Fan Expo Day Two - Mr Robot Panel with Christian Slater

A surprise add on to the Fan Expo program was a screening of Mr Robot and an appearance of Christian Slater. The show just premiered on September 4th in Canada, so many of those in the audience were seeing the show for the first time, myself included. Once again, the room was packed for this event – no doubt in large part because of the rare appearance of Mr Slater.

This was a super short panel – only about 15 minutes after the screening which was a shame. In fact, it seemed that Slater himself would have liked to stay longer, but there’s always a schedule to keep – and there was a huge line up for the next event in the room when we all reluctantly left.

Slater’s first comment was on the last scene of “eps1.1_ones-and-zer0es.mpeg,” which was that it wasn’t the nicest scene to show. He told his son he was really enjoying playing Mr Robot, and his son said, “you play a jerk!” He told the crowd to just hand in there. There’s a legitimate reason for what just happened. Slater said it’s also the first time he’s seen the last few moments of the show and it felt good. He was really appreciative of the energy in the room. Slater had snuck in to the back of the room during the last few minutes of the screening as that was the only entry point for the room.

Slater admitted that he’s not nearly as tech-savvy as his character. He has a Twitter account but admitted he wasn’t very good at using it. He’s working on it. When he got the part, he googled a lot of the terms in the script, but by the time they got to filming, everything was already out of date!

He was asked if he’s drawn to “anti-disestablishment” or anarchist-type roles, like the show or Pump Up the Volume. Slater said it’s really just something that happened. The moderator seemed to have a bit of an agenda and be friends with the director as he told Slater he had a message for him from the director who wants to do a Pump Up the Volume sequel and wants to know if Slater is in to reprise the character. Slater asked if it was for real and said he’d love to play the character again.

Slater was asked about his part on Archer. He said that he and his wife were big fans of the show and binge-watched it, resulting in him writing a fan letter to Adam Reed, who then asked if Slater would like to be on the show. He was sent art in which he was initially very, very blond, and he asked if they could not do that, which they didn’t. He said it’s been a great experience.

He was asked what drew him to the part. Slater said that there were some intriguing things about the pilot. Mr Robot was a very mysterious figure. He had some specific questions for Sam Esmail who told him some deeper insights that intrigued him even more about the character. He felt the show’s entire premise was intriguing. One of the most frustrating things was when the show started airing, people would ask him all kinds of questions that he couldn’t answer – for fear of giving away too much.

Slater said that Rami Malek (Elliot) is a phenomenal talent who is both professional and talented. He finds it really fun to work with him. One of his favorite scenes is the one on the ferris wheel from the first episode. It was the first scene they shot, and they had to spend eight hours in the cage together – they got to know each other really well. He really liked getting to shoot at Coney Island. He told the Toronto audience that show was almost shot in Toronto – groans from the Toronto crowd! Slater said that Toronto is a beautiful city and he’s shot here before, but New York has a characteristic all its own. He also commented that one of the challenges to the role was that some locations are very big and can be distracting, but at this point in his career, he can feel the fear of that kind of challenge and to it anyway.

Some of the other challenges that came with the role were things that happened later – and that he didn’t want to spoil the audience about. He said it was also challenging sitting at table reads knowing some things that were coming that others didn’t know about. He really enjoyed watching their reactions.

He was asked if playing Mr Robot had impacted on his acting style. Slater didn’t think he had a distinctive acting style which really surprised me. However, he had lots of praise for the Sam Esmail, who was on set 98% of the time, according to Slater. Sam, Slater related, was really good at honing him in. Having the creator there made him feel comfortable and safe. Slater mentioned that he likes to talk with his hands and Esmail would say, “Dude. Stop with the hands.” Slater said he was very grateful for those kinds of notes. He also commented on television’s tendency to make actors rush and was grateful for being allowed to take his time with the role.

Ironically, Slater’s final comments on not being made to rush were the end of the panel!

About the Author - Lisa Macklem

I do interviews and write articles for the site in addition to reviewing a number of shows, including Supernatural, Arrow, Agents of Shield, Agent Carter, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, The X-Files, Defiance, Bitten, Killjoys, and a few others! I'm active on the Con scene when I have the time. When I'm not writing about television shows, I'm often writing about entertainment and media law in my capacity as a legal scholar. I also work in theatre when the opportunity arises. I'm an avid runner and rider, currently training in dressage.

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