The movies Christian Slater is sick of talking about: “Sometimes it’s a little disheartening”
It’s probably a bit tough to be an actor who many folk believe had a creative peak during a certain era.
Mark Hamill will likely be able to tell you about it following Star Wars, as would Keifer Sutherland after The Lost Boys, as would Molly Ringwald after The Breakfast Club. Another to add to the list would be Christian Slater, who was a very big deal indeed in the late 1980s and early ‘90s.
But, rather like Sutherland did with 24, Slater did have something of a comeback 20-odd years later with the excellent TV series Mr Robot, which ran for four seasons, launched Rami Malek’s career and was right there at the start of a lot of the issues we battle against on a daily basis ten years later, basically corporations intent on stealing our data, enormous levels of debt and inequality.
Slater was superb as Mr Robot himself, the leader of a private army of hackers angry at the world and determined to do something about it. His performance in the role landed him a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in 2016 and nominations for the same award the next two years in a row, but then, perhaps surprisingly, things went quiet again.
Still only 56, though, Slater has been around a long, long time. He was on TV soap operas as far back as 1977, on Broadway three years later and made his big screen debut in 1985 in an action drama called The Legend of Billie Jean. He then went straight to working with some of the very best with Sean Connery in The Name of the Rose the following year, and as he turned 18 he shot to fame in 1989’s Heathers alongside Winona Ryder.
A dark satire conceived of as an antidote to the high school movies of a few years previously featuring the likes of Ringwald, Heathers was a black comedy that took the clique driven world of teen popularity and introduced murderous revenge into the equation, and although it wasn’t a huge hit on release it steadily became known as a classic coming of age movie, being adapted into a successful musical.
Slater’s performance in that movie got him rave reviews, and he made the most of it, taking on roles in films like Young Guns II, alongside Sutherland, and then to massive audiences with Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves opposite Kevin Costner. He was cast in the Quentin Tarantino-penned True Romance two years later before stepping back from films after the death of his good friend River Phoenix.
Speaking of his films from the early 90s and about people constantly referencing them, Slater told The Guardian: “Look, it was great, certainly, at the time. All the things that came along with it: good, bad, confusing. I’m certainly grateful that there were projects that I did that people responded to. It would be a nightmare if it were the other way around. But it’s sometimes a little disheartening.”
For the fifteen years or so between the likes of John Travolta’s Broken Arrow and his renaissance with Mr Robot, Slater would take on TV work and the occasional cameo, like in Austin Powers International Man of Mystery. But he wasn’t a face that was often seen and so it perhaps makes sense that people ask about his cinema heyday.
He added, “It’s like you kind of want to go, ‘God, that was so long ago.’ You’re not thinking about it, unless somebody brings it up. Or they come along and (say) ‘Oh, you were great in that show, I miss that show so much!’ and I go ‘‘Thanks for bringing it up! I miss it, too!’
Since Mr Robot finished in 2019, Slater has had a regular voice part on FX’s animation Archer and is about to be seen in an A24 movie called If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, a comedy-drama starring Rose Byrne and Conan O’Brien. It opens in cinemas on October 10th.
