Christian Slater sat down with Conan O’Brien to talk about his role as a gay porn producer in the upcoming James Franco murder film King Cobra, which is based on the murder of producer Bryan Kocis in 2007.
But not before he and Conan engaged in some banter that felt more like 2006 than 2016.
Said Slater of getting intimate with a man on film: “You gotta feel the fear and do it anyway. That’s how I got through it.”
Added Conan: “As an actor that’s very challenging.”
But Slater wised up, eventually:
“It was. It definitely was…when James Franco asked me if I’d be interested in doing this project I read it and I…went hmm, wow…I really do have to think about this, this is definitely out of my wheelhouse. I did have a lot of anxiety and fear about doing something like this, but then I just said, ‘I’m an actor!’ I asked my wife she said you should absolutely go do it. I dove right in.”
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Slater then talked about Garrett Clayton, who plays the character based on adult film actor Brent Corrigan.
“The kid is beautiful. He’s the discovery I make, and I lure him into my organization…”
Watch:
RELATED: Garrett Clayton Wasn’t Sure He Could Take on 8 Strangers for Brent Corrigan’s Explicit Sex Scenes in ‘King Cobra’: WATCH
If Slater was nervous at first, he slipped into his role quite easily, according to an interview director Justin Kelly did with The Wrap:
“A few times, the actors took things further than the script,” Kelly said.
He referenced an early scene in which Slater’s middle-aged character wants to sample the goods of his barely legal young star, played by Clayton. “Please, make me feel wanted,” he says as he half begs and half forces himself on the young man.
In the script, the encounter “was far more mild, just kissing on the couch,” Kelly said. “But they decided it had to go further. Christian takes him up against the closet. That is would have happened.”
King Cobra is in theaters October 21.
Watch a scene with Slater and Clayton (briefly work-unfriendly):
