‘He should never have been allowed to operate’: Christian Slater on the real-life horror story of Dr Death
After listening to almost two weeks of evidence against disgraced neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch, the jury in Dallas, Texas, reportedly took just a few hours to find him guilty of maiming patients.
Following at least a year of botched surgeries, which resulted in the deaths of two patients and left dozens of others paralysed or seriously injured, he was sentenced to life in prison in February 2017.
The conviction was based on one victim but Duntsch had been accused of wide-ranging malpractice that included improper placement of screws and plates along patients’ spines, a sponge left in another patient and a major vein cut in another, according to an Associated Press report from the time. Records also showed that he operated on the wrong part of a patient’s spine, damaged nerves, and left one woman with chronic pain and dependent on a wheelchair.
Former neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch was jailed in 2017. Pic: Dallas County Sheriff’s Department via AP
The story of “Dr Death” and how he was able to continue his work before his licence was finally revoked is the stuff of nightmares. When a patient is lying on an operating table, they are putting their life in a medical team’s hands; the surgeon in charge is not supposed to make mistakes.
But Duntsch did, over and over and over, and the story of how he was able to continue working has now been dramatised in a series starring The Affair and Dawson’s Creek star Joshua Jackson as the titular Dr Death, and Christian Slater and Alec Baldwin as two physicians who fought to expose him.
Christian Slater plays Dr Randall Kirby, one of the good guys, in Dr Death. Pic: Barbara Nitke/Peacock/StarzPlay
Slater – known for films including True Romance, Heathers, Pump Up The Volume and Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves in the late ’80s and early ’90s, and more recently in TV series such as Mr Robot and Dirty John – plays one of those real-life doctors; vascular surgeon Randall Kirby, who he met after shooting on the show had finished.
“It’s a horrifying story,” Slater tells Sky News. “[It’s] very scary that someone like this could get away with what he was doing for so long. He’s a real performer, was able to kind of play the part but lacked all the skills necessary in order to really perform those surgeries.
“[Dr Kirby] said that Dr Christopher Duntsch, he shouldn’t have moved beyond operating on mice. That should have been where his career stopped, he never should have been allowed to operate on human beings.”
Over eight episodes, Dr Death tells the story of a rising star in the Dallas medical community, a man who promised to change the lives of patients suffering from spinal issues. A man who thought he could play God. At best he was woefully inept but arrogant and completely misguided; at worst he was evil.
It was “incompetence mixed with ego, narcissism – a sociopath”, says Slater, based on his conversations with Dr Kirby. “He [Kirby] saw him in that regard. He got to witness Christopher Duntsch at work. He stood over a body and watched him perform with such ineptitude that it horrified him and scared him. Those are the moments within the show that are horrifyingly true and as accurate as we could possibly make them.”
Joshua Jackson plays Duntsch, the titular Dr Death. Pic: Peacock/ Starzplay
As a viewer, it is not just what you see on screen but what you can hear that makes the show so terrifying, and gruesome. “The sounds… they stayed with me after we would finish shooting the scenes, they’re still in my brain,” says Slater. Fortunately, behind their surgeons masks, they were able to keep the mood light. “Of course, we take it seriously, but there is an element of humour that comes along with it because both Josh and I are so inept at being doctors that, you know, behind our masks we’d be laughing quite a bit.”
As well as examining Duntsch and his catalogue of horrors, the series also looks at the American healthcare system and how the malpractice was able to continue; how he moved between clinics, which enabled him to work for longer, and how profit was put above patients.
“Our healthcare system is one that has been examined and questioned for such a long time now and it’s one that is in desperate need of revisions,” says Slater. “The scary thing is Christopher Duntsch was able to take advantage of a part of the healthcare system that is not only designed to protect the patients, but also the doctors. And with that, he was able to kind of skirt through the system, and the system just kept kicking the can down the road, and he was able to continue to be enabled and get away with what he got away with for so long.”
