Christian Slater may be earning more credit as an actor in the West End version of One Flew Over the Cuckoos's Nest, but he tells Steve Pratt he's delighted to be playing a two-fingered US version of Churchill in a send-up of tinseltown.

AS we leave the hotel after the interview, Christian Slater makes a V sign as a way of saving goodbye. The gesture is appropriate as the Hollywood actor is to be seen playing the British leader Winston Churchill, well known for his two-fingered gesture, in a new comedy movie.

You could be excused for not believing this nugget of information. Churchill, as all of us know, was fat and British. Slater is not fat and not British. But the premise of Churchill: The Hollywood Years is that this is how the Americans would see him if they made a movie about his wartime exploits. So we have a muscular, action man Churchill, an heroic American GI who has an affair with the young Princess Elizabeth.

It's a neat premise although the film itself, directed by Comic Strip doyen Peter Richardson, is about as funny as stepping on a landmine. After early screenings, he took the film back and re-cut it but, as far as I can see, hasn't made it any funnier.

This doesn't seem to trouble Slater, currently enjoying huge success on the London stage in a revival of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, and Neve Campbell, the Scream actress who plays the young Princess Elizabeth in the new Churchill comedy.

What a pity she didn't take up an invitation to attend the recent Royal Film Performance and meet the real royal, now better known as Queen Elizabeth II. The publicity value alone would have made it worthwhile.

As well as the American leads, the Churchill cast includes British funny men such as Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, Harry Enfield, Leslie Phillips, Mackenzie Crook, Rik Mayall and The League of Gentleman's Steve Pemberton as well as far more serious actors Antony Sher and Miranda Richardson as Hitler and his mistress Eva Braun.

Campbell's first reaction on reading the script was that it was hilarious. "I grew up with this sort of comedy in Canada with BlackAdder and Monty Python," she says. "I read the script on my own in Los Angeles and really enjoyed it."

She made sure she was aware of everyone else's work by watching tapes before she came over for filming. She also worked on her British accent, taking Celia Johnson's clipped tones in Brief Encounter as her model. "I had a voice coach come over from London to LA, and I listened to a lot of Christmas speeches Princess Elizabeth made when she was younger," explains Campbell, who first made a name for herself on TV in the series Party Of Five.

Slater's take on British comedy also dated back to Monty Python. "I remember back in the 1980s someone had a bootleg tape of the Monty Python guys doing that Spam song and I was a changed man ever since really. It affected me deeply," he says with a deadpan expression.

"When I read the script, I thought this will be interesting. I read a lot of books on Winston Churchill and started to gain weight to prepare emotionally, mentally and physically for the role.

"Then I came over here and did the wardrobe fitting, and they handed me my little vest and I said, 'Okay, this is obviously going in a different direction'. I shifted gears and started to watch a bunch of Die Hard Bruce Willis movies. That was really the key for me."

Shooting the first scene of the film with Vic and Bob as camp Palace servants gave him a good sense of the tone to adopt. "They were trying to drug the Princess. They were in their outfits and wigs and that gave a good sense of the direction we were going in," he says.

Slater thinks that making Churchill American and having a romance with the princess is the sort of thing Hollywood would do. "It tends to disregard English history, tradition and anything factual - twist it and turn it and make it okay regardless of what the English think of it. They do what they want. That was the point of the film to take it to such an incredible extreme.

If this movie doesn't represent Slater's finest hour (although he's considerably better than the movie), he can console himself with his success on the London stage. But he must have had some worries about playing a role that many associate with Jack Nicolson's film portrayal, especially as Slater has been likened by many to a young Nicholson.

"I did have some trepidation, but I always wanted to come to the West End and it was an incredible opportunity to go to Edinburgh and be part of the theatre festival there. And it is a wonderful play and a great role," he says.

"What I ended up doing at the director's suggestion was not watching the movie at all. I focused mainly on the book and got a treasure trove of information out of it. And then I thought it might be possible to play McMurphy rather than Jack Nicholson."

* Churchill: The Hollywood Years (15) opens in cinemas tomorrow. The film is reviewed on Page 10

Published: 02/12/2004