if we kept Cole around. I not only believe that it was unjust for my character, but also for the three girls. I didn't want to hold them back in any way. After all, Cole has dominated their characters' lives for the past three years. I also didn't want the viewers to get bored with him. So Brad and I decided that it was time for my character to move on and we more or less set in motion his demise from episode one to episode 12."
That plot arc brings to the end a rocky romance that began in the third season opener "The Honeymoon's Over," and has endured even more upsets than even Liz Hurley's lovelife. Phoebe Halliwell didn't find it hard to fall for devilishly handsome district attourney Cole Turner when he first walked into her life, but then she had no idea that Cole was, in fact, a half-human, half-demon assassin hired to dispose of the Charmed Ones by the evil Triad. Luckily for Phoebe and her sisters, Cole's human side fell in love with her, and after renouncing his former evil joined forces with Phoebe and her bewitching siblings in their fight against the forces of darkness.
"When my character was first introduced at the start of the third season it opened a new chapter for the show as well as the cast, producers, writers, etc," says McMahon. "It was one of those things where everyone was running on a 'this is all brand new for us' type of energy. My concern was whether or not this could sustain itself for the rest of the season let alone beyond that. I needn't have worried though. Little by little, Cole pulled away from being so oriented towards Phoebe and began to establish his own identity. He became almost an antithesis to the three girls. This continues into the fourth year when they were also bringing in a new sister, Paige, in the fold. Even then, I felt like the writers and Brad Kern [executive producer] continued to work really hard at maintaining my character's initiative and steadfastness. I owe them a lot."
They certainly gave McMahon challenging material to work with. Cole was finally stripped of his demonic powers in the fourth season episode "Black as Cole," and had barely adjusted to being fully human before he was taken over by the Source of All Evil. Yet even after he assumed his place as the new ruler of the Underworld, Cole's love for Phoebe was in no way diminished, as the small part of his human self that survived cared about her more than ever. As Cole struggled with his feelings for Phoebe he continued his reign of terror as the Source.
"As for the Source," comments the actor who had to bring off this dual role, "the most challenging part about playing him was that he had a dynamic to him unlike that of any other entity ever on Charmed. First of all he was in love and had a relationship with one of the witches. Second, here's a demon who is part human and experiencing inner conflicts that none of his kind had ever struggled with before. He had to find a way to cope with and understand what was happening to him while at the same time try to maintain his place in the world. Cole was originating this path if you will for a situation that had never been explored on this show. This gave me so much to experiment with as an actor, and I took it like a fish to water. I mean, who wouldn't want to play the Source. Give me a role like that any day."
Although he was all-powerful, one gift that the Source did not possess was that of second sight. For that he needed a beautiful demon called The Seer to advise him on matters pertaining to the future. First seen in the fourth season story "Charmed and Dangerous," this character was played with snake-like charm by Debbi Morgan. "Working with Debbi is fantastic," says McMahon. "She's not only a real professional but also a warmhearted and beautiful individual. Best of all, she laughs at my jokes. So that's a recipe for a great person in my life.
"With The Seer, you had this wonderful dichotomy of my character being omnipotent but having to work with an entity who was, in some ways, even more powerful than him. The relationship as originally concieved was, I felt, extremely well-written. There were so many levels to play with and Debbi and I had a lot of fun fleshing it out. We were quite lucky, too, in that the directors we worked with on the show gave us a fair bit of leeway to try a number of things. I just loved how the dynamic between our two characters turned out."
But there was only one woman for Cole, and after a severe case of cold feet, Phoebe finally agreed to marry him in the fourth season story "Marry Go Round." However, unknown to the bride-to-be, her marriage is not a holy one. Prior to the ceremony, The Seer told Cole that if he married Phoebe in a "black wedding" it would ensure that their future son would be even more powerful that he is. So that's exactly what he arranged to do. This episode is a particular favorite of Julian McMahon's.
"Once I picked up the script and started reading it, I couldn't put it down," recalls the actor. "I kept thinking, 'How are we going to get around this? How is this going to work? How do we manipulate events in order to get where these two people are finally married?' There were so many different things for Cole to do in it. The writers gave me such a wonderful expose of my character in which to work with. I really tried to push the boundaries as far as I could with it. Again I was fortunate that Chris Long directed this episode. He's directed Charmed before and the two of us get along very well. Whenever I come to him with a suggestion he takes the time to listen and think about what I've said. He give me the tools I need as an actor to do my job.
