Filed under 'Christian Slater'

Christian Slater stars in Jerry Bruckheimer's TV show The Forgotten as a detective driven by the disappearance of his young daughter to create a team dedicated to searching for missing persons. The 40-year-old father-of-two - Jaden, 10, and Eliana, 8 - opened up to Parade about the frightening possibility of losing a child, and his latest role as education ambassador to help encourage our youth to stay in school.

On how his children inspired him to complete his high school diploma: "Certainly having kids is a phenomenal eye-opener. When I had kids, my whole idea on education started to shift just a little bit and I definitely wanted them to finish high school, but I hadn't finished high school. So I knew that if I tried to push them, I would lose the argument because they'd be like, 'Hey dad, you never finished.' So I went and sat in a classroom with a bunch of students and got my GED."

On encouraging youth to complete their education: "I'm involved with the Get Schooled project from the Bill and Melinda Gates Association. I'm helping raise the awareness of how many high-school dropouts there actually are a year, about a million students. It's a very, very scary statistic, and you know, it needs to be paid attention to. So, ironically, as a result of a decision I made 10 years ago, I've become an educational ambassador."

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Christian Slater took his children, Jaden, 9, and Eliana, 7, to a Pumpkin Patch in West Hollywood on Sunday. Christian's new movie Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey is due in theaters this January.

Photo: Pacific Coast News