Playboy Interview: Christian Slater

Christian Slater is breathing hard. It's 90 degrees on a smog-alert afternoon at the Racquet Center in Studio City, where Slater is playing paddle tennis for the very first time. After two games he's winded and hangs his head between his knees. Slater is only 25 years old, but he's learning that youth doesn't necessarily conquer everything--at least not when air pollution, nicotine, caffeine and lack of exercise are involved.

Slater can be forgiven a certain amount of hubris. He has beaten challenges considerably tougher than paddle tennis--including those of a dysfunctional family, alcoholism, jail time--and still emerged as an actor whom many consider to be Generation X's James Dean.

He catches his breath, typically unwilling to quit. "Let's go," he says, as he grips the wooden paddle tightly. And for the next hour he hustles mightily, not about to give in. He completes two sets and though he will ache all night he conceals the pain. It's his own little "fuck you" to those who prophesy doom to the few remaining Angelenos who don't hold their bodies to be shrines.

There has always been something of a rebel about Slater. At 10 he went on the road singing "Gary, Indiana" in "The Music Man," starring Dick Van Dyke, and by the time he returned home he was drinking hard liquor. He started smoking at 14, tried coke and other mind-altering substances and dropped out of high school before graduating. He and his mother moved to Los Angeles, where he lived with a girlfriend at 17 and had two run-ins with the law (the second one landed him in jail and rehab). He is a recovering alcoholic who, since 1985, has managed to appear in 19 films and have affairs with a number of his leading ladies. His name has been above the title in a half dozen movies, and his two current films--"Interview With the Vampire" and "Murder in the First"--will undoubtedly get him increased notice.

Slater's role as the interviewer of vampires came about when River Phoenix, who originally had the part, died of a drug overdose just as filming began. Slater agreed to fill in only after deciding to donate his fee to charity. His other film, "Murder in the First," is a true story about a young lawyer (Slater) who defends a prisoner, played by Kevin Bacon, who murdered the man who put him into solitary confinement for three years in Alcatraz. It's a new, mature direction for the actor, who has already shown a chameleon-like ability to perform.

Often, Slater's offscreen antics overshadow his work. In "The Legend of Billie Jean" he fell in love with his co-star, Helen Slater, who spurned the advances of the 15-year-old. By 16 he was making love to his 22-year-old Chilean co-star Valentina Vargas both on camera (simulated) and off (for real) while in Italy shooting "The Name of the Rose" with Sean Cannery. His fast track to success speeded up when Francis Coppola cast him in "Tucker: The Man and His Dream," starring Jeff Bridges. He became a cult figure when he followed "Tucker" with "Heathers," where he played a murderous teen rebel disdainful of high school snobs and athletic heroes. Winona Ryder played his love interest and the two of them had a brief, widely reported fling during filming. Another teen rebel film, the critically acclaimed "Pump Up the Volume," solidified his cult following.

He played a cowboy in "Young Guns II," Robin Hood's long-lost brother in "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" with Kevin Costner, Lucky Luciano in "Mobsters" and a San Francisco cop in "Kuffs," where the device of talking directly into the camera was given a thumbs-down by most who saw it. But Slater bounced back, playing a shy and sensitive character who believes he has a baboon's heart in director Tony Bill's "Untamed Heart." He followed that with "True Romance," a quirky, violent romp with extraordinary performances by Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman, Christopher Walken and Patricia Arquette, with whom Slater had another of his quick attachments. He also had a brief fling with supermodel Christy Turlington (with whom he appeared on the cover of "Harper's Bazaar," becoming the first male to be featured on the cover since Steve McQueen in 1968).

Slater was born in Manhattan on August 18, 1969. His parents' rocky marriage ended when he was just five. His father, an actor who now goes by the name Michael Gains-borough, was the original Ryan in the TV soap opera "Ryan's Hope" and has appeared on the stage and in other television shows, but never with the kind of success his son has had. Slater's mother, Mary Jo Slater, is a casting agent (she currently works at MGM). Christian grew up surrounded by actors and the theater. When his mother appeared as a guest on "The Joe Franklin Show," Christian, then nine, was spotted in the wings and called out onstage. Director Michael Kidd saw him and asked him to audition for "The Music Man."

Like many actors, Slater never felt secure about himself, and his offbeat family life only heightened his insecurities. "I saw a lot of insanity when I was growing up," he now says.

Slater has also appeared on TV, spending six months on "Ryan's Hope" and doing some after-school and HBO specials. He appeared onstage in "Oliver!" and, in 1982, with Nicol Williamson in "Macbeth."A children's play he directed, "The Laughter Epidemic," raised more than $200,000 for the Pediatric AIDS Foundation.

Enamored by the legends of Hollywood past, Slater believed it was an actor's lot to be as wild and rebellious as one could, to live like Errol Flynn or Jack Nicholson, to experience the all-night parties, the drugs, booze and women that came with the territory, and not worry about tomorrow. It was something he was good at--at least he was until December 29, 1989, when he and a friend were speeding down Santa Monica Boulevard, ignoring the police siren behind them. The chase eventually ended in an alley, when Slater jumped out of his Saab Turbo 900 and tried to scale a fence, kicking the cop who was trying to stop him. He was fined $1400, had his driver's license suspended for 18 months and spent ten days in jail. A rehab program came next.

Slater says his wild years are now behind him. He just wants to concentrate on his career, his private life and his antique toy collection. The woman in Slater's life now is Nina Peterson Huang, an actress and writer who lives with him in a secluded house in the Hollywood Hills. To find out how successful his new life is, Playboy sent Contributing Editor Lawrence Grobel (who last interviewed Anthony Hopkins) to spend some time and play some ball with the star. Grobel's report:

"How can you not like a guy who comes out in his white terrycloth robe, his hair uncombed, looking sleepy in the middle of the afternoon, lighting up a cigarette, gulping coffee, and saying, behind cheap purple-lens sunglasses, 'I bet Marlon Brando never did his interview in his bathrobe'?

"We talked outside by the pool for hours. Then he showed me his toy collection--dozens of model spaceships hanging from the ceiling, hundreds of 'Star Wars' and 'Star Trek' figures on shelves, framed posters of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, and old 'Life' covers of Spencer Tracy, Errol Flynn and Montgomery Clift. He was having a sound system installed so he could watch his favorite videos and feel every close encounter of the outer-space kind.

"Christian's an enormously likable character, willing to try something new, like paddle tennis, even if it puts him at a disadvantage. He was also, as I found out, fearless and uncensored, willing to discuss the ups and downs of his life with unusual candor."

[Q] Playboy: Just as you're turning from teen to adult star, the press has deemed that there is a new Christian who is markedly different from the old Christian. Richard Nixon was well into his presidency before the labels old and new appeared, and you're only 25.

[A] Slater: It is kind of silly, isn't it? But I never came out saying, "This is the new me."

[Q] Playboy: Is there a new you?

[A] Slater: Yeah, I feel separated from what I was, more settled down, more comfortable in my own skin. I'm able to focus more, but I'm at a strange point in my career. It's like I'm too old or too young for certain things, and these other guys are in their 30s, so I've been lying about my age. I tell people I'm 28 just to put them at ease. Most older people have the hardest time dealing with somebody who's 25.

[Q] Playboy: Are you talking about your competition?