Slater’s Dr Kirby teams up with Alec Baldwin’s Dr Robert Henderson to expose Duntsch. Pic: Peacock/ Starzplay
People put medics “on pedestals and we treat doctors as gods and forget that they’re human beings and, you know, they are fallible and they will make mistakes”, he adds. Duntsch was an extreme case of that.
Ego, greed, narcissism; traits that can apply to people in power in all walks of life, including Hollywood. When I ask Slater if he has come across any similar figures, and how he has dealt with them, he seems to allude to the US’s most recent former president, Donald Trump, rather than anyone in the entertainment industry.
“It’s not always easy, particularly when you have someone who is coming from a place of such delusional thinking and they’re in one of the highest offices in the land,” he says. “I feel like that’s what it’s been like for the last four or five years, that we’ve just been living in delusion land and moved so far away from honesty. Narcissism and sociopathic behaviour has been enabled for a long time now. And I can’t wait until we move through that process.”
And as something of an industry veteran, what does Slater know now that he wishes he’d known when he first started acting in the 1980s?
“I think to appreciate all the moments. I think I’ve learnt in retrospect that I’ve been very, very fortunate in my career, very, very lucky. I’ve had great opportunities to work with some pretty amazing people. And it really is only in retrospect that you realise how special some of these experiences really were. So today, I think I’ve learnt to be in the moment as much as possible and appreciate every aspect of what it is that I get to do.”
Which includes Dr Death. Slater asks how much I’ve seen; I tell him I’ve just finished episode three.
“Wait till you get to episode eight,” he says. “They get scarier and scarier.”
Dr Death is out on Starzplay in the UK from 12 September
The Stone Roses bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield has died at the age of 63, his family has said.
Mani’s brother, Greg, said in a post on Facebook: “It is with the heaviest of hearts that I have to announce the sad passing of my brother.”
“RIP RKID,” he added.
Gary “Mani” Mounfield and his wife Imelda at the world premiere of “The Stone Roses : Made Of Stone” in 2013. Pic: Reuters
Formed in 1983, The Stone Roses were a mainstay of the “Madchester” scene.
Mani joined the band in 1987 and formed part of its classic line-up alongside singer Ian Brown, guitarist John Squire and drummer Alan ‘Reni’ Wren. He remained with the group until their split in 1996.
Mani’s death comes two years after that of his wife, Imelda Mounfield, who was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in November 2020. The couple welcomed twin boys in 2012.
Ian Brown, left, with Mani, right, performing on stage during their 2012 reunion concerts in Manchester. Pic: Reuters
The Stone Roses frontman Brown shared a tribute online, writing: “REST IN PEACE MANi X.”
Oasis singer Liam Gallagher said he was “in total shock and absolutely devastated”, describing the bassist as “my hero”.
“RIP Mani – my heartfelt condolences to his twin boys and all of his family,” wrote the Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder, whose bandmate Rowetta added: “Back with your Imelda, Mani. Going to miss you so much. All my love to the boys, the family & all those who knew & loved him.”
The Charlatans frontman, Tim Burgess, shared a photo of himself with Mani, writing alongside it: “I shared this photo a week or so ago on Mani’s birthday.
“It never failed to bring a smile to my face – and that was exactly the same for the man himself.
“One of the absolute best in every way – such a beautiful friend.”
Echo & the Bunnymen vocalist Ian McCulloch said Mani was someone “who I have always loved and always will love, deeply and forever. Like a brother”.
He continued: “I am in shock to be honest. Please tell me I’m just having a bad, bad dream. My thoughts and feelings and Mani. Love to all of his family from me”.
Pic: Robert Marquardt/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
The “Madchester” bands were known for blending indie with acid house, psychedelia, and pop.
The Stone Roses’ eponymous debut album of 1989 was a huge success, and was named the second greatest album of all time in a “Music of the Millennium” poll conducted by HMV, Channel 4, The Guardian, and Classic FM.