"I remember one scene in this episode where the Seer is explaining to Cole that he must conduct the ceremony as a black wedding. As she's doing so, I'm walking in a big circle around the cave that we're in. I made the camera look at every part of the set, which meant it had to be lit in a very specific way. That's not an easy thing to do on a TV show. If you're shooting a feature film then you have days to set things up, but on the small screen you're talking about having to do a big task in a short period of time. I went to Chris and asked 'Can I do this? I know it's going to be difficult but I think it'll create a certain level for the story that we need to start off at.' He agreed with me and was totally supportive. Talk about a great way to work."
Most brides and grooms promise to love each other "until death do us part," but that moment came sooner than anyone could have expected for the Turners. Before the season had even reached its end, Phoebe was forced to do the unthinkable and vanquish Cole. When the first rumors about the episode hit the 'Net, Cole's fans deluged Xposé with letters calling for a campaign to save the character, so what was McMahon's initial reaction when he received the script for "Long Live the Queen"?
"Brad actually called me beforehand and said, 'There's an episode coming up in which Cole is vanquished. I want you to know it has nothing to do with you leaving the show. We're just creating a story arc we feel is necessary.' I told Brad I wasn't worried at all and he said, 'I know, I just don't want you hearing from someone else that you're being killed off the show because it's not true. You'll be coming back in another story.'"
Sure enough, the fourth season finale "Witch Way Now?" revealed that Cole is still alive but fighting for his life in demon limbo. When Phoebe paid him a visit in this hellish netherworld he asked for her help to escape, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. Instead he absorbed the powers of other vanquished demons in the show's fifth season's opener "A Witch's Tail," and returned to the real world on his own. Now stronger than ever, Cole told Phoebe that he planned to use his powers only for good, but it's a promise that the ex-Source found difficult to keep.
"Going into this [fifth] year we knew we had a certain amount of episodes in which to achieve a specific goal," explains McMahon. "That gave the writers a lot to write and the ability for me to play my character in a far different way than I had up to now. I started out the year being the most powerful demon there is but choosing not to use any of my powers. I don't know if the audiences noticed, but during the first five episodes, I tried to keep Cole's hands in his pockets the whole time. I knew that if he brought his hands out he might do something wicked with them. If that were to happen it would have been destructive to my character's ultimate goal, which was to maintain his relationship with Phoebe.
"Basically I took a page of the old fifties type movies when portraying Cole this season. I've tried to create a Cary Grant-type of gentleman who, circumstances notwithstanding, is a guy that audiences are still going to root for."
Having Cole back in her life was the last thing Phoebe wanted, and his promise to "be good" did little to change her mind. "With Phoebe it's the classic scenario of a woman scorned," says McMahon. "That's made Cole all the more challenging for me to portray this season because Alyssa has had to be kind of non-responsive to him. In some ways, his desire for them to be together tends to border on the psychotic. All of us have at one time or another been told 'no' about something and had to move on. Well, Cole can't move on, and as such he pushes himself to the edge. I especially enjoyed working on the episode "Y Tu Mummy Tambien" ["The Mummy's Tomb"], which happened to be directed by Chris Long. In that one Cole goes over the edge and there ain't no coming back."
McMahon shot his last scene as Cole on Monday, December 2, 2002. Not surprisingly, it was a bittersweet moment for him. "As scary as it is to get back out there in the world and book the next job I was excited about the prospect," he says. "On the flip side, I was really sad about leaving this cast and crew. I'm not the best at goodbyes, so it was tough to think that after being with these people for three years and twelve hours a day that I was leaving and didn't know when, or if, I'd see them again. I truly feel that I've been blessed being a part of Charmed."
When it comes to what he'd like to do next, McMahon has this to say. "I just want to do good work. It doesn't matter if it's on TV, the big screen or even onstage in a little theatre here in Santa Monica. I'd like to continue to challenge myself as an actor. That's what I'll be striving for."
JULIAN MCMAHON
Quenching Julian's Fire
XPosé Issue #76
By Steven Eramo
He's the demon who came in from the cold, saved by his love for a good witch. But now his days are numbered as Charmed's Julian McMahon tells Steven Eramo.
As the old saying goes, "All good things must come to an end," and that goes for bad things who are trying to be good as well. The 100th episode of Charmed, rather straightforwardly entitled "Centennial Charmed," sees the final reckoning for the reformed demon who's stolen the show for the past two and half years. Sometime in late January, Julian McMahon will make his last appeareace as Cole Turner, to the dismay of the many fans who campaigned to keep him on the show last spring.
