Christian Slater

Christian Michael Leonard Slater 

18 August 1969

An American actor. Slater's first television role was on the ABC soap opera "One Life to Live" when he was 8 years old. Following a run on "Ryan's Hope", he made his Broadway debut as the lisping Winthrop Paroo opposite Dick Van Dyke in the 1980 revival of "The Music Man".

Slater made his big screen debut in 1985's "The Legend of Billie Jean" playing Billie Jean’s brother Binx. Though expected to be a big hit, the film fell short at the box office, despite gaining a cult following.

In 1991, Slater was cast as Will Scarlett in the Hollywood big budget production of "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" alongside Kevin Costner, Morgan Freeman and Alan Rickman. The film was a commercial success and Slater became one of the major A-list stars of the 1990s. With Slater being a big Star Trek fan, he accepted a minor role in "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country", shortly after playing Charlie Luciano in the crime drama "Mobsters".

As actor

• One Life to Live (1977)
• Standing Room Only (1981)
• Tales From The Darkside (1984)
• Ryan's Hope (1985)
• The Legend of Billie Jean (1985)
• Twisted (1986)
• Crime Story (1986)
• The Equalizer (1986)
• The Name of the Rose (1986)
• Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988)
• L.A. Law (1988)
• Beyond the Stars (1989)
• The Wizard (1989)
• Heathers (1989)
• Gleaming the Cube (1989)
• Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990)
• Pump Up The Volume (1990)
• Young Guns II (1990)
• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)
• Mobsters (1991)
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
• Kuffs (1992)
• FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992)
• Untamed Heart (1993)
• True Romance (1993)
• Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994)
• Jimmy Hollywood (1994)
• Murder in the First (1995)
• Bed of Roses (1996)
• Broken Arrow (1996)
• Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery (1997)
• Julian Po (1997)
• Basil (1997)
• Hard Rain (1998)
• Very Bad Things (1998)
• Love Stinks (1999)
• The Contender  (2000)
• Who Is Cletis Tout? (2001)
• 3000 Miles to Graceland  (2001)
• Hard Cash (2002)
• Alias (2002)
• The West Wing (2002)
• Windtalkers (2002)
• Masked and Anonymous  (2003)
• Dinosaur Planet (2003)
• The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron  (2003-2005)
• Churchill: The Hollywood Years (2004)
• The Confessor (2004)
• Alone in the Dark (2005)
• Mindhunters (2005)
• The Deal (2005)
• Robot Chicken (2005-2012)
• My Name is Earl (2006)
• Crossing the Line (2006)
• Bobby (2006)
• Hollow Man 2 (2006)
• He Was a Quiet Man (2007)
• Slipstream (2007)
• The Ten Commandments (2007)
• Love Lies Bleeding (2008)
• Igor (2008)
• My Own Worst Enemy (2008)
• Curb Your Enthusiasm (2009)
• The Forgotten (2009)
• Dolan's Cadillac (2009)
• Lies & Illusions (2009)
• The Office (2010)
• Sacrifice (2011)
• The River Murders (2011)
• Guns, Girls and Gambling (2011)
• Without Men (2011)
• Breaking In (2011-2012)
• Entourage (2011)
• Playback (2012)
• Soldiers of Fortune (2012)
• El Gringo  (2012)
• Freaky Deaky (2012)
• Dawn Rider (2012)
• Rites of Passage (2012)
• Hatfields and McCoys: Bad Blood (2012)
• Phineas and Ferb (2012)
• Back to the Sea (2012)
• Assassin's Bullet (2012)
• Bullet to the Head (2012)
• The Power of Few (2013)
• Out There (2013)
• Stranded (2013)
• Assassins Run (2013)
• Nymphomaniac (2013)
• Mind Games (2014)
• Archer (2014-2016)
• Stan Lee's Mighty 7 (2014)
• Ask Me Anything (2014)
• Way of the Wicked Henry (2014)
• Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (2015)
• The Adderall Diaries (2015)
• Two and a Half Men (2015)
• Jake and the Never Land Pirates (2015)
• Mr. Robot (2015-...)
• King Cobra (2016)
• The Lion Guard (2016-...)
• Milo Murphy's Law (2016-...)
• The Wife (2017)

Quotations

* * *

Good judgement comes from experience. Sometimes, experience comes from bad judgement.

