Steven Seagal didn’t exactly climb the Hollywood ladder. He sort of wandered onto the set, threw a few people into walls, broke a few necks and stayed there longer than anyone expected. In fact, when Above the Law hit movie theaters in 1988, Seagal was 36, had never acted before, and pitched himself as a martial arts instructor with CIA ties. Audiences completely bought it. Hollywood did too. The film was a huge success, so he followed it up with Hard to Kill and then Marked for Death. By the time Under Siege landed in 1992, Seagal stood shoulder to shoulder with the biggest action stars of the ’90s, Stallone and Schwarzenegger included. And then… the truth came out.
Steven Seagal has always made a name for himself as the toughest tough guy. He’s the kind of tough guy other tough guys have nightmares about. Or is he?
In Under Siege, Steven Seagal played a Navy cook who stopped terrorists and saved a battleship before dessert. The way he talked about it, you’d swear it was real life. That was the peak of his career and the film made serious money and gave Seagal his one unquestioned action classic. He was 40 at the time.
Naturally, his confidence skyrocketed and so did his reputation – and maybe not in the best way. Warner Bros. quietly chose not to renew his four-picture deal not long after, and the slow fade began. Studios backed off. But Seagal kept fighting his way through martial arts movies anyway.
You might’ve missed most of what came next. That’s not on you. Titles like Half Past Dead, Out for a Kill, Mercenary for Justice, and Force of Execution slid straight to the back of DVD shelves and vanished just as fast into the bargain bin. But Seagal never stopped working. Hollywood and audiences just stopped watching. Or caring.
There were chances to course-correct along the way. Sylvester Stallone wanted him in The Expendables. Stallone even tweeted about it from Moscow. Seagal passed. “I just didn’t like some of the people involved,” he later said. One of those people might’ve been producer Avi Lerner, who once sued Seagal for $14 million over delayed shoots and on-set chaos.
Instead of returning to big-screen action, Seagal pivoted into other fields. Buddhism came first. In the late ’90s, he received the title of tulku from Penor Rinpoche, marking him as a reincarnated lama. That raised eyebrows, of course. Ganen Thurman of Tibet House said, “I’m afraid it troubles me.” Seagal later blamed his stalled career on spiritual limits, saying studios only wanted fighting and he had lines he wouldn’t cross. Sure.
Then came law enforcement. Another career that failed. Steven Seagal: Lawman debuted on A&E in 2009 and, surprisingly, pulled massive ratings. It followed the action star as a reserve deputy. But lawsuits quickly followed, including a sexual harassment claim from a former assistant. There was also a raid in Arizona that killed a puppy. A&E walked away… very quickly. But ReelzChannel picked him up. True Justice arrived in 2012, starring Seagal as a Seattle cop, shot in Vancouver. He created it and wrote every episode, calling it realistic. It lasted two seasons.
Around all of this, accusations piled up. Portia de Rossi. Julianna Margulies. Jenny McCarthy. Regina Simons. Faviola Dadis. When asked about it on BBC Newsnight, Seagal stood up, removed his mic, and left. No denial. Just gone.
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Then there was his time as a musician. He released two blues albums, landed Stevie Wonder on a track, toured with a band called Thunderbox, and collected over 300 guitars, including ones owned by Hendrix, B.B. King, and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Critics weren’t kind to his music career either.
Then Seagal took another leap. This time into politics. He praised Vladimir Putin, gained Russian citizenship in 2016, became a special envoy in 2018, and received Russia’s Order of Friendship in 2023. Ukraine banned him in 2017 and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission fined him $314,000 over a crypto scam promotion. All very Steven Seagal moments.
Now, at 73, he is back in black suits for his first action flick in ages, Order of the Dragon: The Return of the Legend. It’s his version of The Expendables really, except with a much smaller budget and few other straight-to-DVD martial arts faces.
Steven Seagal isn’t a Hollywood star anymore. He’s something stranger. Maybe he’s above all that. Or maybe he’s convinced his comeback is just one wrist snap away.
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