Reformed Hollywood bad boy Christian Slater looks set to raise a few more eyebrows with the opening of his latest movie, Churchill: The Hollywood Years.

Slater, 35, plays war-time Winston Churchill as an American G.I. in this surreal romp from director/writer Peter Richardson, who pokes affectionate fun at how Hollywood rewrites history.

Slater loved the idea immediately. "I do live in Hollywood and I am an American," he says, tongue firmly in cheek. "So when I read the script I thought it was a true story. I completely bought it hook, line and sinker. I read a lot of books on Winston Churchill and started to gain weight and really prepare emotionally, mentally and physically for the role.

"Then I came over for the wardrobe fitting and they handed me my little vest and I realised we were going in a different direction. So I shifted gears and started to watch a bunch of Die Hard Bruce Willis movies."

Slater says the interesting aspect of the film is Hollywood's predilection for re-scripting the past. "It tends to disregard tradition, history and anything factual - twisting it and turning it and making it all OK, regardless of what the English may think of it. That was the point of this film - to take it to such an incredible extreme."

Although his father is British, Slater grew up in New York. But he still had some knowledge of that certain kind of English humour.

"I remember, I guess in the early Eighties, somebody had a bootleg tape of the Monty Python guys doing that Spam song - and I've been a changed man ever since. It affected me deeply, so Peter's timing was perfect."

Slater is wowing audiences on the West End stage in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, playing the role that Jack Nicholson made famous in the film version - ironic, given that it has regularly been suggested that Slater mimics Nicholson in many of his film performances.

"I did have some trepidation about it originally, but I always wanted to come to the West End. It is a wonderful play, at the end of the day, and it's a great role."

Is it different working on the stage here?

"There's something about doing theatre in London," Slater says. "It sinks a little bit deeper into your soul. There's something about the tradition of theatre here and about performing on a West End stage."

Updated: 09:27 Friday, December 03, 2004