It was the actor's own decision to leave, and it was not one he took lightly. "This past summer I began thinking that I needed to push myself more as an actor," he notes. "That sort of spun off into 'What else can I do as Cole?' I thought it was best that he go out with a bang as opposed to a whimper, you know? This character has been so good to me and producer Brad Kern and the show's writers have been just terrific that I felt I had a duty to leave them in a way that made them feel 'Wow, that was good. I wish Cole was were still around to write for.' That's a great place to be at with a character."
"After discussing things with Brad, we both thought that we would be drawing things out if we kept Cole around. I not only believe that it was unjust for my character, but also for the three girls. I didn't want to hold them back in any way. After all, Cole has dominated their characters' lives for the past three years. I also didn't want the viewers to get bored with him. So Brad and I decided that it was time for my character to move on and we more or less set in motion his demise from episode one to episode 12."
That plot arc brings to the end a rocky romance that began in the third season opener "The Honeymoon's Over," and has endured even more upsets than even Liz Hurley's lovelife. Phoebe Halliwell didn't find it hard to fall for devilishly handsome district attourney Cole Turner when he first walked into her life, but then she had no idea that Cole was, in fact, a half-human, half-demon assassin hired to dispose of the Charmed Ones by the evil Triad. Luckily for Phoebe and her sisters, Cole's human side fell in love with her, and after renouncing his former evil joined forces with Phoebe and her bewitching siblings in their fight against the forces of darkness.
"When my character was first introduced at the start of the third season it opened a new chapter for the show as well as the cast, producers, writers, etc," says McMahon. "It was one of those things where everyone was running on a 'this is all brand new for us' type of energy. My concern was whether or not this could sustain itself for the rest of the season let alone beyond that. I needn't have worried though. Little by little, Cole pulled away from being so oriented towards Phoebe and began to establish his own identity. He became almost an antithesis to the three girls. This continues into the fourth year when they were also bringing in a new sister, Paige, in the fold. Even then, I felt like the writers and Brad Kern [executive producer] continued to work really hard at maintaining my character's initiative and steadfastness. I owe them a lot."
They certainly gave McMahon challenging material to work with. Cole was finally stripped of his demonic powers in the fourth season episode "Black as Cole," and had barely adjusted to being fully human before he was taken over by the Source of All Evil. Yet even after he assumed his place as the new ruler of the Underworld, Cole's love for Phoebe was in no way diminished, as the small part of his human self that survived cared about her more than ever. As Cole struggled with his feelings for Phoebe he continued his reign of terror as the Source.
"As for the Source," comments the actor who had to bring off this dual role, "the most challenging part about playing him was that he had a dynamic to him unlike that of any other entity ever on Charmed. First of all he was in love and had a relationship with one of the witches. Second, here's a demon who is part human and experiencing inner conflicts that none of his kind had ever struggled with before. He had to find a way to cope with and understand what was happening to him while at the same time try to maintain his place in the world. Cole was originating this path if you will for a situation that had never been explored on this show. This gave me so much to experiment with as an actor, and I took it like a fish to water. I mean, who wouldn't want to play the Source. Give me a role like that any day."
Although he was all-powerful, one gift that the Source did not possess was that of second sight. For that he needed a beautiful demon called The Seer to advise him on matters pertaining to the future. First seen in the fourth season story "Charmed and Dangerous," this character was played with snake-like charm by Debbi Morgan. "Working with Debbi is fantastic," says McMahon. "She's not only a real professional but also a warmhearted and beautiful individual. Best of all, she laughs at my jokes. So that's a recipe for a great person in my life.
"With The Seer, you had this wonderful dichotomy of my character being omnipotent but having to work with an entity who was, in some ways, even more powerful than him. The relationship as originally concieved was, I felt, extremely well-written. There were so many levels to play with and Debbi and I had a lot of fun fleshing it out. We were quite lucky, too, in that the directors we worked with on the show gave us a fair bit of leeway to try a number of things. I just loved how the dynamic between our two characters turned out."
But there was only one woman for Cole, and after a severe case of cold feet, Phoebe finally agreed to marry him in the fourth season story "Marry Go Round." However, unknown to the bride-to-be, her marriage is not a holy one. Prior to the ceremony, The Seer told Cole that if he married Phoebe in a "black wedding" it would ensure that their future son would be even more powerful that he is. So that's exactly what he arranged to do. This episode is a particular favorite of Julian McMahon's.
