The movie Steven Seagal was too weird to be cast in: “He was clearly a little crazy at the time”
Saying Steven Seagal was too weird to be cast in a movie is undoubtedly amusing. However, it’s also not surprising in the least because Seagal has a rich history of being a Hollywood oddball, with his behaviour ranging from bizarre and delusional to vicious and potentially criminal. In the late-’80s, though, Seagal had just enjoyed a big hit with the action movie Above the Law, and it made the ponytailed Aikido expert an instant star. He was so hot at the time that he secured a meeting with the director of a sequel to one of Fox’s most popular films – but he botched it by being a crazy loon.
When it came time for a sequel to its unexpected 1987 sci-fi action hit Predator, Fox tasked the first movie’s writers, Jim and John Thomas, to pitch them some ideas. The notion of plucking the vicious alien hunter out of the jungle setting of the first film and placing him squarely in the ‘urban jungle’ of Los Angeles excited the suits, and thus Predator 2 was born. Legendary action producer Joel Silver hired Stephen Hopkins to direct after being impressed with his work on A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, and then attention turned to casting the picture.
Initially, the plan was for Arnold Schwarzenegger to reprise his role as ‘Dutch’ Schaefer from the first film, as the Special Forces badass would team up with an LAPD officer to battle the extraterrestrial killing machine. Hopkins had his eye on Patrick Swayze to play Lieutenant Mike Harrigan, perhaps having been charmed by his performance in 1989’s Road House.
Unfortunately for Hopkins, though, the studio had Seagal in mind for the part, and it dispatched the director to meet with the eccentric star at his home. While being interviewed about the movie for its 30th anniversary, Hopkins revealed that this meeting was strange, to say the least. “I had to go and have a meeting at his house, which was one of the craziest afternoons I’ve had,” Hopkins admitted. “It was a bizarre…he’s a very unusual, slightly twisted kind of guy.”
According to Hopkins, Seagal was desperate to be in the movie but had his own ideas of who his character should be. Sure, the script dictated that he was being approached about playing a cop, and this cop was depicted as a regular Joe. This is what made the contrast between his character and the Predator—a terrifying, highly skilled threat from another world—so pronounced. Seagal, though, didn’t have any interest in that angle.
“He took me into a room where all the walls were covered with guns,” Hopkins chuckled. “He told me he wanted to play a CIA psychiatrist who was also a martial arts expert who carried a gun. He was clearly a little crazy at the time. And I was like, ‘This is different than the way we’re going, so I guess we shouldn’t do it.'”
Seagal didn’t want to take no for an answer, though. However, because he’s a borderline sociopath with delusions of grandeur, his version of trying to talk Hopkins into offering him the role involved inviting the director to blow stuff up. A stunned Hopkins claimed, “He said, ‘You know, I want you to come to my house in Santa Barbara,'” before adding, “I’ve got a grenade launching range there. We can launch grenades together.”
By this point, Hopkins was probably desperate to get out of there as fast as he could, so he said what he needed to say. “Yeah, great. We’ll do that,” he admitted to telling Seagal – before never laying eyes upon him again. As if it wasn’t clear by now, he added, “Sorry, I’m not a fan of his.”
Ultimately, Seagal wouldn’t get anywhere near Predator 2, and neither would Swayze or Schwarzenegger, who left the project when Fox refused to pay the salary he demanded. The script was reworked to show Harrigan battling the Predator alone, and Lethal Weapon’s Danny Glover was cast. The film didn’t do as well as the first Predator, and reviews at the time were dismissive, but over the years, the movie has gained a significant cult following. It’s now viewed as an underrated gem – and there’s no way that would have been the case if Seagal had gotten his way.