* * *

If you can help guide somebody through a challenging moment because you've been there, that ends up becoming a great gift.

* * *

As you get older you learn some balance and mediation in your life - that's where I am right now. I feel pretty comfortable about things.

* * *

If I make a move, like raise my eyebrows, some critic says I'm doing Nicholson. What am I supposed to do, cut off my eyebrows?

* * *

I was a shy, quiet kid. I was happiest playing by myself with my toys, rather than hanging around people.

* * *

I'm not a religious person by any means. But I certainly believe in some kind of a higher power and something looking out for me. I've definitely had angels that have either guided me or helped me through moments in my life, without a doubt.

* * *

Drama can be an addiction. It's so, so sneaky. Jealousy - all of those things can really send you in a lot of different crazy directions.

* * *

The '80s was a wild decade, and I had some fantastic times. And I did some really fun work.

* * *

This is what Hollywood tends to do. It tends to disregard tradition, history and anything factual, twisting it and turning it and making it all okay regardless of what the English may think of it.

* * *

Jail was a result of me not taking time for myself. So I was forced to take some time for myself.

* * *

How do I feel about being a star now? Well I still try to live life and enjoy what I am doing.

* * *

I can promote until I am blue in the face, but ultimately nobody knows what makes a hit.

* * *

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.

* * *

Tony Scott was one of the best directors I've ever worked with, and I was devastated when I heard about his death. He was a great guy with great energy. But this is a difficult business, and people's lives are sometimes difficult.

* * *

Art does imitate life, it has to come from somewhere. To put boundaries and limitations on it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

* * *

Hopefully, that people could see a progression in my performances because that's how it's always felt to me.

* * *

I don't think of myself as offbeat and weird. As a kid, I saw myself as the type of guy who would run into a burning building to save the baby.

* * *

I've calmed down, certainly, from the days of being 18, but I'm still having a good time.

* * *

In truth, making films doesn't feel like hard work because I always have such a good time doing it.

* * *

The movies I've made at a certain time of my life were exactly right for the stage of my life, the frame of mind I was in at the time. Each character I've had to play has been me in that time in my life.

* * *

Well, obviously, as soon as I'd finished the script I read a lot of books on Winston Churchill, and started to gain weight and really prepare emotionally, mentally and physically for the role.

* * *

I did regret not graduating high school, but I made a point of going back and getting my GED later. It was important for my kids.

* * *

Eighty-five per cent of the time, people want to talk about 'True Romance.' That's the film I've made that really seems to have stuck with people.

* * *

Having kids certainly gets me to ask the question, 'Who is the adult here, and who is the kid?'

* * *

I am a gypsy, in a way. It's a condition of my profession.

* * *

I enjoy the process of TV; I like the pace of it; I like the continual work.

* * *

I had such a good time working with John Woo and John Travolta, and it was so professional. I want to work with people who are real professionals.

* * *

I had tutors, but education was just not a priority.

* * *

I have that glass-half-empty syndrome, and it takes a great deal of effort to climb out of the hole of darkness that I choose to live in mentally.

* * *

I want to do films I can relate to emotionally.

* * *

I'm trying not to put myself into anything I'm not 100 percent confident about.

* * *

I've always been fond of Winona Ryder.

* * *

Strike and struggle precede success, even in the dictionary.

* * *

The way I see it, if you're going to make an action movie, you've got to make one with John Woo.

* * *

There was a time when I felt I should do everything that was offered to me, you know, ride the wave.

* * *

Updating passwords and changing them all the time is something I'm involved in.

* * *

Actors sometimes immerse themselves into it so deeply that the line between who they are and their character can become blurred. For me, I think it's just about getting clearer on my whole life and who I am in order to make it possible for me to play whatever character is presented to me at a particular time.

* * *

An actor equals, sometimes, an entitled baby. People take care of things for me, and they pay greater attention to things than I was ever capable of doing. But in the last few years, I have learned a great deal more about taking care of things. I pay my own bills now.

