By Andrea Mandell, USA TODAY
NEW YORK � Christian Slater is letting his freak flag fly.
By Jordin Althaus, Fox
He's the boss: Oz (Christian Slater), front, devises a team-building exercise for his colleagues (Odette Annable, left, Trevor Moore and Alphonso McAuley).
By Jordin Althaus, Fox
He's the boss: Oz (Christian Slater), front, devises a team-building exercise for his colleagues (Odette Annable, left, Trevor Moore and Alphonso McAuley).
With a mixture of quirk and smirk, Slater leads a band of hackers and ex-thieves on Fox's Breaking In (Wednesdays, 9:30 ET/PT), safeguarding fancy cars, solving Jimmie Johnson's NASCAR problem and protecting modern art.
With an average of 8.3 million viewers a week (and a healthy American Idol lead-in) Slater, as Oz, boss of high-tech security firm Contra Security, is vying to be one of television's favorite oddballs ? on a show that almost didn't hit the air.
Sitting at The Modern restaurant, Slater, 41, breaks down the show's winning recipe.
Initially, Oz "was about as stereotypically drawn as he could possibly be," says Slater, who is also a producer on the show. "He was just basically a boss. There was nothing eccentric, nothing odd."
Slater began to redraw him with quirks. "He made the character," says series co-creator Adam Goldberg, who collaborated with Slater as Oz become the kind of man who wields a bow and arrow, loves Sky Mall magazine and deep-fries popcorn shrimp in his office as he orchestrates the unorthodox tactics of his team.
Shot during last year's pilot season, Breaking In initially was passed over for Fox's fall schedule and brought "back from the dead," Goldberg says, with strong scripts and hefty persuasion for a midseason start.
Despite this breakout in network comedy, Slater is well-schooled in the ways of Hollywood: After launching his career in the late '80s and into the early '90s with films such as Pump Up the Volume and Heathers, he continued to churn out films including Untamed Heart andTrue Romance before turning his attention to television in the early 2000s.
With Breaking In, "we all felt like we started with a strong premise, certainly stronger than other experiences I've had in the past," says Slater, whose first two headlining series, 2008's My Own Worst Enemy (NBC) and 2009's Jerry Bruckheimer-fueled drama The Forgotten (ABC) flopped.
Slater has come a long way from the guy who, in his earlier days, was embroiled in legal drama, including a DUI and charges of assault.
"I'd love to get a do-over on a couple of things, but that's not how life works, obviously," says Slater, who is dad to son Jaden, 12, and daughter Eliana, 9. "The thing I'm probably most grateful for is the majority of moments that weren't necessarily my proudest happened prior to my having children. It gives me an opportunity to show them that you can always press the reset button and start over."
Slater lives around the corner from his children in Los Angeles and maintains a friendly relationship with his ex-wife, Ryan Haddon (the two were divorced in 2006). But remarrying is not on his priority list.
"I'm enjoying freedom," Slater says. "I don't mind long-distance relationships, but as far as making a full-on commitment to somebody, at this point, it's just a little tricky. You've got to be up for it, you've got to really be willing. Right now, I'm kind of getting to know myself in a lot of ways."
In the meantime, he recently wrapped Breaking In's last episodes, which include a season-ender on bullying featuring Mike Tyson.
Slater is still waiting for news of a Season 2 order. "Really all I would ask America is just to not change the channel after American Idol," he says, chuckling. "They don't even have to watch the show."
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