Makeup magic transforms Nesbitt

JEKYLL. 8 and 9 tonight, BBC America.

Some of the scariest fun on TV this summer can be found in James Nesbitt's eyes.

The Northern Ireland-born star of BBC America's "Jekyll" goes from melancholy to maniacal - and back again - in what looks like a blink during the modern-day adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

A blink on the screen can mean an eternity in the makeup chair, though.

"Well, it took a while," Nesbitt said of the transition during an interview last month at the Television Critics Association's summer meetings in Beverly Hills.

"But we would try to fit in Jekyll one day and Hyde the next," he said. "Some days we would have to do both [and the transition] took an hour, I guess. But we had it down to a fine art. It was like a Formula One team changing wheels."

The real difference between the increasingly terrified Jekyll - here called Jackman - and his depraved alter-ego remains in Nesbitt's face.

"When I was Hyde, I felt confident. With Jackman, I was playing a very different character."

Still, he knows how important their expressions are.

"As Hyde, I would try things out in front of the mirror," Nesbitt acknowledged. "That's the only character I've done that with." *

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