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Christian Slater's second act

Christian virtue: a man in the prime of his second act

Matthew d'Ancona

Wednesday, 12th December 2007

A Hollywood actor on the London stage

In his latest film, Frank Cappello’s He Was a Quiet Man, Slater ditches his matinée idol image completely to play a bespectacled office drone plotting to kill his co-workers. ‘It gave me an opportunity do things physically I’d never really done before. The hair and the teeth and glasses. I guess there’s not much of the Christian Slater that I’ve been before.’

Along the way, he has found happiness with Tamara Mellon, the co-founder of Jimmy Choo. Meanwhile, he is looking forward to a Christmas break with his children. ‘I get three days off the play! So I will go to Toronto, that’s where my kids will be — I’ll get a bag of toys from Hamleys and cruise over there, be father Santa. [Tamara] had a trip booked so she is going off to some phenomenal place, I really wish I could go! That’s going to be tricky but that’s how it goes. We have an exciting trip planned, once I am done with this show and can focus.’

The amiability is real, but you can detect a new steeliness about what he does: a determination, having diced with oblivion, to make the most of his gifts and transcend the stardom of youth to become one of the great actors of his generation. I think he is well on the way.

The whole point, I suggest, is not to be the second Jack Nicholson, but the first Christian Slater. ‘Thanks, mate,’ he says with a smile, sauntering out to the London that he loves.

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