Christian Slater actually enjoyed reaching the big 4-0. The star of ABC’s The Forgotton never thought he’d make it to the landmark age when he was a Hollywood hellraiser in his twenties.

“I just hit 40, so what more can I say? I mean, the fact that I’m 40 is a miracle. I’m on the other side now,” he said. “I feel like I’ve hit a certain milestone and I’m going onward and upward. If I were looking back, I would say to myself during the tough times, ‘If you can make it to 40, nothing in the past can prevent you from being present today.’ There’s a great author who said, ‘We don’t live life, life kind of lives us.’ I’ve been out of control. But if I hadn’t been, I wouldn’t know how to be in control.”

Christian had numerous run-ins with the law in his younger days, including being arrested for criminal possession of a weapon at a New York airport in 1994, but he insists he has now put his past behind him. He even went back to finish high school.

“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 General Education Development diploma,” Christian added to Parade.

The divorced actor has two children, son Jaden, 10, and daughter Eliana,8, from his marriage to Ryan Haddon.