[A] Slater: The only ones I really think about now are Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves. It's my competitive side, which I will have to deal with at some point.

[Q] Playboy: You worked with both Pitt and Cruise in Interview With the Vampire. Whose career would you most like to emulate?

[A] Slater: Tom Cruise's career is just so organized and so clean. He's a real business guy, and that is a direction I'd like my career to move in. Whatever he does works. I've never been on a more organized set. He comes out, he shoots for a set amount of time, and then he's out. He's incredibly professional. People work when he's around; no time is wasted. That's pretty amazing. He's also incredibly gorgeous, a really good-looking guy. I guess this is my love letter to Tom Cruise.

[Q] Playboy: How well did you get to know him during the shooting of Interview?

[A] Slater: We spent six hours together in a car the day we closed down the Golden Gate Bridge for a scene. He offered to fly me back to L.A. in his jet. He's really down-to-earth, but he's also very private, so there's a certain mystery about him. He's been lucky getting first look and first chance at projects that have built-in audiences, like The Firm and A Few Good Men, and now this one, which should be huge.

[Q] Playboy: What do you think of the controversy over Cruise being cast as the vampire? We know that the author, Anne Rice, was dead set against him.

[A] Slater: Tom Cruise will most likely have the last laugh. My prediction is that it will have a $40 million opening. It's going to have such publicity behind it, it'll be amazing.

[Q] Playboy: How much are you in the film?

[A] Slater: I worked a total of about a week. I appear sporadically throughout the film. The majority of my dialogue is between me and Brad, and the rest appears at the end with Tom.

[Q] Playboy: How did you feel taking over the role of the interviewer after River Phoenix' death?

[A] Slater: I felt really uncomfortable about it. I had met Neil Jordan six months before they started shooting because I was interested in another role, that of Armand. I really hated Jordan, to be honest with you, because he spent most of the interview on the phone. I was offended by that. I've since found out that he's very shy and has a difficult time communicating. When I heard that they wanted me for River Phoenix' role, I wanted no part of it. Then my agent suggested I donate the money to his charities and ones that I'm involved with.

[Q] Playboy: Did you know Phoenix or share the same friends?

[A] Slater: River and I didn't share any close friends other than Martha Plimpton. I went to school with her, but I haven't spoken to her in four years. I don't really go to the clubs and I don't know anybody he knew.

[Q] Playboy: How did his death affect you?

[A] Slater: It provided a reminder of what my life could have been. I was definitely heading in the same direction he was. After alcohol it could have been acid for me and then maybe try some heroin, which I think is some of the stuff that was found in his system.

[Q] Playboy: We'll get to your life shortly, but let's stay with River's death. It seemed to have shocked so many people.

[A] Slater: There was a massive case of denial going on there. If he had been open enough to step inside an AA meeting, he'd still be here. Members of his family are strong believers in spirituality, and in order to deal with the pain they believe that River is in the air and in the water and all around.

[Q] Playboy: When you came on the set as his replacement, did you have any problems with anyone?

[A] Slater: The director had a clear vision of what he wanted River to look like and he started taking my hair and pushing it to the side, really manhandling me. I just hate to be handled. You get in my space, it drives me nuts. I told him, "Neil, I'm not River Phoenix. I'm going to approach this in a totally different way. I'm in this movie with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt and I'd like to do the best job I possibly can and I'd like you to allow me to do that. Let me do my look. If you really hate it, then we'll deal with that." After I told him he just stayed out of my way and that made my job easier.

[Q] Playboy: You have another film coming out, Murder in the First, in which you play the lead.

[A] Slater: Right. It's more of an adult-type film for me. I play this guy just out of law school who works at this law firm that his brother runs. He gets this open-and-shut case, his first, but things begin to happen. It's about the atrocities performed at Alcatraz and how that place was shut down. It's maybe a miniversion of Judgment at Nuremberg.

[Q] Playboy: Sounds like this might be your A Few Good Men.

[A] Slater: I'm sure there will be comparisons, but they're not the same. Cruise's character was a hotshot, cocky guy. I'm a nervous guy who's trying on this new pair of shoes as he walks into the killer's cell. It's about the relationship between me and this convict who's been so brutalized by the system.

[Q] Playboy: How did you get along with Kevin Bacon, who plays a convict placed in solitary for three years who then kills the man who put him there?

[A] Slater: He's going to surprise a lot of people. He's a genius in this. I was being considered for that part but I really didn't want to play it. The reason I took Murder in the First was that I felt the character I play gave me the opportunity to show a different side. I hope it's a much more intelligent, mature side.

[Q] Playboy: You're no stranger to odd behavior. Did you have any blowups on the set?

[A] Slater: We shot at Alcatraz for three weeks. What a nightmare that was. You had to take a ferry to get there. They couldn't bring trailers out, so they set up cells for each of the actors to stay in. I had a cell for three weeks and spent a lot of time sitting around waiting because of these elaborate camera shots. That was frustrating. I'd already done my jail time five years ago. I didn't need to do any more. I made the mistake of not bringing enough cigarettes and I asked my friend to get me another pack. He came back and said there weren't any more and that the line producer said I made enough money to buy my own. Here I am on this island--there's no cigarette store there. There's no way for me to get a smoke. And if I'm going to sit in this goddamn cell, I'm going to smoke! I was blown away by the incredible stupidity of that comment. So I got out of the wardrobe I'd been in for nine hours and said, "Fuck these guys. I'm going to the fucking mainland, buy my cigarettes and I might come back." I figured I would teach them a little lesson, because it was so rude. So I took the ferry and got my cigarettes and came back. The director, Marc Rocco, gave me this incredible attitude. He thought I was trying to screw his movie.

[Q] Playboy: What happened then?

[A] Slater: We had to reshoot a scene for the television version, without the curses. We didn't have to do another setup, just put the camera in the same place. But for some reason it took a long time and we wound up sitting there again. I lost it. I started screaming and yelling, "What the fuck is the holdup here?" Because we had all been on this island for three weeks and we just wanted to get off the goddamn island. Marc said, "I'm not ready to shoot yet." And I said, "You have to be ready, you have to say, 'Rolling'!" And he did, quietly, say, 'Rolling.' We had the weekend to think about all this and when we got back we straightened everything out.

[Q] Playboy: Prison life can do that to you.

[A] Slater: Oh, another charming thing about our stay: There were no toilets, just one Porta-Potti for all of us. So we were all peeing in Evian bottles. Kevin Bacon came up with that idea. You drink the Evian and then you fill it up again.

[Q] Playboy: Did you cut the tops to make it easier?

[A] Slater: No, we peed in the little hole. It was very tricky.

[Q] Playboy: Weren't you also filming in Sylmar, near Northridge, when the earthquake struck?

[A] Slater: We were near the epicenter. It was horrifying. I was walking back to my trailer when the whole place started shaking. Gary Oldman came running off the set with a cut on his face. His manager broke his arm. That thing was insane. I saw 400 extras piling out of this doorway; women were crying, screaming, I was hugging a couple of them. The earth shook for 20 minutes afterward and I said to my friend, "Let's get the hell out of here."

[Q] Playboy: Who was the first person you called?

[A] Slater: My girlfriend, Nina. We were working things out and that earthquake was perfect for me, because I was able to get in my Bronco and rescue her and her friends. We drove up to this ranch in the middle of nowhere, just to get out of L.A. I was a hero for about a week.

