Christian Slater

Christian Slater (born August 18, 1969) is an American actor who has starred in films such as Heathers, Kuffs, True Romance and He Was a Quiet Man.

Biography

Early life

Slater was born Christian Michael Leonard Hawkins in New York City, the son of Mary Jo Slater, a casting executive, and Michael Hawkins, né Thomas Knight Slater, an actor who is also known as Michael Gainsborough. Slater has a maternal half-brother, Ryan, who is also an actor. Slater attended the Dalton School, the Professional Children's School and the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts.

He has been erroneously thought to be related to Helen Slater. In addition to their shared professional surname (his birth name is Hawkins), the myth is further fueled by their portrayal of sister and brother in The Legend of Billie Jean. Additionally, the DVD of Supergirl, featuring Helen Slater, included a critic's review which wrongly stated she is his sister.

Career

Following a run on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live, he made his Broadway debut as the lisping Winthrop Paroo opposite Dick Van Dyke in the 1980 revival of The Music Man. Additional Broadway credits include Copperfield, Merlin, Macbeth, Side Man, and The Glass Menagerie. He made his big screen debut in 1985 in the film The Legend of Billie Jean. He had significant roles in the 1986 mystery film The Name of the Rose, the 1989 dark comedy Heathers, and the 1990 teen film Pump Up the Volume. His most notable roles from the '90s include the role of outlaw Will Scarlet in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves in 1991, Elvis-obsessed Clarence Worley in True Romance in 1993, reporter Daniel Molloy in Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles in 1994 and Air Force pilot Riley Hale in Broken Arrow in 1996. In 2006, he appeared as the main character in Hollow Man 2, replacing Kevin Bacon in the starring role, the sequel to Paul Verhoeven's Hollow Man (2000), and also appeared in the 2007 film He Was a Quiet Man. Slater made a cameo in the Joaquin Phoenix directed video "Tired of Being Sorry" for Balthazar Getty's band Ringside.

In recent years, Slater has gone from being a box-office leading man to starring in direct-to-video films and other low-budget projects. In 2004 he returned to the stage, playing Randle P. McMurphy in the play One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at the Edinburgh Fringe. He twice contracted chicken pox, delaying the show's opening. While continuing to appear in this play in London's West End, Slater was asked to play the role of John Watson aka Wonko the Sane for the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish, produced by Above the Title Productions. In 2005 and 2006 Slater returned to the stage and London to play McMurphy in Cuckoo's Nest. Slater is the advertising voice of Panasonic on radio and television ads.

On January 20, 2006, Slater was the guest host for an episode in the second series of The Friday Night Project for Channel 4 in the United Kingdom. He appeared in the booth of Monday Night Football on November 6, 2006 for the Oakland Raiders at a Seattle Seahawks game.

From October 5, 2007, until January 19, 2008, Slater stared as Buddy Ackerman in the West End production Swimming with Sharks at Vaudeville Theatre, London. A remake of the 1994 film starring Kevin Spacey, the play saw Slater star alongside Helen Baxendale.

Slater is starring in a spy drama titled My Own Worst Enemy, airing in the 2008-2009 season on NBC.

Personal life

He splits his time between New York City, Los Angeles, California, and London, England. He is divorced from Ryan Haddon.

Filmography

• The Legend of Billie Jean (1985)
• The Name of the Rose (1986)
• Twisted (1986)
• Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988)
• Heathers (1989)
• Gleaming the Cube (1989)
• The Wizard (1989)
• Beyond the Stars (1989)
• Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990)
• Young Guns II (1990)
• Pump Up the Volume (1990)
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)
• Mobsters (1991)
• FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992)
• Kuffs (1992)
• True Romance (1993)
• Untamed Heart (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)
• Hard Rain (1998)
• Very Bad Things (1998)
• Home Team (1999)
• The Contender (2000)
• Cletis Tout (2001)
• 3000 Miles to Graceland (2001)
• Windtalkers (2002)
• Prehistoric Planet (2002) TV narrator, Season 2
• Dinosaur Planet (2003) TV narrator
• The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius: Jet Fusion, Parts 1 & 2 (2003)
• Churchill: The Hollywood Years (2004)
• The Good Shepherd/The Confessor (2004)
• Alone in the Dark (2005)
• Mindhunters (2005)
• My Name is Earl (2006) TV
• Bobby (2006)
• Hollow Man 2 (2006)
• He Was a Quiet Man (2007)
• Slipstream (2007)
• The Ten Commandments (2007)
• Igor (2008)
• My Own Worst Enemy (2008) TV
• Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey (2009)

Notes

External links

• Christian-Slater.com - The Official Site
• Christian Slater at the Internet Movie Database
• http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Christian_Slater
• Interpreting Tennessee Williams - Working in the Theatre Seminar video at American Theatre Wing.org, April 2005
• My Own Worst Enemy At Seat42f