Surprise TV hit Mr. Robot returns,
Golden Globe-winning series with a cult following returns Wednesday on Showcase
When Christian Slater first saw the script for Mr. Robot he says he couldn’t quite figure out what the show or the characters were really about.
“I remember asking my agent. There is something really odd about this guy, but I can’t put my finger on it,” Slater said in an interview. “I thought this was an extraordinary piece of writing, but it was also just so odd.”
Slater, 46, sits on a couch in a hotel lobby in a sharp suit. His nasally voice is still reminiscent of a young Jack Nicholson. But the early comparisons to the celebrated actor have faded over the years since he first played memorable roles as a psychopathic anarchist in Heathers and an introverted radio DJ in Pump Up the Volume.
Since then, he has been mostly remembered, if at all, for his brushes with the law, including convictions for drunk driving and assault, or failed TV series including Fox’s Breaking In and ABC’s Mind Games.
But Mr. Robot changed that, making Slater something of a comeback kid with a Golden Globe Award for best supporting actor. He is considered a lock for an Emmy nomination when they are announced Thursday. The underdog show with the cult following also won a Golden Globe for best drama, arriving out of nowhere to beat heavyweights Game of Thrones, Narcos, Empire and Outlander.
“That (Golden Globe) night was completely surreal,” Slater said. “All I remember is I got smooched by Harrison Ford and then I went home because I figured the night couldn’t get any better.”
The role of counterculture rebel seems to suit Slater well. In Mr. Robot, Slater plays yet another anarchist, a leader of a band of hackers known as fsociety who want to wipe out global debt by targeting the world’s biggest corporation, aptly named Evil Corp.
The second season begins Wednesday at 10 p.m. on Showcase. That’s significant for Canadians, since the first season aired here months after showing on its home USA Network. The series was so off the grid that mainstream broadcasters didn’t bite.
But it proved to be the best new show on TV last year. Complex and ambitious, but never losing track of the humanity in its characters, the show dealt with themes of hacktivism, anger over the 1-per-centers, global disparity and security fears over the use of personal information. It also looked at issues of mental health and how people relate to one another in an era of the impersonal. It also managed to be timely social commentary, coming on the heels of the Sony hack by North Korea.
“The press were really ahead of the curve in championing this little show,” Slater said. “But it’s really saying so much about this world that we live in and how people see the world. It deals with the usual issues of corruption and greed, but it also looks at what is morality in this cyber-aware world that we’re living in. It’s not really about computers. It’s about the people who are using those computers.”
In Season 2, fsociety has to deal with the chaos and change it
“(Mr. Robot) really, in some ways, raised my general awareness, and maybe paranoia, about certain things.” CHRISTIAN SLATER
wrought in Season 1. The ramifications are wide and the hackers have to deal with sharp consequences.
“Season 2 is a trip,” Slater said. “I think you’re really going to like it. It’s very dark, but I think audiences expect that now. But it really takes things further.”
Creator Sam Esmail’s vision remains unsettling and discordant. Visually, and in keeping with the technological theme, at times it feels distant. That’s helped along by the enormously talented Rami Malek, who plays a troubled computer hacker whose huge, unblinking eyes seem to offer a window into a microchip-powered heart.
“The first season was really about Elliot’s emotional journey, and I really wanted to focus on that and make it less about the plot,” Esmail told critics in Los Angeles. “The headline for Season 2 is how does Elliot reconcile the fact that he’s seeing this fantasy world? So that is going to kind of take over in Season 2.”
The relationship between Slater’s and Malek’s characters is the heart of the show, and with a surprising outcome.
Slater said he bonded with Malek during the first day of the Season 1 shoot when the two had to spend eight hours together on a ferris wheel.
“He’s such a great actor. And it was a great way to ground with the other characters from the start, so that connection, I hope, plays on the screen,” Slater said.
Slater says the show has also changed the way he interacts with social media and computers in his own life.
“It’s really, in some ways, raised my general awareness and maybe paranoia about certain things,” Slater said. “It really made me stop and think.”
Before he left, he imparted some unsolicited advice. “First of all, change your passwords often. And make sure you put that tape over the camera in your laptop, man,” he told me. “You’ll thank me for it one day.”