[Q] Playboy: A hero is the part you've fantasized all your life, isn't it?

[A] Slater: Yeah, I always wanted to be the guy who would rush into the burning building and save the babe. I thought to be a hero would be the coolest thing. A few years ago on Halloween my friends and I went to this club, Roxbury, and I was wearing my Batman outfit. We left and I saw a guy beating up on this chick. I took my mask off and yelled, "Stop!" I looked like a ninja. I ran across the street, jumped on a car and came down on this guy. The wig fell off the woman he was beating up and it turned out to be a man, who took off his high heels and started whaling on this other guy. I didn't know what was going on, so I just let them beat the shit out of each other.

[Q] Playboy: So being a hero wasn't all you thought it would be?

[A] Slater: When I was growing up I thought I was the bionic man. I'd say, "I'm going to chop off my legs and get bionic legs so I can really run fast." My father would say, "Take it easy. That's TV, that's not real life, man. Keep it in perspective." TV can be very misleading to a kid.

[Q] Playboy: Especially when your father is on it.

[A] Slater: When I was about three, I was sitting on his lap watching him on this soap opera, Love Is a Many Splendored Thing. I see that he gets his head stuck in a fireplace or an oven and he's writhing in pain and I don't know what the hell is going on. I screamed. He just said, "It's all acting." He explained it to me. Man, it was freaky.

[Q] Playboy: But it didn't stop you from wanting to be a superhero, did it?

[A] Slater: I once got locked on the roof when I was five. My father would sunbathe on the roof in New York, 86th and West End. I would go up there in my Batman cape and try to scare him. One time I hid too long and he went downstairs and locked the door. I was on the roof for a good three hours, I couldn't get down, and so I took this daring leap to the other building. I found a door that was open to an elevator shaft and yelled down and somebody heard me.

[Q] Playboy: What did your parents do when they found out you had jumped to the other roof?

[A] Slater: My mother had already called the police and was really freaked. My father was just happy that I had survived. They were having their own difficulties at the time and that was one of the things that really widened the gulf between them. She felt he was irresponsible.

[Q] Playboy: Soon after that they divorced. Did you feel you had to take sides between them?

[A] Slater: I tried to be the therapist sometimes, sitting between them so they could talk it out. I remember some volatile moments with hands going through lamps, smashing everywhere. But it always seemed so beyond real that it had to be acting. There was so much drama going on and there were so many buttons pushed and so many manipulations, it had to be a soap opera. But there was no reason for a five-year-old to be in the middle of some fucking devastating situation. All a kid needs to know is, "It's nothing to do with you." After their divorce I was insecure everywhere I went.

[Q] Playboy: Did your mother ever talk to you about acting?

[A] Slater: Just her telling me how hideous a profession it was, how difficult it can be, and using my father as an example of the struggle.

[Q] Playboy: Even though you started acting when you were nine, your mother didn't push you?

[A] Slater: If a parent pushes a kid into this business, the kid resents it. If I said my mother pushed me, people would take pity on me. She didn't push me, it was my choice completely. Now she feels that not enough credit is being given to her at this point.

[Q] Playboy: Your father feels the same way. He claims full credit for your success, according to a letter he sent to Premiere magazine. He wrote that he's your superego and he made you a star, and that when he's dead maybe you'll give him the credit he deserves.

[A] Slater: I spoke to him about it. He said he had sent them a 12-page letter and they cut it down. My father's way of communicating is to write letters.

[Q] Playboy: That seems like a strange letter for him to write.

[A] Slater: I think that's part of the reason I have trouble drawing the line between my private and professional life. Those boundaries have not been clearly established for me. I have to start drawing some boundaries.

[Q] Playboy: Would you include your parents among the people you trust and feel closest to?

[A] Slater: Not at this point.

[Q] Playboy: When was the last time you were with your father?

[A] Slater: We talk all the time. I took him to the Barbra Streisand concert. He pulled out a toothbrush and started brushing his teeth in the auditorium in front of everybody. Who knows, I may steal that one day and do it in a film. When it's one-on-one I can deal with him. But as soon as a woman comes around, my father gets competitive with me. We were sitting at the concert and I was eating ice cream and he was talking with this girl, ignoring me. Then he turned around and, loud enough for several people to hear, he said, "If you finish that I'm going to kill you!" Fuck, man, take it easy. It made me horribly uncomfortable.

[Q] Playboy: That's understandable.

[A] Slater: I remember he always used to allow me to win at chess. I never realized that, I always thought I was good. Then one time he had this girlfriend in Chicago and I said, "Let's play chess," and he beat the shit out of me right in front of her. Man, it was humiliating. After years of losing, all of a sudden he pulls out the stops and destroys me. I was upset. I felt like an asshole.

[Q] Playboy: So what word would you use to describe him?

[A] Slater: Colorful. He's in his late 50s, and he's a fantastic actor. He does a lot of small theater around Los Angeles. He's entertaining and full of life.

[Q] Playboy: Was your mother right to assume that as your career grew, she would manage you?

[A] Slater: My mother's favorite movie is Gypsy. That was her dream. Her plans were to manage my career and run the show, to tell me what types of projects to do, basically run my life and produce the films that I do and have this incredible family partnership. One of the things that didn't factor into her equation is that eventually I would require some independence for myself. It never occurred to her. She couldn't believe, and still doesn't believe, that I don't need anything from her. Whereas I feel that she has raised somebody who is capable of taking care of himself, rather than having to go back to Mom and say, "Please bail me out of this situation." If I were that type of person I'd still be drinking and getting arrested.

[Q] Playboy: What is it that you would like from her?

[A] Slater: Ideally, I would like for her to be proud of me. It hasn't all gone her way. A part of me feels guilty about that, like maybe I do owe her everything.

[Q] Playboy: Did you used to sit in during auditions and watch as your mother cast people?

[A] Slater: Yeah, I would watch the actors and see what it was like after they left the room. That was pretty heavy, listening to those people be talked about after they were gone. Which is why I hate to take meetings, because nobody is really honest. Everybody is going to go off and talk about you behind your back.

[Q] Playboy: Did she prepare you to deal with the dark side of Hollywood?

[A] Slater: I don't know if she really wanted to prepare me fully, because that would have given her no power over me.

[Q] Playboy: What was the subtext to her telling Rolling Stone that girls are your major hobby?

[A] Slater: Isn't that unreal? Maybe she was right. I had such a lack of respect for women that I just treated them as a hobby, trying to live up to the supposed image of Jack Nicholson and all those guys who were womanizers. Because if I have women as a hobby, my mother will always be number one, you know? If I take another woman seriously and have respect for her, my mother would be forced to let go. So that's a statement of a woman completely unwilling to separate. "Let's keep lots of women around so things stay as distracted as possible and I can pull the strings."

[Q] Playboy: Has any woman you've been with met with her approval?

[A] Slater: I guess a princess is what she sees for me. Of course, I feel like I am with a princess now because a princess is a person who is honest and straight up and can be trusted beyond belief. But to her a princess may be Madonna, somebody famous, somebody in my profession, at least as wealthy.

[Q] Playboy: Madonna? What kind of mother would wish a woman like Madonna on her son? Is she trying to kill you?

