Creator of 'Nip/Tuck' gets back to the gore
He's up for an Emmy for outstanding directing.
KNOXVILLE NEWS SENTINEL
"Nip/Tuck" creator Ryan Murphy covered two gruesome stories on his first day as a police beat intern for a Tennessee newspaper 20 years ago.
"A guy was robbing a liquor store. He tripped on his gun and shot half his face off," Murphy recalls. "The other story that day was a head-on collision on the highway. The parents died, and there were two little children in the back seat.
"It was very upsetting for me because I knew [writing such stories] was not what I wanted to do."
That's an odd thing for Murphy to admit, because as the force behind "Nip/Tuck," he is responsible for some of the most horrific images on television. "Nip/Tuck," in its second season, has been a ratings hit, and a critical smash as well.
Murphy is up for an Emmy in the Outstanding Directing category for a drama series. The awards show is Sunday (8 p.m., EDT, ABC.)
What it's about
"Nip/Tuck" focuses on two fictitious doctors and their plastic surgery practice in Miami. Each week, they are confronted with people who want to change their appearance for a myriad of reasons.
"Nip/Tuck" isn't an easy show to watch. The cameras follow the doctors at work in the operating room, from the cutting to the stitching. It makes for graphic viewing, but it has also given the show a name.
So when Murphy sits in his spacious Hollywood office, talking of how his stomach turned at the scenes he witnessed as a cub reporter, it's almost hard to believe.
"I was trying to find my voice then," Murphy says, "and [the editors] were sweet enough to let me ... they got that I was an odd bird trying to find his way."
The editors let him switch to the lifestyle section of the newspaper, which provided a much smoother career path.
He wrote of men's yellow neckties and shoes that revealed a hint of toe "cleavage."
He penned a story focusing on how croissants were overtaking biscuits as a local favorite.
"How lucky it is then for the croissant, the trendiest pastry in the land, to have a name that reeks of class and good bakery breeding," he wrote.
He didn't win a Pulitzer, but he took the first step toward creative success.
The next summer he got an internship at the Washington Post.
"That really started everything for me," says Murphy, 39. "I realized I would be fine on my own. I was interested in marching to the beat of my own drummer, and luckily I found editors who supported me in that."
He went on to work at the Miami Herald, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Daily News and Entertainment Weekly, and wrote a novel.
It was never published, but Fox bought it, and he got to adapt it. "That was what got me into the Hollywood [scene]," he says.
Screenplay sale
In the late 1990s, he sold his screenplay "Why Can't I Be Audrey Hepburn?" to Steven Spielberg. He later created "Popular," a comedy-drama for the WB that ran from 1999 to 2001.
"Nip/Tuck" sprang from Murphy's imagination after he decided to write something darker. FX lapped up the show immediately.
"I sold it in October, and it was on the air in June," he says. "The show is very much my personality. ... It's like life is, both cynical and optimistic."
He researches each week's surgery through medical books and the Internet -- and defends the show's weekly gore.
"There are consequences [to surgery]," he says. "Doing a plastic surgery show and not showing the consequences and pain is like doing a cop show without pulling a gun. It doesn't make any sense."
Murphy will walk down the Emmy red carpet with actress Famke Janssen ("X-Men"), who has appeared in several episodes of "Nip/Tuck."
In 2005, Murphy will turn his attention to the big screen. He'll direct "Running with Scissors," based on the New York Times' best seller. Julianne Moore will star.