I stumbled upon the museum of television and radio Paley Fest, and was quite excited to see my favorite Nip/Tuck people would all be there.  Especially Julian McMahon who was on my must meet list.  Then I found a place online that still had tickets, Stubhub, and was lucky enough to win the auction for VIP front and center tickets.

My friend and I got there at 6:30 when the cast was being introduced, before the commentary.  Julian was not yet there, and a murmur of tension was building in the crowd.  Ryan Murphy(series creator) went up on the stage to tell us about the episode their showing - "Rose & Raven Rosenberg." He tells us that he almost got fired for this episode, and he will tell us why later.  (Which he never does, so I guess it will always be a mystery.)  This episode has conjoined twins, and Shawn and Christian in a provocative three-way.   The door opened a number of times during the commentary, and every single time you could see everyone’s head turn to see if it was Julian.

After the episode was shown, the moderator got on stage and bring up the cast members - Kelly Carlson (Kimber), Roma Maffia (Liz), Dylan Walsh (Sean), Ryan Murphy (executive producer), Julian McMahon (The sexy Dr. Christian Troy, who sat right in the center chair…directly in line with my front row VIP seat!  Yay!), and then came John Hensley (Matt), and Michael Robin (executive producer).  

Ryan told us that his love of the movie Carnal Knowledge and his experience at a plastic surgery consultation gave birth to Nip/Tuck.  During the consult the surgeon actually said things like “tell me what you don’t like about yourself.”, and “beauty is symmetry”, and basically that Ryan could be good looking but his ears were off center.  He also said that FX network was a perfect pairing with the show, he had been watching the Shield and hoped Nip/Tuck would do as well there.  The whole cast told many funny stories:

Julian said that when he first met Kelly, he invited her over the night before so they could “talk”.  He had talked with Ryan already about how explicit he wanted the scene to be, but Kelly had no idea.  So he asked Kelly what she thought about it, and she made a comment that, “yeah it was interesting.”   Julian’s comeback was “What about if I f*** you doggy style, and slap your @ss.”  Kelly was very proud of herself for going along with it.

Ryan said there was only one part that was actually written for an actor, and that was for Dylan (Shawn).  When he tried to show Dylan the part at a restaurant, he was very rude and brushed Ryan off.  At this point Dylan chimed in and said, “I thought he was the waiter!”.  Fortunately they got past their differences.  Kelly and John both commented that the great thing about their character is that every season…practically every week, they get to play a new person.  Their characters evolve so much. 

Julian reminded us all that he is a cold blooded killer: "After the pilot, nobody ever said to me, 'You killed a guy and put him in the swamp!' Nobody ever did that, they said, 'You're a cad! You're a bad boy, you love those ladies!' I just killed somebody! and nobody even noticed." Later, during the question and answers my heart was pounding because I knew I wanted to ask my question.  Before they got to me, a lady stood up and said "I'm a lesbian but I love you Julian," which got the crowd roaring.  Then another lady in the front row, just down from me got up and asked her question.  I don’t remember her question, but she was wearing a t-shirt that said.  “Mrs. McMahon” on it.

When it finally got to be my turn, I asked my question and mustering my courage, I said “Julian, you have the nicest buns in all of Hollywood.”  Julian said, thank you, and that we could just stop right there.

After the panel ended, I ventured into the crowd and was able to get a picture and autograph with Julian and Ryan, and a picture with Roma and Kelly.  It was such an incredible night.