[A] Slater: My mother is envious of the relationship Elvis Presley had with his mother, and the relationship River Phoenix had with his mother. OK? They're both dead! I told her I'd much rather have the relationship we have today than the ones they did.

[Q] Playboy: What about the men in your mother's life after her first divorce? How'd you deal with that?

[A] Slater: With a lot of the guys my mother dated, I'd come home and they would be sitting in the closet cutting up the clothes. I mean, manic, crazy shit. This was the stuff I was seeing. There were certainly a couple of guys who were just blatant assholes. But it was difficult for the men, because my mother put so much attention on me and treated me like the golden boy. She spoiled me rotten. I never had any discipline growing up and I had Mom wrapped around my finger. Naturally guys would get jealous and fight for attention. A lot of them were hideously immature. So I've had to do a lot to get that stuff out of my system.

[Q] Playboy: Did any of her boyfriends ever provoke you into violence?

[A] Slater: I slugged one of them once when I was 14. It was another of those guys who was trying to discipline me and get me to behave a certain way. I had no respect for this guy. We'd make fun of each other all the time, brutalize each other. He had this dart and had unscrewed the sharp point, but I didn't know that. He fucking chucked it at me and I thought he was drying to kill me. I think a part of him really wanted to. So I just whaled him right in the kidneys. I'm lucky I'm still here to talk about it because he was a big guy.

[Q] Playboy: Your mother remarried twice after your father. How did you feel at the time of each marriage?

[A] Slater: The second time I was a mess, really drunk, flirting with the bridesmaids. She wanted to marry to give my brother a legitimate name, which is Wilson. And now his last name is Slater, you know? So I don't know what the hell the marriage was for, really. The third one was right before I went off to do Robin Hood, so I was at a sober stage of my life. I like this guy.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't your brother Ryan recently get cast in his first feature film?

[A] Slater: Yeah, he's 11. It's a Warner Bros, movie called Little Panda and he's the lead. He went to the Himalayas for about three months. My mother's handling his career, so I guess she's doing a little transference deal. It's bizarre. My brother said to me, "You'd better watch out because I'm coming up." I just said, "I couldn't be more proud of you than I am. I wish you all the best. I just hope you don't get competitive with me now. I wouldn't want it to ruin the relationship that we have developed over the years." The fact that my brother is coming up is really helping me to realize that you have to make space for everybody, you can't be competitive and insane about it.

[Q] Playboy: When you say your mother's doing a transference deal, do you mean she is picking up with him where she left off with you?

[A] Slater: Right. The night before he got the movie she asked me to go to therapy with her. Then after Ryan got the movie I didn't hear from her. Either I'm Elvis Presley or River Phoenix or I'm 14 years old. And if I can't be 14, Ryan will be.

[Q] Playboy: It sounds like there's a lot of residual anger that has built up since your parents divorced. Did you take out that anger on them as you were growing up?

[A] Slater: How was I going to direct my anger at my mother or my father when maybe I already lost one of them and I may lose the other one? It was a tricky situation. A lot of my anger got misplaced and was directed at kids in school and at teachers, when I would say, "Excuse me, I'm talking, don't interrupt me!"

[Q] Playboy: Is it true that you used to sob and cry because you had to go to school?

[A] Slater: When I was younger. I used to latch on to my mother's leg because I didn't want to be put on the school bus.

[Q] Playboy: Why did you hate school so much?

[A] Slater: It didn't work for me. I wasn't very good at it. It wasn't fun. It was a source of punishment.

[Q] Playboy: What about friends?

[A] Slater: I had one friend who stabbed me in the arm with a pencil because I was flirting with a girl and he was jealous. I still have the mark. And I had one strong friendship with this other guy. He was Han Solo and I was Luke Skywalker, or I was Flash Gordon and he was the Baron. We were always playing action heroes. Then I went off to do The Legend of Billie Jean and when I came back my attitude had changed dramatically. I was wearing a snakeskin jacket and sunglasses. My hair was all spiked and dyed, and I was working on being an unbelievable punk, rebelling against school completely, trying to be a badass. I'd light up cigarettes in class and get thrown out. I got suspended for three days. I just didn't care.

[Q] Playboy: Did you ever get into fights?

[A] Slater: Not really, though I had a roving eye and I got popped for it once, a good belt to the head. I learned a pretty good lesson: Guys have to stick together--we can't be fucking one another over. I was definitely acting out of blatant selfishness and immaturity and I paid a little price for it. The guy was a boxer and I came at him with my head as my fist, my nose leading the way. I have a deviated septum to this day.

[Q] Playboy: Did your teachers suspect you of dealing drugs?

[A] Slater: At one point they really did believe I was doing that.

[Q] Playboy: Were you?

[A] Slater: I tried. I tried to be cool and fit in at one point, but it wasn't really for me. I was walking around with the tinfoil, the whole thing.

[Q] Playboy: What was in the foil?

[A] Slater: Coke.

[Q] Playboy: How did you get it?

[A] Slater: It was always there and always available.

[Q] Playboy: When did you drop out of school?

[A] Slater: At 17. My father called and said, "I don't want you ever to regret that you didn't graduate." That calmed me down right away.

[Q] Playboy: What about sex? When did you lose your virginity?

[A] Slater: Now wait, this is my love life here. Let's talk about your virginity, not about mine.

[Q] Playboy: Let's stay with yours.

[A] Slater: No, I don't want to.

[Q] Playboy: Some of it's public knowledge: You were 14, on a film, it was in a college dorm--

[A] Slater: Exactly, so what more can I say?

[Q] Playboy: Well, you never went to college.

[A] Slater: That's right.

[Q] Playboy: What film was it?

[A] Slater: God, I don't remember.

[Q] Playboy: What city was it?

[A] Slater: I don't remember.

[Q] Playboy: Sure you do.

[A] Slater: No, I swear to you. None of that stuff was the highlight of it.

[Q] Playboy: Did your personality change afterward?

[A] Slater: I was thrilled, no question.

[Q] Playboy: Were you able to talk about it with anyone?

[A] Slater: I called my friend who had stabbed me with the pencil. He wasn't that impressed. I guess he had already done it.

[Q] Playboy: Was the girl also a virgin? And did you see her again?

[A] Slater: She was slightly experienced, she'd done it. I saw her again, it wasn't a one-night thing.

[Q] Playboy: Was it something you had had on your mind for years?

[A] Slater: Yeah, definitely. Ever since I was five or six and modeled clothes for Pierre Cardin. I remember being backstage, spying on the girls changing, and I could see everything. They would have on these stockings with no underwear--you could see right through the stockings. It was great. I was exposed to a great deal there. After that it was definitely important, obsessive. But I wish I could have held out longer, because once you do it, it's over, it's done, that's it.

[Q] Playboy: There can never again be a first time, but surely one can be adventurous when it comes to sex.

[A] Slater: I've had phases of things that I've gone through, and I have a good time. I have the greatest sex in the world now. When you're with somebody and you really know the person and you're comfortable, nothing beats it. Still, I'm real nervous about sex--it could just be the disease thing, because you never know, something could be incubating. AIDS changed my whole perspective. It forced me to deal with issues that I probably wouldn't have had to deal with until I was 35 or 40, like settling down. It's a motivator.

[Q] Playboy: Do you practice safe sex?

[A] Slater: I have, yeah. And I've been foolish too, thinking that I'm invincible.

