“There is a depth”: the favourite movie of Christian Slater’s career
It was abundantly clear that Hollywood was betting big on Christian Slater becoming the industry’s next major leading man, but like many fast-rising stars before him, the actor had a regular habit of becoming his own worst enemy.
Cult classic black comedy Heathers was a tremendous calling card that allowed him to display natural charisma and an effortless cool. It wasn’t long before he was being snapped up for a huge number of high-profile projects that involved some noteworthy names and directorial heavy hitters.
He co-starred with Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman in box office smash hit Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, appeared alongside William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and shared top billing alongside Patricia Arquette in Tony Scott’s Quentin Tarantino-penned thriller True Romance as his profile continued to rise.
There were no signs of his ascent slowing down, either, with Slater credited alongside A-list mainstays Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in Interview with the Vampire, before he played the hero to John Travolta’s hammy villain in John Woo’s action-packed blockbuster Broken Arrow.
Unfortunately, he was repeatedly dogged by personal issues, whether it was spending ten days behind bars for a drunk driving arrest in 1989, ending up in handcuffs after trying to board a commercial flight with a handgun in his luggage or being sentenced to three months in jail after spending 100 days in rehab following a domestic assault incident and attack on a police officer while under the influence of heroin, cocaine, and alcohol.
After that, Slater was deemed too much of a risk to anchor major mainstream productions, but he’s continued to work solidly regardless. He could have been a much bigger star, but he has never seemed to be disheartened by the setbacks, and his Golden Globe-winning performance in Mr. Robot offered flashes of his brilliance along the way.
When it comes to naming his personal favourite from his own filmography, though, Slater can’t look beyond one of his first prominent leading parts. 1990’s coming-of-age teen comedy Pump Up the Volume finds his introverted teenager gaining new confidence as broadcaster ‘Hard Harry’.
Using his pirate radio show to rage against the hypocrisy of his hometown, he does his hardest to maintain his secret identity until Samantha Mathis’ eager student, finds out who he really is. Teeming with angst, pent-up frustration, and the existential dread of adolescence, Slater told Entertainment Weekly that the undertones are as relevant today as they were back then.
“That’s my favourite movie to this day,” he said. “Look, I love the character. I think that there is a depth to that movie that still obviously resonates today.” It may not be the most renowned of his many feature-length credits, but it’s number one to him, and he’s not wrong in saying the meat on its thematic bones has never gone out of fashion.
