Well, that escalated quickly. In an interview with the Daily Beast’s Nico Hines about his role in a British theater production of David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross,” actor Christian Slater lost his iconic cool in response to Hines’ question about allegations from Slater’s past.
As Hines puts it, Slater, 48, is part of the cast which has “unquestionably succeeded” in bringing Mamet’s famous “rapacious ’80s a**holes to life” on the British stage. A particularly tense moment from the interview, suggests Hines, revealed why Slater was a strong choice for the role of the sharp-tongued Ricky Roma.
Hines leads into the passage recounting his tense exchange with Slater by noting that in the early stages of his career, the actor “became a fixture in the tabloids after convictions for drunk driving, fighting with cops, trying to take a gun on a plane, and violence against his girlfriend, after which he was jailed and sentenced to take part in a domestic abuse program.” Slater was also charged “with third degree sexual abuse after an allegation of assault in the street that was later dropped,” adds Hines.
When Hines asked him about “his own brushes with the toxic masculinity” and whether he regretted his “wilder years,” Slater answered emphatically no.
“No, no. I regret nothing,” said Slater. “I’ve always taken my work extremely seriously and I think you learn from experience and it’s a process. I started working at the age of 9, I have had an opportunity to grow up in this business, in front of everybody, so of course nobody gets through unscathed. It’s just how I grew up, so everybody has gotten an opportunity to see highs and lows and ups and downs — that’s part of life.”
Asked if he had any advice for any of the growing list of people accused of sexual harassment or violence against women, Slater offered none, instead saying he was “happy that women’s voices are being taken seriously and this age of secrecy and abuse of power era has to come to an end.”
“I want women and all people to feel comfortable in the workplace, and I try to have that environment in my work,” he added.
Hines said that Slater’s lack of regret “in the post-Weinstein world” had been a bit “jarring,” so he revisited the question at the end of the interview, asking if Slater would “like a chance to clarify.” Hines’ question didn’t go over well with the actor.
“What a salacious c*nt this guy is!” Slater replied.
“The PR stepped in and ushered him away to the next appointment,” writes Hines.
After the performance that night, Slater emailed Hines to offer a partial apology. Saying “the question of regret is hard for me to reckon with.” Slater didn’t directly apologize for his past, but did say he regrets his sharp response to Hines in the interview. “I do regret my words this morning,” he wrote.
Hines largely shrugs off Slater’s harsh response to him, instead contextualizing it within Slater’s role in the play, noting that he “may still be boyishly handsome at the age of 48, but Slater is certainly capable of projecting Roma’s air of menace.”