[Q] Playboy: Did you feel you were born to be wild? Were you trying to live up to the fast life?

[A] Slater: I was trying to live up to the legends of James Dean, Roman Polanski, you know, that you have to live fast, the young and leave a good-looking corpse. That was something I believed in strongly. But since then my opinions about it have changed dramatically. It's immature and silly to behave recklessly, without any regard for anybody else's feelings. It leads to misery. You either the like River Phoenix or you do your best to get through it as smoothly as possible and keep chugging till you get to 30. Fortunately I've had some people around me that helped me keep my head on straight. I haven't always been great at doing that.

[Q] Playboy: Were you prepared for all the fame at so young an age?

[A] Slater: Well, certainly a lot of my dreams came true, but fame didn't really fix me. I was always insecure. I thought that if I were famous I would fit in and people would treat me differently. Then when that started happening, people weren't really dealing with me anymore. They were dealing with somebody famous, so that was never real to me. That's when the drinking started to run the show.

[Q] Playboy: Is that when you were 16 and went to Italy to film The Name of the Rose?

[A] Slater: I'd been drinking for a little while before then. I had my taste of it with the opening of The Music Man. Dick Van Dyke was a partyer; he liked to drink a bit. And I snuck some punch at my mother's parties where there were so many people she couldn't keep an eye on me. So I'd been having my fair share of alcohol. And then with Name of the Rose I made a fatal error with F. Murray Abraham one night. He had already won the Academy Award for Amadeus and was the head honcho. I noticed he was consuming a great deal of alcohol and I was trying to connect with somebody, so I leaned over to him at this restaurant and said, "Murray, you've been drinking a lot. You'd better slow down a bit, buddy." I was a cocky kid and he just started shoving me, like "Get the fuck away from me, you little shit." And his teeth were grinding and I was horrified. So I went back to the hotel and wrote him a note apologizing profusely. Just, "God, I'm sorry man, I can't believe what an asshole I am." And as I was dropping it off he got out of this car with Ron Perlman [who starred in the TV show Beauty and the Beast]. Murray was a goner and was at the stage where there were no boundaries. It's a free rein to kick somebody's ass. So there's going to be a fight between F. Murray Abraham and me! And Ron Perlman is going to be the fucking referee. We're right along the river and Murray comes over and says, "You know what this fucking kid said to me? I'll kick your ass. I'll throw you into the river, you little shit. Think you're a fucking actor? Well, fuck you!" Jesus Christ, it was horrifying. And I don't know if he remembers the incident because we've never spoken of it since. But right after that I just went crazy. Scotch and soda was my thing.

[Q] Playboy: You apparently had a better relationship with the 22-year-old Chilean actress Valentina Vargas, with whom you had to do a nude love scene. How difficult was that?

[A] Slater: She did what was appropriate to guide me through this terrifying experience. It took three days. I think they were waiting for me to get it up, they wanted to see the consummation, but there was no way. It was not where I wanted to be. I couldn't perform while the camera was rolling. Today it's a different story: Put a video camera on me now, I'm gone. I'm loving it!

[Q] Playboy: But offscreen, didn't you and Valentina get to do what you couldn't do when the cameras were rolling?

[A] Slater: I'd rather not say.

[Q] Playboy: With that smile on your face you don't have to.

[A] Slater: There you go.

[Q] Playboy: After you got back from Italy, didn't you and your mother move to Los Angeles?

[A] Slater: Yeah, we took off, found a house, split the down payment.

[Q] Playboy: And the next thing you knew, you were working with Francis Coppola and Jeff Bridges in Tucker: The Man and His Dream.

[A] Slater: I was still a kid then and was intimidated by everybody. Especially Francis. And to top it off, George Lucas, who produced every movie I have ever loved, was walking around the set, too. I never really knew what I was doing. The one real scene I had in the movie was very important to Francis. He actually called me to talk about it. I was having an argument with my girlfriend on the other line, so I said I would call him back. To Francis Coppola! Unreal. I put him on hold for ten minutes. When I came back to work the next day he was pissed.

[Q] Playboy: Was that the only time you pissed him off?

[A] Slater: I screwed up pretty big another day. I was supposed to finish this episode of L.A. Law and go to a wardrobe fitting for Heathers. And I was supposed to do looping for Francis. And I missed it all. I slept through the whole thing because I had been up all night drinking. Oh, they were pissed.

[Q] Playboy: So around this time your drinking had become a problem.

[A] Slater: That was the first time I heard the word alcoholic, while on Tucker. I overheard another actor refer to himself as an alcoholic. I had no understanding of what it meant.

[Q] Playboy: You weren't 18 yet, but this was also a crossroads with your mother, wasn't it?

[A] Slater: My girlfriend and I were living with my mother and I'd been up all night drinking and partying and going crazy. The next day my mother wanted me to get out of bed and face the day and I wasn't in any mood to do it. We got into this really ugly altercation. Then I said, "I'm out of here." She said, "Good, get out." And I left. Then I kept getting calls on the set of Tucker from my mother, which wasn't healthy because it was distracting me from work. Very bizarre.

[Q] Playboy: Was it mainly booze you used during these all-night binges?

[A] Slater: I dabbled in quite a bit. Alcohol and coke were really perfection for me-- that was a good little chemistry set I had going. There's some Hollywood Babylon stuff about me. Things I don't even remember. Passing out in my food in restaurants, vomiting on myself, falling apart. I'm sure I turned over several coffee tables in my day.

[Q] Playboy: Did you ever take acid?

[A] Slater: No. I took ecstasy. I went through the bowel system of a club called Rubber. I came in through the door, which was the mouth, and I maneuvered my way around through the intestines. When I came out the back door it was like coming right out the asshole of the fucking place. It lasted about eight hours and when I woke up the next morning my pants were around my ankles, I was lying on top of the sheets naked to the world. I said, "What the fuck happened here?" To this day I have no idea. But I loved ecstasy. Mushrooms were a nightmare. Coming down from mushrooms I felt like I had all these tiny hairs in my mouth scraping my tongue, my lips were dry. I spent one night talking to a tractor in Tahoe. Drugs can fuck your life.

[Q] Playboy: Was your second run-in with the police the incident that actuallysaved you?

[A] Slater: It headed me in a more positive direction.

[Q] Playboy: That happened when you were 20, right after Pump Up the Volume. Is it enough in your past for you to reflect upon it?

[A] Slater: I'd rather reflect upon how it's affected me since.

[Q] Playboy: It's too major an incident in your life for us to gloss over. After all, you were speeding down Santa Monica Boulevard with the cops behind you. You drove into an alley, tried to run and kicked a cop. Can you give your side of this?

[A] Slater: [Uncomfortable] Maybe we should do the 20 questions thing. Ask me where did the injury to the cop take place.

[Q] Playboy: All right, where was the cop injured?

[A] Slater: Head.

[Q] Playboy: You kicked him in the head?

[A] Slater: Yeah.

[Q] Playboy: Did you know what you were doing?

[A] Slater: No.

[Q] Playboy: Why did you decide to run?

[A] Slater: I thought I was a superhero. The Batman theme was playing in my car--that's where I was at. I was in the Bat-mobile, I was Batman, my friend was Robin and it was fun.

[Q] Playboy: Were you doing 50 in a 35 miles-per-hour zone?

[A] Slater: Eighty.

