The “perfect” 2003 role 450,000 people told Steven Seagal he deserved more than “little guy” Tom Cruise
Every time Steven Seagal opens his mouth, the air is more likely than not to be filled with the scent of complete and utter bullshit, and some of it stinks more than others.
For talking’s sake, let’s indulge him. At any point since he made his feature-length debut in 1988’s Above the Law, has anybody watched a Tom Cruise movie and thought to themselves, “You know what? This would be much, much better with Steven Seagal in the leading role.”
One or two, maybe, and even that might be a push. In the aikido master’s world, though, the actual number comes close to half a million, which is just one of the reasons you can tell that he’s talking through his arse, as per usual. How many Seagal films would be improved by switching him with Cruise? Quite a lot of them, if not most. With the shoe on the other foot? Fuck all, and that’s being gracious.
And yet, because the man has a lifelong desire to burnish his own self-created legend at every opportunity, the least popular man in Hollywood said, with a completely straight face, that 2003’s The Last Samurai would have been vastly superior if it had cast him in the leading role of Nathan Algren.
“Let me tell you something that might be a bit dangerous,” he began, confusing ‘dangerous’ for ‘nonsensical’. “I was raised in Japan. I was schooled in martial arts. I was given the title of master. They make a movie, The Last Samurai. They have a five-foot-two-inch little guy, whether he was straight or gay, I don’t know. I don’t care. He had never been to Japan. He doesn’t speak Japanese. He has never held a sword. They make him the last samurai.”
Now, here’s the thing. Seagal was wrapped up in his own ego from the start there, because he wasn’t raised in Japan. He was, in fact, raised between Michigan and California, and didn’t move to Japan until he was 22. Still, it was on-brand that it wasn’t even the biggest lie he told about the egregious snub.
“We got 450,000 phone calls from everybody in the world saying, ‘That role was perfect for you. How did that happen?'” he went on. “Most of the people I know didn’t like the film and didn’t go see it. It’s just a classic example of Hollywood and the politics.” That, or maybe you didn’t get the job because nobody has anything nice to say about you and you’re a terrible actor.
Meanwhile, after hundreds of thousands of people from all around the world voiced their outrage to Seagal via telephone, The Last Samurai hired Cruise, a very good actor and one of the biggest stars in the business, to headline the blockbuster historical epic, which none of the portly martial artist’s friends bothered to watch out of solidarity and protest at the shocking snub.
This would be the same Last Samurai that cleared $450million at the box office, earned Cruise a Golden Globe nomination for ‘Best Actor – Drama’, and secured four Academy Award nominations. Clearly, the solution to save the movie from such unmitigated disaster would have been to give the job to Seagal.
