"I have brought a PS2 on set with me before. But games can be really addicting, and that's dangerous. So I tend to keep it fairly limited on a certain level"
About this Quote
There’s a sly self-portrait tucked inside this throwaway-sounding confession: an actor killing time between takes with a PS2, then abruptly switching into cautionary mode. Slater isn’t just talking about videogames; he’s signaling a relationship to compulsion, routine, and self-management that feels unusually candid for a celebrity anecdote. The first sentence invites a familiar image of set life as long stretches of waiting punctured by bursts of performance. The second sentence snaps into moral clarity: “addicting” becomes a loaded word, less culture-war panic than a personal hazard sign. He doesn’t say games are bad; he says they’re good enough to be dangerous.
The subtext is about control. Acting sets are built on downtime and a lack of agency: you wait, you’re called, you deliver, you wait again. Games offer the opposite - immediate feedback, mastery, a private world you can dominate when the public one is micromanaging you. That’s precisely why he limits it “on a certain level,” a phrase that sounds like someone describing a boundary negotiated through experience rather than principle. It’s also a quiet bit of image management: Slater, long associated with edgy intensity, reframes “danger” as vigilance, not recklessness.
Context matters: a PS2 plants this in the early-2000s moment when gaming is mainstream but still treated as a guilty pleasure for adults. Slater lands in the middle - embracing the comfort of play, refusing the fantasy that professionals are immune to getting hooked.
The subtext is about control. Acting sets are built on downtime and a lack of agency: you wait, you’re called, you deliver, you wait again. Games offer the opposite - immediate feedback, mastery, a private world you can dominate when the public one is micromanaging you. That’s precisely why he limits it “on a certain level,” a phrase that sounds like someone describing a boundary negotiated through experience rather than principle. It’s also a quiet bit of image management: Slater, long associated with edgy intensity, reframes “danger” as vigilance, not recklessness.
Context matters: a PS2 plants this in the early-2000s moment when gaming is mainstream but still treated as a guilty pleasure for adults. Slater lands in the middle - embracing the comfort of play, refusing the fantasy that professionals are immune to getting hooked.
Quote Details
| Topic | Self-Discipline |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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