[Q] Playboy: After you kicked the cop, did you apologize?

[A] Slater: No.

[Q] Playboy: Did they handcuff you?

[A] Slater: Yeah.

[Q] Playboy: Did they know who you were?

[A] Slater: Not until the next day, because I was lying about my identity. They thought I was River Phoenix. Strange, huh? I was mistaken for him all the time.

[Q] Playboy: Then what?

[A] Slater: Mom was called, the lawyer was called, Papa was called.

[Q] Playboy: And what did your mother say?

[A] Slater: Stuff like, "This is just like your father." That I was a fuckup. I just didn't want to hear any of that shit.

[Q] Playboy: Was she right?

[A] Slater: Yeah, I definitely fucked up.

[Q] Playboy: If you had escaped from the cops, would you still have felt that way?

[A] Slater: Then I would have been a success. But I would have kept drinking and then died. So, fortunately for me, I didn't get away with it. I remember waking up the next day looking at my face with cuts all over. My body was ripped up from trying to climb that fence.

[Q] Playboy: And then you went to court. Do you feel you got off easy?

[A] Slater: No. At the courthouse I told my mother I didn't want her to manage my career anymore. That was a turning point, just as it was to check myself into rehab. I had to go to 90 AA meetings in 90 days. That was major for me. I thought they would all be a bunch of freaks and I would have nothing in common with any of them, but the truth is I do. When you sit there you realize we're all living on borrowed time.

[Q] Playboy: And what about the jail time?

[A] Slater: It was real peaceful. I did a lot of reading.

[Q] Playboy: Did they let you smoke?

[A] Slater: No.

[Q] Playboy: When did you start smoking?

[A] Slater: I was 14. It became this little game, to see how long a cigarette would last, how many blocks I could walk in New York with one cigarette.

[Q] Playboy: An antismoking organization put an open letter to you in the Hollywood trades asking you to stop glamourizing smoking. They said your movies make smoking seem sexy and cool and that you are the tobacco company's best tool. How did you react to that?

[A] Slater: After I read that I did actually quit for seven weeks.

[Q] Playboy: So what made you start again?

[A] Slater: I was sitting with a friend and he said, "You're either going to be a smoker or you're not." And I said, "Okay, I'll be a fucking smoker."

[Q] Playboy: How did you meet your girlfriend Nina?

[A] Slater: Through friends. I saw her across a room and I just went, "Oh my God. She is the most beautiful human being I've ever seen." She is so cool, too. She had this bandage around her leg from a motorcycle accident. We ended up going out with a group of people and we weren't ready to say goodnight. My license had been revoked so I was constantly in need of a ride. She said she'd drive me home. We spent the night talking and I went back to her place and slept in the guest room. It turned out we were both huge fans of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, so the next morning we went and saw that together. I told her I eventually wanted to get a house in Montana and she was into the same thing and it was like, "Wow, this is incredible. This is really deep here." It was something of much more substantial value than I had ever experienced before.

[Q] Playboy: And yet you put her through some pretty hard times with your roving eye.

[A] Slater: I spent the first part of our relationship confused and scared of commitment and did everything I could to avoid it. I'd never had an example in my life of a serious relationship where two people communicated and worked out their problems. Fortunately, she stuck by my side.

[Q] Playboy: Even during True Romance, when you were romancing your co-star, Patricia Arquette, and model Christy Turlington?

[A] Slater: I don't like to talk about it at all. I was totally self-destructive. You can write that I'm cringing. I behaved very selfishly during the course of that film. Having a personal life outside of this business is important to me. When I do a character like that and it starts to interfere with my personal life, it really fucks with me.

[Q] Playboy: The actor's angst.

[A] Slater: Maybe. I mean, acting provides you with a great excuse for behaving like a total asshole.

[Q] Playboy: Is there nothing you can say about going off to fashion shows with Christy Turlington?

[A] Slater: I was just a crazy kid trying to fit in where I didn't belong. It couldn't have been more of a mistake. It was a brutal time in my life. It makes me break out in a cold sweat. So uncool, Jesus Christ, so uncool. Things that were at one point in my life so fucking important are just so unbelievably uncool today.

[Q] Playboy: Though it didn't do as well as critics projected, True Romance was an important film for you, wasn't it?

[A] Slater: It's hard to comment. I don't mean any offense to the director, but it is just one of those movies that are too violent. I'm glad it's in my past. I'm glad it's something I never have to go through again. Oooh, God! Some of the shit I put Nina through, it's brutal. I've definitely not been a saint.

[Q] Playboy: What's the worst time of the day for you?

[A] Slater: The wee hours of the morning are the worst. When it's quiet and peaceful, that's when I feel like the world is crumbling around me. That's when I nudge Nina at four A.M. and say, "You awake?" Then we sit and discuss my life or how I should have said a particular line in a movie I did four years ago. That's when things start haunting me. It's a nightmare, for her, anyway.

[Q] Playboy: Do you ever discuss marriage or having children?

[A] Slater: Marriage is pretty confusing. I'm not a huge supporter because I have seen so many examples of negative marriages. It scares me. And divorce is frightening to me. I definitely love kids, but I need some years before I decide to childproof my house.

[Q] Playboy: How would you evaluate your career? Where would you like it to go?

[A] Slater: I'd like to have a career that has some longevity. In order to do that I have to take my time and do as much reading as possible. That's a whole new character trait for me. It used to be that I wouldn't read anything. Now, if there's a script about Chuck Yeager I'll buy his autobiography. I'm trying to be as informed as I possibly can, which is something that I never paid much attention to. I've hired a management team that will fight for everything as much as possible. They seem to be levelheaded. I don't want to be handled by people who are more neurotic than I am.

[Q] Playboy: You have already mentioned Cruise as an example for you. Who else among your generation seems to have gotten it together?

[A] Slater: Winona Ryder is really an example for me. She took some time off, hid out for as long as she could and used her time wisely. She read through a lot of projects. She didn't throw herself into everything. She has handled herself remarkably well in this business and she really has it by the balls right now. She has blown my mind in the way she's dealt with things. Me, on the other hand, I just went balls out and did everything that was offered me. We were heading in similar directions at one point, and then I took this other road.

[Q] Playboy: You worked with Ryder in Heathers. How did that film affect your career?

[A] Slater:Heathers was the one that people started to see. That and Pump Up the Volume, I really felt great about. I knew they were going to be interesting films.

[Q] Playboy: You started Heathers seeing one of the actresses, Kim Walker, and wound up with Winona--

[A] Slater: That's love-life stuff we're getting into here.

[Q] Playboy: And that's stuff you would rather not talk about?

[A] Slater: Maybe without the tape recorder.

[Q] Playboy: Well, without too much discomfort, what can you tell us about your relationship with Kim Walker?

[A] Slater: We lived together for a while in my mother's house. Then we got our own little apartment in Hollywood. And then it came to a crashing end.

[Q] Playboy: How old were you then?

[A] Slater: I was 17, 18.

[Q] Playboy: And then you fell for Winona. She told the press that you dated for two weeks and you broke her heart. Then you said you had fallen in love with her, and there was talk of your thinking of marriage. Was it all a game between you?

[A] Slater: A lot of it was a game, definitely. We did a press thing once and we told everybody in the room that we were married. We were trying to imitate Bogart and Bacall, Tracy and Hepburn.

