Christian Slater: The Responsible Romantic

The highest compliment Slater can pay a man he admires is to call him a "sweet guy." There's something appealingly unmacho about it. The world would be a better place if more guys were sweet, but how many guys would admit this? And sweet in Hollywood? The higher up you go in the echelons of stardom, the less often you get a taste of that.

Slater has a hunger for role models, but his first one wasn't "sweet" by any stretch. At the time Slater broke through back in 1989 when Heathers was released, he was consumed with the moves and moods of Jack Nicholson. Lately, he's been waxing rhapsodic about Harrison Ford. I tell him I found the superstar's latest, Clear and Present Danger, disappointing--a little too much of an assembly-line Ford vehicle. Slater hasn't seen the film, but he waves off my comment: I'm missing the point. "The poster is great," he says. "I mean, 'Truth Needs a Soldier,' that's a heavy statement. With Harrison Ford's picture. You just go, 'Oh, here's the hero.' The guy has been in some of the most incredible films ever made and been the star of them. He is in-cred-i-ble!"

Slater met Ford last year, while co-starring in Barry Levinson's showbiz satire Jimmy Hollywood. "He was great. Very quiet. Really, really sweet." It's more than Ford's heroic persona that gooses Slater. It's the way he handles the deadly weapon that is stardom. "He's really managed to keep it in perspective. When he's finished with a movie, he retreats to his place in Wyoming--the middle of nowhere. He builds things."

"It's a bit too early for you to start strapping on the snow shoes and heading out to the high country," I point out. "Ford, after all, is 52."

"Fifty-two? Holy shit! Slater ponders this. "Hollywood is the place for me to be at this point, absolutely. There's no leaving for me."

The best thing about Slater's early rise in Hollywood is that he learned the limits and the dangers of fame early, too. "There's no question that I love it. There're so many perks to it, it's unreal. I thought I'd get over being insecure if I became famous, but it hasn't happened. It just gets worse, really. You get more and more on edge, more nervous. These are all the things I'm dealing with. You think if you get famous, fear will go away and problems will go away. But they don't.

"I'm looking for more stable guys to play," Slater says, "because I'm trying get more stable in my life. I've never been the type of guy who's been able to leave a role on the set and not take it home. It's great if you're playing a heroic role--take it home with you. But I've played more offbeat characters than heroes. I mean, Clarence [in True Romance] was weird. It was a strange experience."

This, Slater says, is what led him to Murder in the First, director Marc Rocco's based-on-a-true-story crime drama in which Slater, starring with Kevin Bacon and Gary Oldman, plays a lawyer defending a man who's being railroaded by the system--in other words, a Harrison Ford-esque lawyer. "My character's definitely a mature guy, kinda heroic--not some goofball kid. The story is very special, it's about two guys who were dealt different decks in life. People should be able to relate." And so, I guess we'll bid a fond farewell to the "goofball kids" Slater has played so well.

I ask Slater how much time and effort he puts into contemplating his fears and insecurities. "I actually lied about all that," he shoots back with a grin. "I don't really have any insecurities at all. None. It's scary. I'm the most secure guy..."

"I figured as much, Christian. Glad you came clean."

"I had to confess," Slater says.

Yeah--and maybe it's this bold confidence that has allowed Slater to single-handedly keep the R.J. Reynolds tobacco company in business during this, their darkest hour.

James Spader once told me that fear and cigarettes kept him thin. Does Slater concur?

"I agree with that. Cigarettes keep me very thin," he says, deftly avoiding the fear angle.

A young woman approaches our table. "Can I have your autograph?" she asks.

"Sure," says Slater. He points to a scribble already on the page of her book. "Is that Keanu Reeves?"

"Yeah."

"Wow," says Slater, actually sounding impressed. He signs. "There ya go."

"Thank you."

I am bringing the discussion around to women, but carefully. In the past, Slater says, he has made comments about his personal life without thinking. "And then I've had to deal with the repercussions." Comments, perhaps, like the one in an interview last year, about how he inevitably falls in love with his female co-stars--while a couple paragraphs later he was professing his love for his long-time girlfriend Nina Huang. Slater has indeed dated or been involved with many co-stars: Kim Walker, Winona Ryder, Samantha Mathis and Patricia Arquette. Last year, he parted from Nina Huang and carried on a high-profile relationship with supermodel Christy Turlington, but now he's back with Huang.

"Getting a relationship to be stable is not easy. You really need someone who's willing to listen, and genuinely cares. I get pretty passionate about everything in my life. So my woman gets an earful all the time. A hyper-passionate earful."

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