We take a look at the American action movie actor, whose career has been marred by a series of extra-film episodes.
Steven Seagal is a strange guy. Master black belt in aikido, practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism, vegetarian and animalist, volunteer sheriff in Louisiana, guitarist in his own blues band, and star of a reality show that bears his name.
But at the same time, he is a decadent movie star, a problematic actor behind the scenes, a confessed admirer of Vladimir Putin, and accused by numerous women of having psychologically and S- violated them, without taking charge of their accusations to date.
That is why it should not be surprising that last Tuesday he appeared at the presidential palace of Miraflores, in Caracas, to give a samurai sword to the questioned president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, who was in charge of handling the weapon with no expertise.
Seagal – overweight and with his popular ponytail – came to the northern country as a special representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry. And it is that for some he has served as a kind of "cultural ambassador" for Putin, who in November 2016 granted him Russian nationality. Among other things, Putin and Seagal share a fondness for martial arts and a taste for displaying their physical gifts.
The American actor, who will turn 69 in a few days, has been fascinated by these sports since he was a teenager when he started karate. But it was at the age of 17 that he moved to Japan, taking advantage of his father's job in the military. And there he would fully develop his training.
He even got to marry the Japanese Miyako Fujitani, another aikido teacher, and they founded their dojo (the space for the practice and teaching of martial arts).
Brief Stardom
It was in the 80s when Seagal began to flirt with the cinema, first as a choreographer of action scenes, and then as an actor. Only in the '90s (already older for a Hollywood career, exceeding 40 years) he would have his first stellar roles. For example, the two installments of "Maximum Alert" (in 1992 and 1995) and "The Last Patriot" (1998).
Seagal was characterized by a cold and sober style on the screen, without the spectacularity of Chuck Norris or Jean-Claude Van Damme. And although he enjoyed fame and figuration, it did not last long. Around 2000 the parameters of the industry changed and Seagal had to settle for roles for television or 'video-on-demand'.
Instead, his controversial attitude toward filming became more noticeable. Sean Connery, for example, recounted that Seagal fractured his wrist while training him for the 1983 film "Never Say Never". Several members of the "Saturday Night Live" cast indicated that his time as a guest on the show in 1991 was downright unpleasant.
Even more serious have been the aforementioned complaints of abuse. In 1998, actress Jenny McCarthy confessed to a magazine that Seagal wanted to force her to N- in a casting, even though the script they were working on did not require it. The accusation – before movements like the Me Too – was practically ignored at the time.
Then more allegations surfaced: In 2017, Julianna Margulies said Seagal called her into her hotel room and intimidated her with a gun. A year later, the also actress Regina Simons denounced him for rape when she was just 18 years old, in the early 90s.
Finally, Faviola Dadis joined the complaints by pointing out that the actor touched her inappropriately when she was a minor.
Busier than ever in his strange diplomatic work on behalf of Putin, Steven Seagal has given very few interviews and has refused to respond to the serious accusations against him. In 2018, when he was a guest on the BBC's "News Night" program, the actor was confronted by the presenter Kirsty Wars, who asked him to release her from the allegations. All Seagal did was remove his earpiece and walk out of the interview.