[Q] Playboy: She said you once scared her so much on the set that she locked herself in her trailer. What happened?

[A] Slater: She may have been paying me a huge compliment. I remember a few of our scenes together where I am supposed to be this scary guy attacking her, and she shoots my finger off. That may be where all of that transpired, because that was a pretty dark day. We were beating the shit out of each other in those scenes, we were really into it. That was fun, I had a great time on that movie. Although I hated the director. Hated him. Michael Lehmann. We just didn't get along. I didn't want to listen to him at all. Of course he ended up doing a great job.

[Q] Playboy: Your next big film, Pump Up the Volume, gave you a chance to play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or Clark Kent and Superman.

[A] Slater: Exactly. It was my opportunity to be two different types of personalities, which was fun. It had been difficult for me to communicate with other actors. With this I got to perform and do my thing. Nobody got in my way, nobody was trying to upstage me. There were no egos involved other than mine.

[Q] Playboy: What was the message of that movie?

[A] Slater: Not to be afraid to speak out. Certainly a lot of people could relate to feeling repressed in school and having teachers who are overpowering and overbearing. All the colorful people in that film were ousted, including my character.

[Q] Playboy: Were you pleased with the reviews?

[A] Slater: I got stellar reviews for that movie, it was like, "Academy Awards, this kid is unreal." I stopped reading reviews after that because I figured they couldn't get any better than that.

[Q] Playboy: What's the worst thing anyone ever wrote about you?

[A] Slater: Some guy compared me to Don Johnson. It made me uncomfortable, it wasn't the direction I was trying to go. It upset me.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't it also upset you to take on the quiet, shy character in Untamed Heart?

[A] Slater: Yeah, I had just finished Kuffs, where my character was kooky, wild, carefree and funny. I had some fear about playing somebody that simple-minded and humble, so I wanted to stay away from it. I felt as if I had closed those doors in my world of vulnerability and innocence and I didn't want to feel that way again. I just didn't relate to it.

[Q] Playboy: The director, Tony Bill, said it would change your career. Was he right?

[A] Slater: It affected how I perceive acting. You don't have to always do 150 percent and be completely outrageous. Part of my thing was that in order to do a performance you had to really be hyper. I learned that isn't always the case. You can be simple and still be fascinating. It turned out to be one of the best experiences I've ever had on a film.

[Q] Playboy: Let's talk about some of the films where you weren't that happy with how you came across, or with what went on during the shooting. Starting way back with your unrequited crush on Helen Slater in The Legend of Billie Jean nine years ago.

[A] Slater: I was head over heels in love with Helen Slater. I thought the fact that she and I had the same last name signified we were meant to be together. She was 21 and I was 15, but I was real clear about it. One day we were on the lunch line and I went to sit at her table. As I put my tray down she said, "Would you mind not sitting here? I need to be alone." Fuck, that was vicious! In front of the whole goddamn crew. I just slowly picked up my tray and moved away.

[Q] Playboy: How did you get through that picture?

[A] Slater: By doing as much blow as I possibly could.

[Q] Playboy: You also weren't satisfied with how Kevin Reynolds directed you in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

[A] Slater: He and I didn't communicate. He really had that hands-on thing with me which is so uncomfortable. He wanted me to play my character as more insecure. That wasn't at all what I had prepared. Here I am with Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman and I would like to look good and do the best job I can. I felt obstacles in every direction. I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on.

[Q] Playboy: Did you ever feel competitive with Costner?

[A] Slater: I felt a good competitiveness between our two characters. I got pretty good at knife-tossing. One day Kevin was there and I threw my knife right into this dummy. We shot bows, too.

[Q] Playboy: Who usually won?

[A] Slater: Me. All the time. But I don't think he's losing any sleep over me.

[Q] Playboy: Do you understand Costner's appeal?

[A] Slater: He's one of the most laid-back actors I've ever seen. His two lively performances were in Silverado and Fandango. He was perfect. Then he did The Untouchables and he was so one-note. He was charming in Dances With Wolves, but still the same type of thing, extremely underplayed. He's capable of so much more. It has worked beautifully for him, but I would like to see him do a performance where he excels in life again. He needs to find that role that really gets his fire going again.

[Q] Playboy: One film that went awry for you is Jimmy Hollywood with Joe Pesci. Why did you do that one?

[A] Slater: Because I wanted to work with Barry Levinson, who is a great director. When I read the script I didn't see any role for me. My role demanded absolutely nothing. I was supposed to be playing this spaced-out, brain-dead guy and I spent the whole film nodding at everything Joe said, just sort of being there. I was like Peter Sellers in Being There, just completely devoid of any emotion. It was a mistake for me. I'm lucky it hasn't hurt me, but it did nothing for me. It came and went as quickly as possible. Nobody liked anything about it.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't Harrison Ford make a cameo appearance in that film?

[A] Slater: Yeah. I'll tell you a story about that, because Harrison Ford is the coolest guy on the face of the planet, no question about it. I would love to do an Indiana Jones--type action film. He did one day on Jimmy Hollywood and I had just hosted the MTV Video Music Awards, where I made a comment about Milton Berle being the coolest guy on the face of the planet because of the way he handled that freak-of-nature transvestite RuPaul he was on the stage with. Of course I won't have any transvestite fans now and they're taking over the world, so I'm screwed. Harrison Ford came up to me on the day he was shooting and said, "Let me ask you, who is the coolest guy on the face of the planet?" And I said, "Well, I am." But then I told him that I didn't have any action figures of Milton Berle at home.

[Q] Playboy: Han Solo, of course, is part of your complete Star Wars collection. How many pieces do you have?

[A] Slater: Maybe 200.

[Q] Playboy: What do you think it's worth?

[A] Slater: I don't know. Fifty, sixty grand. My video collection is also up there. My new obsession is getting all the episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

[Q] Playboy: You had a walk-on in Star Trek VI and got paid $750. Did you frame or cash the check?

[A] Slater: Framed it.

[Q] Playboy: You're obviously a fan of Patrick Stewart's, but what about Captain Kirk? As a child, didn't you meet William Shatner?

[A] Slater: The genius of geniuses, the greatest of all time. I met him when I was six. My mother had dressed me in this Star Trek outfit and we went to see A Chorus Line. Then we went back to the house and William Shatner was there and I hid under a table for a long time. Hours later I took him into my room and showed him the little statue I had of him and this big life-size poster of Spock. He said, "What the hell is this? Where is my life-size poster?" I met him again when I was doing Saturday Night Live and he was appearing on Conan O'Brien. I was told to wait in his dressing room to say hello. He came in and then the phone rang. As he talked away about some deal I got up to turn the TV down and he said, "Christian, would you mind waiting outside for five minutes?" I felt very uncomfortable. I'm not that diehard of a fan to sit out there and wait for the fucking guy. Forget it.

[Q] Playboy: How often does something like that happen to you?

[A] Slater: When I feel like Charles Grodin, who wrote that book It Would Be So Nice If You Weren't Here. That's sometimes how I feel. Like when I went to the Academy Awards and all the big stars were there, Tom Cruise and everybody, and I felt it would be nicer if I weren't there. I had to walk out and present with Nicole Kidman, who's about nine feet tall; I looked like Herve Villechaize, just ludicrous next to her. And afterward I received comments about it. Jesus Christ, I'm doing the Academy Awards, give me a break. I don't want to hear how short I looked! The second I got off the stage I was drenched in sweat and Nicole Kidman was looking at me like, What the hell is wrong with this guy? I felt like a loser.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't you also make a humiliating phone call to one of your heroes, Jack Nicholson?

