“He’s a shithead with spray-on hair”: 10 actors who hate Steven Seagal
For better or worse, there’s nobody quite like Steven Seagal, with the martial artist and journeyman of the action movie bargain bin carrying a reputation that could most generously be labelled as bizarre.
Known for making far-fetched claims that can only be verified by himself, Seagal has embellished his own legend to such a degree that it’s impossible to know whether he’s done it to craft his own persona, or if he’s actually convinced himself of its veracity.
Whether it’s his fighting skills, acting abilities, directorial talents, or spiritual status, nobody loves Seagal more than he loves himself, and there are a large number of people who don’t like him at all.
While many of the people to have spoken out against him are former co-stars, some of them are not, which just goes to show how wide a net of detestability he’s cast across the industry.
10 actors who hate Steven Seagal:
10. Michael Jai White
Michael Jai White found Seagal’s self-seriousness so accidentally hilarious that he was firmly of the opinion he could have been a fixture of comedy were he not so invested in his own hype.
From his point of view, he could become “one of the funniest action, comedy people on the planet if he didn’t take himself too serious.” Sadly, though, Seagal’s habit of being less than kind towards the stunt people on his movies ruffled White’s feathers.
Seagal regularly “hit the shit out of his stuntmen” according to White, many of whom “simply put up with it to avoid losing their jobs.” He didn’t think anybody had the right “to have such an inflated ego” and treat themselves as superior, “especially when people can do what you do.”
9. Liam Neeson
Liam Neeson and Steven Seagal have never worked together in any capacity, but the Taken star was still left suitably disgruntled after hearing that his ability to convincingly partake in fight scenes were being called into question.
“He can’t fight, he’s not an action movie guy at all and he’s getting action movies now, so that should tell you something,” Seagal said. “He’s a great dramatic actor. Is he an action guy? No. Is he a great fighter, a great warrior? No. Let’s be honest.”
Neeson – who boxed in his younger days – issued a simple “I know how to punch” in response, but not without getting in a dig of his own. “I want to know who dies his hair,” he asked. “Stevie Wonder?”
8. Sylvester Stallone
Even though they were both synonymous with the action genre in the 1980s and 1990s, Seagal occupied a spot on the ladder several rungs below Sylvester Stallone, not that he saw it that way.
When they came face to face, the ponytailed aikido practitioner informed the Rocky and Rambo legend that he “didn’t associate with that kind of element,” by which he meant Stallone. Needless to say, that didn’t sit well with the musclebound star.
In response, Stallone “slammed him up against a wall” as their confrontation threatened to boil over, with the veteran admitting, “our testosterone was running full bore.” On the other hand, it wasn’t an unfair reaction to being dubbed unworthy by somebody like Seagal.
7. Bob Odenkirk
Seagal’s appearance on Saturday Night Live has been dubbed the worst ever by fans, creators, writers, and performers of the series alike, with Bob Odenkirk taken aback by the complete and utter apathy being displayed by the one-time host.
The future Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul star was part of the writing staff and repertory at the time, and he recalled that when Seagal was reading over his sketches, “the most ludicrous scenario” unfolded after he demanded they be changed, so he got to beat up his scene partners.
“No one’s thinking anyone actually beat anyone up here,” Odenkirk continued. “But that was his attitude the whole week.” Needless to say, the SNL roster were growing increasingly frustrated with his antics, which manifested in one of the show’s most infamously terrible episodes.
6. DMX
Influential rapper and occasional actor DMX co-starred with Seagal in 2001’s Exit Wounds and 2019’s Beyond the Law, although it begs the question as to why he agreed to do it a second time after being so put off by the first.
When asked for his recollections of their time spent working together on the former, he wasn’t in the mood to hold back. “Steven Seagal is a fuck. He’s a fucking shithead with spray-on hair,” DMX raged. “This guy’s a fucker. He’s an asshole.”
And yet, almost two decades later he agreed to share the screen with him again. Money tends to speak a lot louder than words, though, which may have convinced DMX that his disdain for Seagal was worth being put to one side for the sake of a movie role.
5. Jean-Claude Van Damme
The feud between Seagal and fellow B-tier action hero Jean-Claude Van Damme became so heated that the ‘Muscles from Brussels’ even floated the idea of a $20 million showdown in a real fight staged in Las Vegas to determine which one was tougher.
“They were having an idea to have a fight between me and Steven at The Mirage,” he told The Telegraph. “He didn’t take the fight.” Fellow Seagal nemesis Sylvester Stallone was privy to their feud, too, after the pair nearly came to blows during a party at his house.
While Van Damme dismissed it as “kid’s stuff,” Stallone remembered Van Damme offering to fight Seagal in his garden to put an end to the macho posturing once and for all. With the opportunity to prove his mettle laid out right in front of him, the latter coincidentally had to leave the party right after.
4. Charlize Theron
Seagal made his name on the back of his martial arts prowess, a lot of which has become increasingly disputed over the years. For what it’s worth, Charlize Theron absolutely wasn’t buying into it.
“He’s just incredibly overweight and pushing people,” was her assessment of his hand-to-hand prowess. “He’s overweight and he barely fights. Look it up, it’s ridiculous. He’s just shoving people in the face.” As an Oscar-winning action veteran, Theron knows about getting her hands dirty, which is just one reason she didn’t mind taking Seagal to task.
The constant misconduct allegations levelled against him only emboldened her, too, with Theron stating how “I have no problem talking shit about him because he’s not very nice to women,” before ending her verbal evisceration with a simple “fuck you.”
3. Brian Cox
Having been heralded as the reincarnation of a Tibetan monk from centuries past, Seagal holds himself on a higher plane of existence than mere mortals, something Brian Cox simply couldn’t abide.
The grizzled Scotsman is no stranger to speaking his mind and tearing fellow industry figures apart at the seams, but he went a step further by intimating his co-star on The Glimmer Man isn’t only delusional, but quite possibly an idiot.
“Steven Seagal is as ludicrous in real life as he appears on screen,” he wrote in his memoirs. “He radiates a studied serenity, as though he’s on a higher plane to the rest of us, and while he’s certainly on a different plane, no doubt about that, it’s probably not a higher one.”
2. Sharon Stone
Sharon Stone didn’t even say anything openly negative about Seagal, but the way she phrased it made it abundantly clear she doesn’t have a millisecond of time worth dedicating to her Above the Law co-star.
When pressed for her thoughts on him as both a person and a professional, the Basic Instinct star referred to him as “an individual who isn’t worth the ink it would take to write about him.” That being said, she did offer an insight into his bizarre approach.
When they were rehearsing a scene for Above the Law, Stone recalled that “he told me not to stand too close as I was standing in his chi,” which apparently had the potential to alter his performance to a significant extent. Nonsense, sure, but perfectly on-brand.
1. John Leguizamo
Nobody has turned hating Seagal into an art form quite like John Leguizamo, who even based his character in The Menu on his least favourite actor for the sole reason that he was playing a washed-up actor and he hates the man’s guts.
After working together on the action thriller Executive Decision, Leguizamo was left with no other option but to call Seagal “kind of a horrible human,” with his desire to take control on the set ending up with his co-star being thrown into a wall.
Being tossed against an unforgiving brick and having the wind knocked out of him only intensified Leguizamo’s dislike, to the point he showed up on the day Seagal’s death scene was being shot just to watch him die. On the plus side, it came in handy decades later when he was figuring out his performance in Mark Mylod’s delicious dark comedy.