* * *

As I've gotten to know myself over the years, I realised I'm kind of a sweet, sensitive guy, a shy guy, and communication is not something I'm so good at.

* * *

'Heathers' was probably the first time when I started to notice that people were opening doors for me and giving me tables at restaurants, regardless of what I was wearing. A whole world opened up to me that was shocking and weird and different, and I enjoyed it, and, you know, I took great advantage of it at times.

* * *

I do have a Twitter account, and there's a woman at my agency who got that all set up for me. I don't know how many followers I have. It's not one of those things I check on a regular basis.

* * *

I have brought a PS2 on set with me before. But games can be really addicting, and that's dangerous. So I tend to keep it fairly limited on a certain level.

* * *

I think games are starting to branch out. It's not just guys sitting at their computer stations. Games are so fun, that everybody gets into them a little bit.

* * *

I try to stay away from the craft services table on set! That's probably why I am able to still get work in this business: I stay away from junk food.

* * *

I'm blown away by the graphical detail of today's games. I can't imagine that it's going to get any better, but it's just going to continually progress and soon we'll be living in that world.

* * *

I've been taking my time now between projects looking for stuff that has a little bit more substance, that isn't surface. Some of the films that I've done in the past really were surface.

* * *

It still amazes me when I look at some of the films I've been a part of, and some of the people I've gotten to meet and work with. I also look back sometimes and realize that I was lucky to have lived through them and even to have survived them, at times.

* * *

It's almost like these games are the modern day comic books, especially when you play Alone in the Dark. There's a real story that goes along with it and a movie seemed like the right kind of transition to make.

* * *

It's very, very difficult because we're living in a world where they invent things in order to hide things from parents. There are these secret creator app guys who make things to intentionally do that, to keep your parents in the dark, and you've really got to work extra-hard to stay on top of it.

* * *

My dad was a theater actor, so I would follow him backstage. And my mom was a casting director. The moment I heard the applause and realized it would get me out of school, I was hooked.

* * *

My family was amazing; they exposed me to the world of show business, and, boy, it was the '70s and I got to spend a lot of time backstage at theaters and see the inner workings of how this entertainment industry is really put together.

* * *

My mother became a casting director, and she cast me in a soap opera called 'One Life to Live.' I was, like, 8 years old, playing a kid who had hurt himself on a skateboard. I had, like, three lines. I did the lines, and everybody in the studio applauded - I was immediately hooked after that. I was like, 'This is the life for me.'

* * *

'Pump Up the Volume' was a film and character that I really responded to. That was a movie about a guy trying to take down the establishment using a ham radio. I feel 'Mr. Robot' has a similar value. This show is about taking down a global empire. I was an anarchist then. I'm getting to be an anarchist again.

* * *

Some of the characters that I played as a kid were rebellious teenagers, and people would see those performances and project a particular image onto me. And 90 percent of the time, I would do everything I could to live up to that sort of image and be that individual.

* * *

The guys from Atari that are making the next Alone in the Dark game came and we had a great meeting. I'd love to do that. I'm a fan of videogames. I like them. And to get to be part of one of them would be a fun and exciting thing.

* * *

The Internet definitely could be a weapon of mass destruction - it's not going to come in a bomb, it's going to come as a cyberattack. It's pretty amazing to see what a small group of people can do if they really know how to control the universe.

* * *

The Internet opens up so many doors. It's a phenomenal tool for education but also a way for people to be scary and dangerous. We're living in a world where we can be hacked and exposed.

* * *

There's something about doing theatre in London - it sinks a little bit deeper into your soul as an actor. It's something about the tradition of theatre, about performing on the West End stage.

* * *

When I'm in the kitchen, I don't want anybody else in the kitchen. I have a system - and the system, it's another form of insanity that has grabbed me.

* * *

Theater was definitely part of my roots. My father would take me to plays, and then my mother was always on the lookout for other talent and taking me to see plays. I saw Frank Langella in 'Dracula'... Great, great performances. I was a theater rat, hanging out backstage.

* * *