Christian Slater knows he’s not always the first actor who gets the call to play a hero these days. Slater’s highest profile roles of late have been as the cryptic title character of Mr. Robot and Dan Broderick in Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story, a real-life murder victim (but, as depicted in the miniseries, in many ways the villain of his own story). So his role in the true-crime podcast adaptation Dr. Death as Randall Kirby, one of a pair of surgeons on the trail of Christopher Duntsch (Joshua Jackson), a real-life neurosurgeon currently serving time in a Texas prison for maiming a patient, is a welcome change of pace. Alec Baldwin co-stars as Robert Henderson, Kirby’s partner, and the pair generate a surprising amount of light comic energy without sacrificing the gravity of the grim situation around them.
“Having played some dark characters, Dr. Death would typically be more in line with some of my choices in my career, the offers and opportunities that I’ve been given,” Slater says, speaking by phone from his home. “But the opportunity to play somebody like Dr. Kirby who’s passionate and really was fighting the system? I mean, ‘Willing to tear it all down in the name of justice.’ That’s the type of character I wanted to play.”
If there’s an element that connects Kirby with some of Slater’s most famous roles — from Heathers’ murderous J.D. to Mr. Robot to the protagonist of Pump up the Volume to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’s Randle Patrick McMurphy on the London stage — it’s that willingness to tear it all down. Slater landed his first high-profile role as a teenager, serving as a novice monk drawn into a medieval murder mystery alongside his brilliant mentor (Sean Connery) in the 1986 film The Name of the Rose. But it was the contemporary teen films he made a few years later — Heathers and Pump Up the Volume above all — that cemented his image. For Gen X moviegoers, Slater became the embodiment of youthful rebellion — smart, sarcastic, and with no interest in following the rules.
It’s an on-screen persona Slater’s never fully shaken off, but one he’s found intriguing ways to play with, now that youthful roles have given way to grown-up parts. These days he seems happy to stay busy and, on the other side of some well-documented dark years, reflective about the past. Ahead of Dr. Death’s July 15th premiere on Peacock, Slater spoke to GQ about prepping to tell a medical horror story, learning to appreciate success as it happens, and the dark wisdom of William Shatner.
This is a crazy, scary story. Did you talk to Randall Kirby when preparing to play him?
I did. I thought that would be fun, actually getting to play a real guy. But then two days before I was supposed to go to Dallas to spend the weekend with him and his family, COVID hit and I was unable to make that trip. But I did recently meet him in New York at the Tribeca Film Festival and he’s wonderful. I mean, these guys were everyday heroes and both he and Dr. Henderson went well beyond the call of duty to bring Duntsch to justice. They’re hero doctors. He’s such a gregarious character. He’s filled with passion, had strong opinions and felt that Duntsch should have only been allowed to operate on mice.
I like you and Baldwin as a team. It’s too bad that this is a miniseries because the continuing adventures of these doctors together could work.
That’s what we were saying while we were doing it. It’s only an eight-episode run, short and sweet. To work with Alec Baldwin and have him kind of be the straight man was an interesting opportunity. We were given a lot of freedom to come up with stuff on the spot. Mr. Robot was very by the book and Kirby needed to be a lot looser and I was given a lot of leeway to keep it lively and loose as much as possible. . I always wanted to work with Alec and to get that opportunity was everything I could’ve wanted it to be. If somebody comes up with a creative way for Henderson and Kirby to go after another doctor, there’s definitely plenty of opportunities.
When you have a long career, it feels like old roles can kind of echo through them. Watching this, I was thinking of Baldwin’s work as the egomaniacal surgeon in Malice, which is a mirror image of his role here. Did any of your past roles inform this performance?
That was definitely one of the performances of Baldwin’s that I really love and I remember sending him a clip when we were getting started, the whole “I am God” speech. But for me, I’ve always tried to bring a certain amount of enthusiasm to whatever roles that I play. I really do enjoy what I do. And when there’s a type of character like this… I suppose the one character, if I had to take a stab at what did pop through my mind a few times, was Randle Patrick McMurphy, just that level of energy. When I did that play in London for seven months, that character was just so vibrant, so alive and so passionate that I wanted to bring a little bit of that.
When you play a character on stage like that, do they stick around longer? Do you draw on them more?
Well, you’re doing it eight performances a week so you can’t help but absorb some of that in your DNA. Nicholson was really lucky to get the opportunity to play that role. I was really lucky to get the opportunity to at least get to do it on stage and that’s one of the greatest characters and roles you could ever get the opportunity to play. That’s the kind of passion that I like to live by and work by.
Speaking of real-life people, you recently played Robert Evans in the Audible drama Killing Hollywood, who I think you did know. What was it like to be able to draw on direct experience to play a role?
That was great and that’s really the only reason I wanted to participate in that. To get the opportunity to play a Hollywood icon like that was thrilling. I thought the story was interesting and to play Robert Evans… He was quite the character. If I told you some of the things that I saw behind the scenes or what went on in his house, your eyes would definitely fall out. It was quite the scene that I, kind of, dipped my toe into briefly. But I did get the opportunity to spend a lot of time with him. I had a great imitation of his voice when I was hanging around and I’ve lost it since he passed away.
I don’t really picture you as Evans in a live-action production, but you slip into the role really well there. Do you like voice work for that reason?
