Do you ever get the feeling that everything in America is completely f*cked up? Well, sure! That’s the mindset that Mark Hunter takes in 1990’s Pump Up the Volume, taking on the FCC (that is, The Man) from a pirate radio station in his parent’s basement. And it’s that character and movie that Christian Slater picks as his all-time favorite.
Sitting down for a piece in Interview Magazine, Christian Slater was asked by Rami Malek which of his movies he loved the most. “I think it’s always been Pump Up the Volume. Again, I love everyone who’s involved, and I still love them all to this day. I feel like we made something very special together, and I remember being very happy on the set.”
Fittingly, Slater also cited his Pump Up the Volume character as the one he would choose to be stuck on a deserted island with. “It would probably be Mark Hunter, from Pump Up the Volume. I liked him, and I liked that movie, and I loved all the people involved in that project. I was just very happy when I was making that movie…It was the next movie I did after Heathers, and it had a depth to it that I really appreciated…I liked the vulnerability of it. Where in Heathers, I was just a real madman—pretty much a psycho killer—and it was nice to play a young man struggling with the FCC and issues of that nature, and trying to expose injustice.”
Christian Slater has a wide filmography so there’s plenty to choose from here. For what it’s worth, I would have to put True Romance’s Clarence at the top, although having finally gotten around to Pump Up the Volume this past summer, Mark Hunter is in the top three for sure. But certainly his TV work is in the conversation, as Slater has earned the most acclaim of his career – including a Golden Globe – for Mr. Robot.
What do you consider Christian Slater’s best movie and performance? Where does Pump Up the Volume rank? Give us your picks in the comments section below!
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