Christian Slater: Born Again Christian

It is perhaps ironic that Slater and Ryder seem to have emerged as the most pursued young actors of the moment. "It'd really be fun to do a sequel to Heathers with her," he says, a slow grin playing across his face.

Say there were a Heathers II (the mind reels). Would Slater try again his by-now infamous take on Jack Nicholson, whom he calls "the best actor going"? "The character's name was 'Jason Dean' and I didn't want to fucking do that" he patiently explains. So, instead of riffing on James Dean's tortured, combustible martyr, he did Smilin' Jack, right down to the eyebrow-waggling, the manic out-bursts, and the drawling, stoned hipster's speech rhythms.

"If I make a move now, like raise my eyebrows in Young Guns II," he snarls, "some fucking critic says I'm doing Nicholson. What am I supposed to do, cut off my eyebrows?" But did he get any response from Nicholson after the homage? "Never, the bastard," he says. "But I called him. I was just out there one time at a party and this girl I was with happened to have his number. So I called, his maid answered the phone and I said: 'Hi, this is Christian Slater. Where's Jack?.' She went and got him and after he said 'Hello?' I went on with this whole spiel until I thought I heard the phone go 'Click!' There were all these people at the party there listening to me, you know, and I didn't want to look like a complete asshole, so I kept talking. 'Oh, yeah, let's play tennis,' and all this--just out to lunch, gone, for like ten minutes. And at the end of it, I hear his voice go: 'Uh-huh.' He never hung up and heard me say all this shit. I was really out there, so I totally wussed out and hung up on the man. I said: 'I can't go on. I'm going to kill myself now.' " Although Slater hasn't gone out of his way to either duck or seek out Nicholson since, he says that a mutual acquaintance recently told him how funny Nicholson thought the call was. "At least," he says, grinning, "I feel safe in that."

Slater continued to romance his leading ladies on Pump Up the Volume, filmmaker Allan Moyle's acerbic stinger about a shy high school misfit who reigns by night as the king of pirate radio. The relationship he developed with co-star Samantha Mathis apparently ended, however, just as soon as director Moyle yelled "Cut!" after their last love scene. Ryder? Walker? Mathis? Does Slater aim to become this generation's romancer of leading ladies as Warren Beatty was to his? "If the script is great," he explains, leaning conspiratorially over the table, "you get such great chemistry going. You get to say all those things you never would normally. Once the script isn't there anymore, it's like, 'Fuck, I'm not that character I was playing.' And the other person is like: 'What's this? Who are you now?' So, you sort of just go, 'Well that was fun, wasn't it? You go on with your life, I'll go on with mine and hope that we'll get to do this again.' "

Unlike Beatty, Slater apparently does not get every woman he sets out to conquer. For instance, there's the story that luscious actress Sharon Stone reportedly declined Slater's repeated pro-positions that they liven up a little downtime during the making of Personal Choice with a roll in the hay. Slater supposedly chided her for "missing the thrill of a lifetime." "Oh, God, this kills me," he says, turning crimson and hooting when I remind him of the rumor. "It's true," he says, looking sheepish. "But you know what? To this day, I have moments where I reflect back and regret that nothing happened. She's one of the sexiest, hottest babes around. But it all happens for a reason. I've met somebody really terrific, someone really sweet and stable." Slater says he's so happy now with 25-year-old Nina Peterson, an actress he met one night while clubbing, it causes him to reexamine his old ways. "I used to get really pissed off if someone looked at the girl I was with. I was a jealous, protective bastard. Now, if there's an argument, instead of getting out of the relationship, I stay and we work things through together. I've spent a lot of time running from things, thinking I was missing out on other things. It's interesting for me to actually not be running from something. What I've got is really good, so why screw it up for myself?"

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