The Double Life of Christian Slater Continued...

Slater has flirted with that duality before, most notably in 1990's Pump Up the Volume, where he was both Mark, the shy, bespectacled new kid, and his alter ego, Happy Harry Hard-On, a chronically masturbating, chain-smoking pirate-radio shock jock. And his offscreen life reflects that split as well. Raised in Manhattan as a prep-school-educated, theater-trained sophisticate, he made his Broadway debut opposite Dick Van Dyke in The Music Man at age 11. But any online mug-shot search will reveal he's also been a hellion. In 1989, he led police on a high-speed chase through West Hollywood. In 1994, he tried to bring a gun onto a plane. In 1997, he allegedly attacked his girlfriend and greeted pursuing cops by screaming, "The Germans are going to kill us all!" In 2005, he was accused of third-degree sexual abuse (charges were dropped) and later was allegedly tasered off the roof at Paris Hilton's Halloween party. (Police say he fell on his own.)

Slater acknowledges that he hasn't always known the best way to deal with his career and celebrity since the Nineties. "It's a ride," Slater says. "You strap in and take it all — and then you try to learn from your experiences." A decade later, his bad-boy reputation may give him the kind of gravitas that oft en sparks dramatic reinventions on the small screen. (See also: Seventies party boy Don Johnson on Miami Vice in the Eighties, Eighties party boy Robert Downey Jr. on Ally McBeal in 2000 and perpetual party boy Kiefer Sutherland on 24.) Slater's co-stars say he's brought a certain alpha energy to television. As Woodard puts it, "You get to have the prime rib right there in your den instead of going out to a restaurant to get it. And did I mention he's fine?" It's true the hairline might be higher and the torso slightly thicker since he gleamed the cube, but Slater has preserved well despite the carousing.

The title of My Own Worst Enemy seems fitting for the star: The pilot episode contains a sequence in which Henry searches Edward's apartment, poring over paperwork, clips and photos, agog with the details of his self-destructive side. It's impossible not to imagine Slater contemplating how his own demons may have led him from vying for parts with Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt in the Nineties to co-starring with Tara Reid in 2005's Alone in the Dark and appearing in the 2006 direct-to-DVD sequel to Hollow Man.

In 2004, searching for a kind of creative square one, Slater moved to London with his then-wife, TV producer Ryan Haddon, and their two kids and re-established his theater career. He had accepted an offer to appear as Randle Patrick McMurphy in the West End revival of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "It was the first time in several years that I made that selfish choice to have a real fulfilling experience," he says. (Slater and Haddon filed for divorce in February 2005.)

Strong reviews for Cuckoo's Nest led to a starring role in the London stage adaptation of the 1994 indie film Swimming With Sharks, which piqued the interest of network executives, who flew to England to discuss making Slater into a secret agent. "I'm a big fan of that genre," he says. "I watched Casino Royale a hundred times sitting in my hotel room. And I worked with Sean Connery [on The Name of the Rose] when I was 16. Now, I'm a secret agent."

My Own Worst Enemy leaves the absolute-good-and-evil, spy-vs.-spy games to early-Bush-administration dramas like 24. "Sometimes Henry is bad and Edward is good," Slater says. For some new Slater fans, it's already hard to tell them apart. "I was at a store the other day, and this mailman shouted, 'Henry and Edward!' " So which character does this reformed party boy and father of two relate to more? "To be perfectly honest," Slater says, "playing this Edward guy is pretty fun." MARC SPITZ

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