'Get Down And Dirty': Steven Seagal Forced Co-Star To Film Explicit Scene With Him in $156M Movie
The actor is known to be controversial, and this seems to prove that once again.
Steven Seagal is an actor, screenwriter and producer who became famous as an action movies hero.
He spent some time in Japan studying Aikido and later opened Aikido schools in the US. His own schools helped Stephen break into the movies.
In the 1980s, he demonstrated aikido techniques on television to draw attention to the martial art. The owner of a casting agency, enrolled in his school – he put Seagal in touch with Warner Bros.
Martial arts movies were still popular, so the company agreed to a joint project with Steven.
One of the most successful movies of his career was Under Siege, which grossed more than $156 million worldwide on a $35 million budget.
However, according to the actor's colleagues, working with him was difficult, but that was only a small part.
Gary Busey, who also played in Under Siege, stated that Steven tried to force his co-star Erika Eleniak to do a sex scene:
"He's insecure. This guy went overboard with the control master. And Erika Eleniak — the little girl who was in it — I had her under my wing. He was looking to add in a love scene so he could really get down and dirty."
This is not the first time the actor has been accused of harassment. In 1995, Steven Seagal, whose weight in the film industry was rapidly diminishing, was first accused of sexual harassment.
Cheryl Shuman accused the actor of harassment and threats of physical violence. However, she could not prove her case in court.
In 1998, actress Jenny McCarthy revealed that during an audition for Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, Seagal asked her to undress, even though there were no love scenes in the script.
The actor's problems were exacerbated by stories about his bad temper, fights on set and domestic violence. The latter led to the actor being cut from the movie Executive Decision.
He was supposed to co-star with Kurt Russell, but in the final script, his character was unexpectedly killed off 20 minutes into the movie, shocking many viewers. The following big movies with Seagal brought less and less money.
The last straw for Warner Bros. was the 1997's movie Fire Down Below, which earned only $16 million at the box office with a budget of $100 million and brought Seagal two Golden Raspberries.
After such a failure, the studio stopped working with him.
Source: Empire