Christian Slater: The Responsible Romantic

"Do you consider yourself a romantic person?"

"Hmmm...I have my romantic qualities," he says. "The truth is, I can't keep my hands off my woman. I can't. I don't know if that's romantic..."

"Hell yeah it is, Christian!"

"It is?" He seems relieved. "Yeah, I constantly need to be grabbing her, touching her. Because the woman is unbelievably sexy. I'm so hugely lucky in that respect. It's great. And I'm really having too good of a time in my life not to share it with somebody else, a special somebody in my life. And my woman fits that beautifully-- 'my woman,' man, that sounds funny. There are the ups and downs, all that shit. I'll tell you, though, the woman is just so sexy it's ludicrous."

"I know," I tell him. "I've seen pictures."

"Ann!" Slater yelps. "She kills me."

"Maybe the key is to figure out how to make all those differences between men and women work together," I suggest. Brilliant, I know. But wrong, says Slater. "We'll never figure it out," he shoots back.

There are two main keys, Slater explains, to a good relationship. One is: avoid home-wreckers. "The scary thing is there are a lot of people out there who will look at a happy person and try to destroy it, because they say, 'Well, that's what I want. Maybe I can get it if I get that person.' You have to be on your toes. Homewreckers. If you've got a wife and kids and some woman comes into your life begging and pleading, tell 'em to get fucked. Really. It's nuts."

And the other key? "Farting." Really? "Yeah, you start farting and belching, and that's the ultimate, really. Just hang. There's nothing like being able to do your bodily functions in front of another human being and have the other person appreciate it. That's the goal. And that is really as simple as life is." Christian Slater: true romantic.

Slater was born and raised in New York. His mother, Mary Jo Slater, a successful casting director, and his father, a sometimes-successful soap opera actor known alternately as Michael Hawkins and Michael D. Gainsborough, split up acrimoniously when Slater was five. He was raised by his mother, and saw his father infrequently. "I just had a real outrageous father," Slater says. "High energy. He was a kooky guy. He's out there. He's great, but not the normal father you could have." Slater's contact with his father was always limited, but now, he says, his dad lives in L.A. and they're talking more. "It's weird, finding out things. I had a very one-sided situation growing up and now I'm getting the whole picture, filling in a lot of blanks. A lot of things that were ingrained in me I wasn't comfortable with. I don't want to sound like a victim. I've had a great, magical life. But I find I've been used for a lot of my life. That's weird."

Recently, Slater has said, his father has more aggressively insinuated himself in his son's success. "I really don't like people taking credit for what I've achieved," he says now, pointedly. "It's like that scene in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner when the father says, 'I've done this for you, I've done that--' And Sidney Poitier just says, 'Look, man, that was your job. I don't owe you anything!' That's the truth. It's the parents' job: take care of your child! Parents--this is just my opinion--should be proud when their kid doesn't have to live at home, can support himself, have his own relationships, take responsibility. All I want is respect and understanding. Respect for my choices and decisions.

"A lot of people really like to--I don't know how to put it--I've been controlled in certain areas in my life. I've done everything I can to break out of it--by getting people in my life who know what's going on. I've had to do a lot of growing up in this business, in front of people. I've had people working for me since I was 18 years old--since I was nine, really--and a lot of people have had to grow up with me. It's been difficult for them to accept the fact that I'm getting older. There are still people who try to make me feel like I'm a puppet in this life and they're pulling my strings. So I'm cutting those strings."

"What do you know now, about the profession," I ask Slater, "that you didn't know at 20?"

He ponders. "I'm getting comfortable with what I have and where I'm going--that makes it easier dealing with the fact that there are other fucking actors on this goddamn planet.

"It's difficult in this town," Slater says, "because everyone always seems to be busy. You meet some guy at a party--he's got some project going on. If you don't have a project, you begin to feel like a total loser and you get really nervous and anxious and freaked out--"

"It's a well-known fact that everybody you meet at Hollywood parties is full of shit," I point out.

"Yeah," Slater admits, "nine times out of 10. I've realized that."

"Hell, 10 years from now," I point out, "you'll still be in a position to be a young leading man."

"Yeah," he nods. "There's not really a great hurry. My motto used to be, 'If I don't have something shaking come July, I'm just gonna curl up in a big ball and die.' I'm trying to get past that. I like this business and I'd like to be doing it for the rest of my life."

"How good are you at separating out the business from the rest of your life?" I ask. "For instance, how much acting do you do when you're not in front of a camera?"

"I suppose in certain situations, yeah," he says. "You've heard it before: people wear a different mask in each situation. This is my interview mask. When I go home, it's my relationship mask. When I'm on the set, it's my acting mask. Yeah, I do catch myself doing it."

Spoken like an actor. No wonder he's looking for some stability. "I found that in taking care of things at home, and being straight up and keeping that organized, that at least I have something to come home to," Slater says. "I'm lucky that, in this town of weird agendas and hidden motivations, I have a house I can retreat to up in the hills, where there's a certain amount of tranquility. And a good woman who says, 'Calm the hell down, everything's fine. You're doing good, just take it easy.'"

____________________________

Joshua Mooney interviewed James Cameron for the July Movieline.

Pages: 1 2 3