Voice work is wonderful. Certainly, as difficult as this last year-and-a-half has been… And of course, the silver lining was it has given me an opportunity to be around my family a lot more and I wouldn’t have had the opportunity [otherwise]. But I had to figure out a way to record stuff at home. That’s what I was doing for the majority of COVID, a lot of voiceover work, throwing duvets over my head and I had my own little recording studio that I built and created. I was doing it underneath a desk covered by quilts and duvets. That was my technique and I guess it worked. It was not very extensive but there were no complaints. I recorded something for Disney and even those guys were happy with the quality.
As an actor you now bring decades of experience to a role. What advantages does that give you that you didn’t have when you were first starting out?
I guess it helps to not take things too seriously. I’ve been looking at William Shatner lately. He just turned 90 and one of the things he’s been saying is that, “Don’t worry. Nothing really matters in the end anyway.” Which is a little depressing. [Laughs.] But, I still found it to be hilarious and there’s an element, a great element of truth to that, you know? Life takes its own route. You jump in the stream of it, try to glide along with it as best as you possibly can, and try not to hurt anybody along the way. That’s what I try to bring to my work. I listen to the directors, I come in as prepared as I can possibly be and I’m ready to go.
I’m trying to imagine what it must’ve been like doing The Name of the Rose as a teenager with that cast. How intimidating was that?
I was fifteen, sixteen, and I’ve just been recently thinking about what a phenomenal opportunity that was to be given. Of course, I don’t think I had any concept of how special that was and how… You know, what a wonderful way to start a career in the movie business. It was overwhelming and intense. I was very nervous but somehow able to do the job. I had a lot of support around me while I was making it so that was nice. Sean Connery, I will always be indebted to him. I miss him greatly. He’s always been a hero of mine and before I started, I watched all of his James Bond movies. So, that was intense, to be face-to-face with him. As a kid, you tend to take some of these things for granted and now, looking back on it, I can definitely see what a remarkable opportunity that was and I’ve just been really grateful for it.
Does Connery’s helpfulness inform the way you interact with younger actors?
I think so. I mean, I’ve been doing scenes where people on the production will come up to me afterwards and say, “Oh, that reminds me of you and Sean Connery, but now, you’re Sean Connery.” That’s huge and I’m just quoting somebody who said it and who is a fan of The Name of the Rose. I don’t know if I would ever put myself in the category of Sean Connery now, but I was definitely appreciative of the compliment. But of course, when I worked with Rami, nobody knew who Rami Malek was and he was basically a newcomer. I tried to bring all the things that I’ve learned from the people that I’ve worked with, Sean Connery, Jeff Bridges and Anthony Hopkins. All these opportunities and personalities have helped me to realize that this business is something to be enjoyed. It is fine. It is a great opportunity and success is a fluke. I mean, it’s a freakish thing when people respond to your work and really begin to appreciate it. It doesn’t happen all the time, so I guess, the message that I try to convey is that this doesn’t happen. So let’s really appreciate it.
That’s certainly how I felt with Mr. Robot. I had had several TV experiences that didn’t necessarily go the way I wanted them to go. I still got a lot out of those experiences, but when Mr. Robot hit, everybody was talking about it and I would walk down the street and people would yell out, “Hey, Mr. Robot!” That was something to be appreciated and not to be taken for granted, you know? It would have been nice, I think, for me as a younger kid… And I probably did have people telling me when I was sixteen and doing a movie like The Name of the Rose, to not take it for granted. But when you’re sixteen, we tend not to listen and we tend to think you know it all at that time. And looking back, I certainly didn’t.
You had a couple of roles early on that really did make you an icon for Generation X. At what point did you realize that you had that kind of generational impact?
Well, I realized after Heathers that, all of a sudden, a lot of doors were opening. A lot of other opportunities were opening up. I think there was just something about that movie that felt very special. I remember when Winona Ryder and I were asked to do a presentation of the movie at Lincoln Center and do a talkback after the screening… Again, I’m eighteen, nineteen years old and that was quite a position to be put in. I don’t think I had any great understanding of what was going on but to me, getting the opportunity to do a talk back after screening at Lincoln Center felt like a big deal.
I imagine that after years of people talking to you about those roles you came to realize what you’ve meant to people.
What’s great is that those movies continue to live on. My favorite one is Pump Up the Volume. That one frustrates me to a certain degree because I guess, there’s some issue with the music so they can’t really put it on Netflix. You know, the nonsense behind the scenes that goes on. So, of course, that’s a movie that not a lot of people have gotten the opportunity to see unless they watch it on YouTube or something like that. But, that’s my favorite movie. Those scripts are far and few between. It’s hard to find material like that.
Pump Up the Volume aside, what’s a movie of yours that not enough people have seen?
Wow. All I can do is make a joke right now. I don’t know. I’m not going to say Alone in the Dark. That’s my final answer.
I enjoyed your performance in Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac, but it also gave me pause because here’s a guy who played teenagers when I was a teenager and he’s playing the dying father of an adult daughter. Do your roles really make you assess where you are in your life?
That just felt right, you know? I’m not a kid anymore. That definitely was the beginning of me slowing things down a little bit. Getting that opportunity to work with Lars von Trier was the beginning of me starting to take it seriously again, what it is that I get the opportunity to do. I think I’d been floating around there for a little while and I just slowed down and when that opportunity presented itself, I did everything I possibly could to get that role. They thought, based on my past, that I would be too young for it, so I grabbed some mascara from my wife and put dark circles under my eyes and did everything I possibly could to make myself look older. Fortunately, Lars von Trier was able to see past my past and give me the job. I appreciate you appreciating that role. I really did give as much of myself as I possibly could to that character.