The novel has survived the industrial revolution, radio, television, and the internet. Now it’s facing artificial intelligence – and novelists are worried.
Half (51%) fear that they will be replaced by AI entirely, according to a new survey, even though for the most part they don’t use the technology themselves.
More immediately, 85% say they think their future income will be negatively impacted by AI, and 39% claim their finances have already taken a hit.
Tracy Chevalier, the bestselling author of Girl With A Pearl Earring and The Glassmaker, shares that concern.
“I worry that a book industry driven mainly by profit will be tempted to use AI more and more to generate books,” she said in response to the survey.
“If it is cheaper to produce novels using AI (no advance or royalties to pay to authors, quicker production, retainment of copyright), publishers will almost inevitably choose to publish them.
“And if they are priced cheaper than ‘human made’ books, readers are likely to buy them, the way we buy machine-made jumpers rather than the more expensive hand-knitted ones.”
Chevalier, author of the book Girl With A Pearl Earring, with the painting of the same name. Pic: AP
Why authors are so worried
The University of Cambridge’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy asked 258 published novelists and 74 industry insiders how AI is viewed and used in the world of British fiction.
Alongside existential fears about the wholesale replacement of the novel, many authors reported a loss of income from AI, which they attributed to “competition from AI-generated books and the loss of jobs which provide supplementary streams of income, such as copywriting”.
Some respondents reported finding “rip-off AI-generated imitations” of their own books, as well books “written under their name which they haven’t produced”.
Last year, the Authors Guild warned that “the growing access to AI is driving a new surge of low-quality sham ‘books’ on Amazon”, which has limited the number of publications per day on its Kindle self-publishing platform to combat the influx of AI-generated books.
The median income for a novelist is currently £7,000 and many make ends meet by doing related work, such as audiobook narration, copywriting or ghost-writing.
Read more: The author embracing AI to help write novels
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Could the AI bubble burst?
These tasks, authors feared, were already being supplanted by AI, although little evidence was provided for this claim, which was not possible to verify independently.
Copyright was also a big concern, with 59% of novelists reporting that they knew their work had been used to train AI models.
Of these, 99% said they did not give permission and 100% said they were not remunerated for this use.
Earlier this year, AI firm Anthropic agreed to pay authors $1.5bn (£1.2bn) to settle a lawsuit which claimed the company stole their work.
The judge in the US court case ruled that Anthropic had downloaded more than seven million digital copies of books it “knew had been pirated” and ordered the firm to pay authors compensation.
However, the judge sided with Anthropic over the question of copyright, saying that the AI model was doing something akin to when a human reads a book to inspire new work, rather than simply copying.
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Most novelists – 67% – never used it for creative work, although a few said they found it very useful for speeding up drafting or editing.
One case study featured in the report is Lizbeth Crawford, a novelist in multiple genres, including fantasy and romance. She describes working with AI as a writing partner, using it to spot plot holes and trim adjectives.
“Lizbeth used to write about one novel per year, but now she can do three per year, and her target is five,” notes the author of the report, Dr Clementine Collett.
Is there a role for government?
Despite this, the report’s foreword urges the government to slow down the spread of AI by strengthening copyright law to protect authors and other creatives.
The government has proposed making an exception to UK copyright law for “text and data mining”, which might make authors and other copyright holders opt out to stop their work being used to train AI models.
“That approach prioritises access to data for the world’s technology companies at the cost to the UK’s own creative industries,” writes Professor Gina Neff, executive director of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy.
“It is both bad economics and a betrayal of the very cultural assets of British soft power.”
A government spokesperson said: “Throughout this process we have, and always will, put the interests of the UK’s citizens and businesses first.
“We’ve always been clear on the need to work with both the creative industries and AI sector to drive AI innovation and ensure robust protections for creators.
“We are bringing together both British and global companies, alongside voices beyond the AI and creative sectors, to ensure we can capture the broadest possible range of expert views as we consider next steps.”
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