Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Christian Slater delves into ‘Dirty’ role
Actor delves into marriage that turned deadly in ‘The Betty Broderick Story’
ON a Zoom call on a warm spring morning from his home in Los Angeles, Christian Slater was mulling over a gossipy question: Could this marriage be saved?
Do not alert the tabloids. It’s not his own marriage in question, but the one that infamously belonged to Dan and Betty Broderick, subjects of his new limited series, “Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story,” on USA Network.
To sum it up: They met. They married. She killed him in his sleep.
Slater’s take? “Quite a lot went into that relationship,” the 50-yearold says. “I think it had more to do with looking good for them and playing a part as opposed to really getting to know each other.”
The actor, best known for his early work in “Heathers” and his recent Golden Globe-winning turn on “Mr. Robot,” also will star in the upcoming series “Dr. Death” with Alec Baldwin.
Review-Journal: Describe your life during the pandemic shutdowns.
Christian Slater:
It has been a learning experience. What we have come to know in my family is that I do make a good burger and I make some nice chicken. Those are important things. Also, my wife and I just had a baby daughter not so long ago, so we’ve been very busy during this time with a 9-month-old.
In normal times, what do you like to do when you’re not working?
I have two other children, 21 and 18, so the best time out is with them and my wife and baby. But right now, the focus is the baby. I’m pretty good at the diapering because I do come to this with experience. … Otherwise, we’re a family that enjoys sitting around the table together and just being with each other.
What was the appeal of the new “Dirty John” series?
These were really interesting scripts that just reflected the beauty of what we get to do on TV. We get to delve very deeply into a subject matter. Frankly, it’s much more of a character exploration than what you get from a two-hour movie. We have eight episodes to track the journey of these two people who became tabloid fodder. And I believe the tabloids, or the sensationalism of it all, took away from the humanity of these people.
How did you identify with the character of Dan Broderick, who is murdered in his sleep by his ex-wife?
I read a lot about Dan, and one of the things I loved about him was his eccentricities. He had this flair for clothing. He had a flair for life. He was a phenomenal egomaniac and such a power-driven human, which was meaty.
Was Betty crazy, or did Dan push her to the brink?
He pushed her to the brink and she was crazy. She pushed buttons; he pushed buttons. It created an explosion. They liked to go back and forth with each other in a way that they created all these explosions together. Does that make someone kill? That’s the question of this piece. We’re all fascinated about what makes a murderer. How does someone who seems so normal kill another person? You can’t help but want to unravel it, comb through it and figure it out.
What made you want to become an actor?
I started acting at age 9, doing plays, because I came from a theater family. My father was an actor, and I used to spend a lot of time backstage with him. As a kid I thought, “Hey, that looks like fun.”
Do fans still quote your lines from past films?
For the longest time, I’d walk down the streets of New York and people would just start reciting the lines from “Heathers” or they would yell out, “Hey, Clarence Worley,” because a lot of people are still really into “True Romance.”
What do you know now that you didn’t know when you first started?
The truth is, I can’t even remember what I didn’t know! What I learned is to be grateful for the good times when they come in your life.
We have eight episodes to track the journey of these two people who became tabloid fodder. And I believe the tabloids, or the sensationalism of it all, took away from the humanity of these people.