CHRISTIAN SLATER

I've calmed down, certainly, from the days of being 18, but I'm still having a good time.

I can promote until I am blue in the face, but ultimately nobody knows what makes a hit.

There was a time when I felt I should do everything that was offered to me, you know, ride the wave.

I've been taking my time now between projects looking for stuff that has a little bit more substance, that isn't surface. Some of the films that I've done in the past really were surface.

As you get older you learn some balance and mediation in your life - that's where I am right now. I feel pretty comfortable about things.

It still amazes me when I look at some of the films I've been a part of, and some of the people I've gotten to meet and work with. I also look back sometimes and realize that I was lucky to have lived through them and even to have survived them, at times.

I don't think of myself as offbeat and weird. As a kid, I saw myself as the type of guy who would run into a burning building to save the baby.

I took a lot of time off after Mobsters and although I did something I had never done before, which was to direct a play, The Laughter Epidemic, it felt like a vacation.

The guys from Atari that are making the next Alone in the Dark game came and we had a great meeting. I'd love to do that. I'm a fan of videogames. I like them. And to get to be part of one of them would be a fun and exciting thing.

My mom put me in a Pampers commercial on TV.

The movies I've made at a certain time of my life were exactly right for the stage of my life, the frame of mind I was in at the time. Each character I've had to play has been me in that time in my life.

Tony Scott was one of the best directors I've ever worked with, and I was devastated when I heard about his death. He was a great guy with great energy. But this is a difficult business, and people's lives are sometimes difficult.

This is what Hollywood tends to do. It tends to disregard tradition, history and anything factual, twisting it and turning it and making it all okay regardless of what the English may think of it.

There's something about doing theatre in London - it sinks a little bit deeper into your soul as an actor. It's something about the tradition of theatre, about performing on the West End stage.

I want to do films I can relate to emotionally.

I did regret not graduating high school, but I made a point of going back and getting my GED later. It was important for my kids.

In truth, making films doesn't feel like hard work because I always have such a good time doing it.

I've always been fond of Winona Ryder.

Art does imitate life, it has to come from somewhere. To put boundaries and limitations on it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Hopefully, that people could see a progression in my performances because that's how it's always felt to me.

I thought I'd get over being insecure if I became famous, but it hasn't happened. It just gets worse, really. You get more and more on edge, more nervous. These are all the things I'm dealing with. You think if you get famous, fear will go away and problems will go away. But they don't.

My dad was a theater actor, so I would follow him backstage. And my mom was a casting director. The moment I heard the applause and realized it would get me out of school, I was hooked.

Well, obviously, as soon as I'd finished the script I read a lot of books on Winston Churchill, and started to gain weight and really prepare emotionally, mentally and physically for the role.

I'm not a religious person by any means. But I certainly believe in some kind of a higher power and something looking out for me. I've definitely had angels that have either guided me or helped me through moments in my life, without a doubt.

If I make a move, like raise my eyebrows, some critic says I'm doing Nicholson. What am I supposed to do, cut off my eyebrows?