Last Wednesday I had the chance to fulfill one of my childhood fantasies—well, almost! I was offered the opportunity to participate in a teleconference with Christian Slater about his new show, Breaking_in, premiering this Wednesday at 9:30pm on FOX after American Idol. It was a 25 minute teleconference and unfortunately my number wasn’t called, but I did get some information, and get to hear Christian’s voice, so all was not lost!
Breaking_in is the last new comedy FOX is premiering this season. Christian Slater is one of the stars, and unless you have been living under a rock like in that GEICO commercial, you probably already know who he is. For me Christian reaches icon level—he reminds me of that teenager rebellious stage—Pump Up The Volume was the first movie I ever snuck into. Actually, I didn’t really SNEAK in, I paid, but I lied about my age to get in. Yes, that about sums up my rebellion…Of course Christian indicated that his rebellious “bad boy” phase is over now, too. He stated that someone told him the day before that he had gone from “bad boy” to “dad boy”.
Christian was very excited to tell us about his new show. As mentioned, it will air after “Idol” for the next seven weeks. Christian plays “Oz”, owner of Contra Security. He is in the high-tech security business, selling services to American Corporations. As the network describes it, the firm “takes extreme and often questionable measures to sell its protection services…giving clients a sense of security by first ripping it away.” In the pilot, we see Oz recruiting his newest employee, computer hacker Cameron (Bret Harrison) by blackmailing him to join the team.
It seems that Christian is right at home with this new role, indicating that when he first got the script, the character of Oz had not yet been clearly identified. He sat down with Doug Robinson, Seth Gordon and Adam Goldberg to flesh out the character. Christian is able to use a lot of his known comedic timing as well as his own personal eccentricities in this role. More specifically about Oz himself, Christian says that he likes “the fact that he is an eight-moves ahead kind of guy.” He doesn’t take things all that seriously according to Christian. He’s “a very mysterious guy, and there’s definitely a lot more going on beneath the surface than he’s revealing.” Oz is a guy who, according to Christian “has to rule with a bit of an iron fist because he is dealing with a large group of misfits that he’s assembled” but his “personal feeling is that he’s definitely got a heart of gold.”
Christian has been given information about his character’s past, but he wasn’t able to reveal it to us. What he did let us in on was that in the pilot episode, his character is “at a particular moment of need.” He stated that “Oz has a five-year plan and he’s hired these people for very specific reasons.”
I was very pleased that the questions got asked about what he thought about television after such an established movie career. Christian likes the consistency and pace of television. He said he responded well to the schedule and sees it as a “very fast moving train”. “I really like to get in there and do the job and get it done and feel good about it at the end of the day, and that pretty much seems to be the vibe on all the sets that I’ve gotten to be a part of.” Well Christian, television means we get to see you every week instead of just for an hour and a half once in a while! I’m all for it.
Look out for a few things when you watch:
• the Captain Kirk chair—Christian’s touch as he is a big fan, and Oz is “the captain of this ship”
• Pump Up The Volume references galore.
• Fred Savage directs and episode!
• There is an old book next to the Captain Kirk chair—it was a prop Christian stole from The Name Of the Rose.
Don’t forget to tune in this week for the premier episode! Sounds like the show is going to be crazy (in a good way!).
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