Steven Seagal’s pro-Putin gushing couldn’t be easier to ignore – so why don’t we? – By Louis Chilton (The Independent) / April 15, 2022
The former action star has been vocal in his praise of the Russian president, making him an abject outlier in Hollywood. Since his Nineties heyday, Seagal may have devolved into a pop culture curio, but he continues to make headlines for the wrong reasons, writes Louis Chilton. When will we stop paying attention?
It’s never been easier to ignore Steven Seagal. The martial arts star isn’t exactly a ubiquitous presence on the late-night talk show circuit. The action hits of his heyday don’t festoon the banners at the top of Netflix. Whole generations of kids will have now reached adulthood without once hearing the words, “Hey, how about we go check out that new Steven Seagal movie?”
Seagal has continued making films, mostly direct-to-video, though the shine of early Nineties thrillers like Hard to Kill and Under Siege faded long ago to nothingness. Over the past three decades, Seagal has faced multiple accusations of sexual harassment and sexual assault (all of which he has denied). This has probably contributed to his drastic tumble away from the Hollywood mainstream, but it’s not the only factor. Even during his pomp, Seagal was largely known as a peddler of high-octane schlock – an all-action martial arts man whose ability to deliver any kind of dialogue convincingly was rather beside the point. Over the past few years, Seagal’s film work has migrated to obscure streaming productions (and the 2017 Chinese film China Salesman, which also starred Mike Tyson). But he’s found a new means of holding people’s attention: as one of Hollywood’s few vocal cheerleaders for Russia.
Back in 2018, Vladimir Putin anointed Seagal as a special envoy for Russia to improve ties with the US. Seagal, who has been a Russian citizen since 2016, has made headlines in recent months for his brash statements on the war in Ukraine (a country he was been banned from entering in 2017, after being deemed a “threat to national security”). On Sunday (10 April), the actor spoke at a 70th birthday dinner held in his honour at a Moscow restaurant, which was also attended by a number of prominent Putin allies (including Russian state TV host Vladimir Soleviev, described by The Guardian as “one of the country’s most notorious propagandists” and Russian journalist Margarita Simonyan, both of whom have been placed on an EU sanctions list). Speaking to the crowd, he told them: “I love all of you and we stand together, through thick and through thin.”