[A] Slater: I was partying with the daughter of somebody famous and she gave me his number, so I called him at three A.M. and said, "I'm a huge fan of yours. I just did this movie Heathers and it's sort of a tribute to you." I just went on and on. Then I heard the phone click and I thought the guy had hung up. I was embarrassed so I just kept going on about how we were going to play tennis together. I took a breath after ten minutes of nonstop speaking and he went, "Uhhh?" And then I just hung up. I was completely at a loss.

[Q] Playboy: If you were to interview Nicholson and Harrison Ford, what would you ask them?

[A] Slater: "What do you think of me?" [Laughs] I'd ask Jack what it was like doing Easy Rider. How difficult is it being a star? I'd like to know his theories on women and if he's a lonely guy or if he's happy about being alone. They are two sides of the coin. They're both hugely successful, but Jack has dealt with it by staying in the limelight and being this wild, crazy cat with a golf club. Harrison has stayed quiet and humble and totally removed from Hollywood. I'd like to know who has more heart, more substance, more depth.

[Q] Playboy: And if you could choose a path to follow?

[A] Slater: I would pick the Ford path, definitely. I need stability. I hate to be alone.

[Q] Playboy: So Ford's the more solid path, even though you seem to have aligned yourself more with Nicholson's lifestyle.

[A] Slater: During Young Guns II Kiefer Sutherland told me I chose the wrong role model in Nicholson. He told me who his was.

[Q] Playboy: Who was his?

[A] Slater: Gene Hackman.

[Q] Playboy: Let's talk about some of your peers. We'll name an actor, you tell us the first thing that comes into your mind. Start with Keanu Reeves.

[A] Slater: Extraordinarily good-looking. He needs to distance himself from that Bill and Ted image, and with each project he's trying that.

[Q] Playboy: Brad Pitt.

[A] Slater: Great hair. Pisses me off. It's gorgeous.

[Q] Playboy: Gary Oldman.

[A] Slater: Kindhearted, gentle. He's going through a stage that may come with being English, where they have pubs on every corner. Drinking is socially acceptable in that place.

[Q] Playboy: Sean Penn.

[A] Slater: An angry young man. I'm a big fan. Great-looking. Cool.

[Q] Playboy: Johnny Depp.

[A] Slater: I don't think about him that much.

[Q] Playboy: John Cusack.

[A] Slater: Incredible talent.

[Q] Playboy: Hugh Grant.

[A] Slater: Charming guy.

[Q] Playboy: Charlie Sheen.

[A] Slater: He had the opportunity to be Tom Cruise, but he made some bizarre choices, like with Hot Shots. Some major risks, but he's carved out a nice little niche for himself in comedy.

[A neighbor's dog starts barking.]

That's Paul Reiser's dog, Frankie. He's the biggest nightmare dog. He'll bark forever. It's endless. I climbed the hill once with a steak in my hand, to be friendly. Threw the steak over, but he still barked.

[Q] Playboy: Did you talk to Reiser about it?

[A] Slater: I've written some notes. He's a funny guy, one of the notes he wrote back was: "Hi, this is Frankie, I'm in love with your dog and I'm just trying to get his attention." But enough's enough. My father and I are very similar in this way. Noise really bothers him, too. There was a dog where he was living that would constantly bark and he wrote the owners a letter with every curse word he could think of and said, "Every time your dog barks, this is what it sounds like to me. So I am going to send you these letters every day until you kill him." He has a sick, demented sense of humor, but after they took it to small claims court he won. One for dear old dad.

[Q] Playboy: Why does it seem that rage is an easier emotion for you than happiness?

[A] Slater: Anger is a much easier emotion to tap into. It's easier to get angry than it is to smile. I don't know why.

[Q] Playboy: Do you cry often?

[A] Slater: No, I don't cry that easily.

[Q] Playboy: There have been rumors that you are gay. With all the women in your life and your current love life, your sexuality seems straightforward. But was there ever a time in your past when you leaned the other way?

[A] Slater: No, I never did. I had a teacher when I was 12 who became a male role model for me. He turned out to be gay and that really fucked with me for a while. I trusted him completely. We used to wrestle all the time. I would sleep over at his house, it was like my freedom away from Mom. He was intelligent and down-to-earth. He talked to me like I was an adult. Then I turned 16 and the feelings started to change. One time we went to visit friends of his and we slept in the same bed. I woke up in the morning and he had his arms wrapped around me and he was hugging me tight. It was like, Get me the fuck out of here! I don't hold any resentment toward him. Everybody has their own lives to deal with. But that experience confirmed for me the direction I was going in. Being gay isn't for me.

[Q] Playboy: How did you feel when you got to be MTV's Most Desirable Male?

[A] Slater: It meant absolutely nothing.

[Q] Playboy: What about when you hosted the MTV Awards?

[A] Slater: It was a nightmare, just pointless. I don't know why I did it. I had wanted to sing Luck Be a Lady Tonight on the show, but I had no support whatsoever. They heard me but the sense in the room was, "You're an idiot, don't do this or you will destroy yourself." I wouldn't host it again. That's never the direction my career was meant to go.

[Q] Playboy: Speaking of direction, who are the directors you'd like to work with?

[A] Slater: Scorsee, Spielee, Georgie....

[Q] Playboy: Are those familiars for Scorsese, Spielberg and George Lucas?

[A] Slater: Right. Who else? Andy Davis, who directed The Fugitive. Alex Proyas, the director of The Crow --I really enjoyed that film.

[Q] Playboy: Are there any singers who speak to your generation the way Bob Dylan did to kids in the Sixties?

[A] Slater: No. Sinatra's That's Life speaks to me. That song really saved my life.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever met him?

[A] Slater: Yeah. He had no idea who I was. I mean the guy just doesn't care who he offends. "I'm Frank Sinatra, I'm the king."

[Q] Playboy: Do you have a favorite book?

[A] Slater:Way of the Peaceful Warrior, by Dan Millman.

[Q] Playboy: Favorite film?

[A] Slater:It's a Wonderful Life.

[Q] Playboy: Do you work out?

[A] Slater: I think about my body and how I look sometimes. I may work out for three months before a film, but keeping a constant regimen going isn't my thing.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't Michael Ovitz suggest you find a hobby?

[A] Slater: Yeah. I've tried to learn how to fly helicopters and started painting little models. I keep trying to find a hobby that fascinates me. Right now it's picking up dog poop in my backyard.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever thought about winning an Oscar?

[A] Slater: Yeah. I was looking at Tom Hanks' Academy Award and he said, "You'll have one of these too someday." That was really sweet.

[Q] Playboy: Are you satisfied with where you are now?

[A] Slater: I've had a fucking magical life. It's unreal. I'm one of the luckiest men on the face of the planet. Who knows, I may be heading for some huge crash. But at this point I'm enjoying the hell out of it.

[Q] Playboy: What would make your life even more magical?

[A] Slater: If George Lucas read this and considered me for a role in the next Star Wars film.

"I always wanted to be the guy who would rush into the burning building and save the babe. Being a hero would be the coolest thing."