"Once I picked up the script and started reading it, I couldn't put it down," recalls the actor. "I kept thinking, 'How are we going to get around this? How is this going to work? How do we manipulate events in order to get where these two people are finally married?' There were so many different things for Cole to do in it. The writers gave me such a wonderful expose of my character in which to work with. I really tried to push the boundaries as far as I could with it. Again I was fortunate that Chris Long directed this episode. He's directed Charmed before and the two of us get along very well. Whenever I come to him with a suggestion he takes the time to listen and think about what I've said. He give me the tools I need as an actor to do my job.
"I remember one scene in this episode where the Seer is explaining to Cole that he must conduct the ceremony as a black wedding. As she's doing so, I'm walking in a big circle around the cave that we're in. I made the camera look at every part of the set, which meant it had to be lit in a very specific way. That's not an easy thing to do on a TV show. If you're shooting a feature film then you have days to set things up, but on the small screen you're talking about having to do a big task in a short period of time. I went to Chris and asked 'Can I do this? I know it's going to be difficult but I think it'll create a certain level for the story that we need to start off at.' He agreed with me and was totally supportive. Talk about a great way to work."
Most brides and grooms promise to love each other "until death do us part," but that moment came sooner than anyone could have expected for the Turners. Before the season had even reached its end, Phoebe was forced to do the unthinkable and vanquish Cole. When the first rumors about the episode hit the 'Net, Cole's fans deluged Xposé with letters calling for a campaign to save the character, so what was McMahon's initial reaction when he received the script for "Long Live the Queen"?
"Brad actually called me beforehand and said, 'There's an episode coming up in which Cole is vanquished. I want you to know it has nothing to do with you leaving the show. We're just creating a story arc we feel is necessary.' I told Brad I wasn't worried at all and he said, 'I know, I just don't want you hearing from someone else that you're being killed off the show because it's not true. You'll be coming back in another story.'"
Sure enough, the fourth season finale "Witch Way Now?" revealed that Cole is still alive but fighting for his life in demon limbo. When Phoebe paid him a visit in this hellish netherworld he asked for her help to escape, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. Instead he absorbed the powers of other vanquished demons in the show's fifth season's opener "A Witch's Tail," and returned to the real world on his own. Now stronger than ever, Cole told Phoebe that he planned to use his powers only for good, but it's a promise that the ex-Source found difficult to keep.
"Going into this [fifth] year we knew we had a certain amount of episodes in which to achieve a specific goal," explains McMahon. "That gave the writers a lot to write and the ability for me to play my character in a far different way than I had up to now. I started out the year being the most powerful demon there is but choosing not to use any of my powers. I don't know if the audiences noticed, but during the first five episodes, I tried to keep Cole's hands in his pockets the whole time. I knew that if he brought his hands out he might do something wicked with them. If that were to happen it would have been destructive to my character's ultimate goal, which was to maintain his relationship with Phoebe.
"Basically I took a page of the old fifties type movies when portraying Cole this season. I've tried to create a Cary Grant-type of gentleman who, circumstances notwithstanding, is a guy that audiences are still going to root for."
Having Cole back in her life was the last thing Phoebe wanted, and his promise to "be good" did little to change her mind. "With Phoebe it's the classic scenario of a woman scorned," says McMahon. "That's made Cole all the more challenging for me to portray this season because Alyssa has had to be kind of non-responsive to him. In some ways, his desire for them to be together tends to border on the psychotic. All of us have at one time or another been told 'no' about something and had to move on. Well, Cole can't move on, and as such he pushes himself to the edge. I especially enjoyed working on the episode "Y Tu Mummy Tambien" ["The Mummy's Tomb"], which happened to be directed by Chris Long. In that one Cole goes over the edge and there ain't no coming back."
McMahon shot his last scene as Cole on Monday, December 2, 2002. Not surprisingly, it was a bittersweet moment for him. "As scary as it is to get back out there in the world and book the next job I was excited about the prospect," he says. "On the flip side, I was really sad about leaving this cast and crew. I'm not the best at goodbyes, so it was tough to think that after being with these people for three years and twelve hours a day that I was leaving and didn't know when, or if, I'd see them again. I truly feel that I've been blessed being a part of Charmed."
When it comes to what he'd like to do next, McMahon has this to say. "I just want to do good work. It doesn't matter if it's on TV, the big screen or even onstage in a little theatre here in Santa Monica. I'd like to continue to challenge myself as an actor. That's what I'll be striving for."
I wonder