Christian Slater | Interview

In the new half-hour comedy series Breaking In, Christian Slater’s mischievous, Nicholson-esque side gets full play. The actor stars as the mastermind behind a firm that tests companies’ security systems by breaking them. Slater spoke from his home in L.A., in between “watching 48 Hours, chilling out” and shooting his Fox series, premiering Wednesday 6.

You’ve had two short-lived TV series, The Forgotten and My Own Worst Enemy. Do you feel any trepidation about giving TV another go?
Sure, a little bit. It’s never easy when things don’t go according to the plan, but look, it’s part of the business. There’s no recipe for these things to succeed. I enjoy the process of TV, I like the pace of it, I like the continual work.

It looks like you’re having a pretty good time in the pilot.
Yeah, man, it’s been a blast. I get to wear sunglasses, I get to smoke cigars, and I get to be the guy who’s eight moves ahead.

Speaking of that: The role kind of plays on your bad-boy image. Given your past run-ins with the law, do you have any concerns about that, or do you just see this as an opportunity to have fun with it?
Certainly it’s an opportunity to have fun with it, and look, I’m a 41-year-old man, I have two children, I have five years of sobriety under my belt. “Bad” and “boy,” they just don’t go together past a certain age. At 41, if you’re still behaving in that way, you’re pretty much just an idiot, so hopefully I have moved beyond that, more into the phase of, you know, good man.

You’ve been very candid about your alcohol addiction, spending a couple of months in prison. Are you tired of talking about that past? Do you think of it as helping others?
Certainly you see how your experience can benefit others. If you can help guide somebody through a challenging moment because you’ve been there, that ends up becoming a great gift.

People have said you’ve helped them in that way?
Yeah, I mean, none of us get through anything alone. To try and handle something by yourself is asking for help by the person that got you into trouble in the first place.

Of your alcoholism, you’ve said, “There was a lot to take on without much life experience.” What were you taking on?
Getting a certain level of notoriety at a very early age. At 18, it’s a lot to take on. You’re garnering a lot of validation, and people are allowing you to get away with a lot more because you have quote-unquote fame and power.

You’ve also said, “Actors, myself included, we can all be divas, make fools of ourselves.” Not many stars say that. How’ve you come to have your perspective on celebrity?
What we’re doing is not rocket science, it’s entertainment. This is a character-driven comedy piece, so to take it remotely seriously would be insane. Look, this business [Laughs], it’s a funny business. People tend to react differently than they would if you weren’t in this business.… I got the opportunity to go visit the Walter Reed Medical Center and meet some of the troops. When you meet a person who’s lost all their limbs as a result of doing everything they can to keep us safe here, it makes it a lot easier to take what I do less seriously.

How does having two young kids inform that?
I like to be the kind of dad that exposes them to as many adventures as possible.

What was the most recent one?
It was Costa Rica. We did the zip-lining thing. My daughter, she’s nine now, we were in the changing room, putting the gear on, and she was crying and really didn’t want to do it because it’s scary. I was scared. It was rainy and cloudy and you couldn’t see the end of the line, but I didn’t pressure her, I didn’t do the usual dad thing, like “Come on! Get up there and do it!” And the guide somehow managed to talk her into it. It was a real thrill to see her coming across that line. For her to walk through that kind of fear was enormous. Those are the moments in life that are priceless.

Do those moments make you look differently at your own parents? Your dad’s an actor, your mom’s a casting director.
[Laughs]

Why do you laugh?
’Cause it just made me think about my parents. [Laughs] God bless them. 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. With me and my kids, it’s a little different. I would prefer for them to be kids as long as possible.

Breaking In premieres Wednesday 6 at 8:30pm on Fox.