On Deadly Ground

Steven Frederic Seagal (pronounced /sɨˈɡɑːl/; born April 10, 1952) is an American action film actor, producer, writer, martial artist, guitarist and a reserve deputy sheriff. A 7th-dan black belt in aikido, Seagal began his adult life as an aikido instructor in Japan. He became the first foreigner to operate an aikido dojo in Japan. He later moved to the Los Angeles, California, area where he made his film debut in 1988 in Above the Law. He became a major action star due to his blockbuster films of the 1990s, such as Under Siege (1992) and Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995), where he played Navy SEALs counter-terrorist expert Casey Ryback, but since then starred mainly in direct-to-video action films.

Seagal is also a recording artist and guitarist and the founder of Steven Seagal Enterprises. In addition to his professional achievements, he is also known as an environmentalist, an animal rights activist and a supporter of the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, and the Tibetan independence movement.

Seagal was born in Lansing, Michigan, where he lived until he was five years old. His mother, Patricia (1930–2003), was a medical technician, and his father, Samuel Steven Seagal (1928–1991), was a high school math teacher. His mother was Irish American and his father was Jewish. The family relocated to Fullerton, California, where Seagal attended Buena Park High School in Buena Park.

In 1987, Seagal began work on his first film, Above the Law (titled Nico in Europe), with director Andrew Davis and reportedly as a favor to a former aikido student, the agent Michael Ovitz, who believed he could make anyone a star. Following its success, Seagal made three more movies – Hard to Kill, Marked for Death, and Out for Justice – that were box office hits, making him an action hero. Later, he achieved wider, mainstream success in 1992 with the release of Under Siege (1992). That film reunited Seagal with director Andrew Davis, and was a blockbuster in the U.S. and abroad, grossing $156.4 million worldwide.

Seagal then directed On Deadly Ground (1994). This film, in which he also starred, emphasized environmental and spiritual themes, signaling a break with his previous persona as a genre-ready inner-city cop. The film featured Michael Caine as well as R. Lee Ermey and Billy Bob Thornton in minor supporting roles.

Following the general critical disappointment of On Deadly Ground, Seagal filmed a sequel to one of his most successful films, Under Siege, titled Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995), and cop drama The Glimmer Man (1996). In 1996, he had minor role in the Kurt Russell film Executive Decision, in which he played a special ops soldier who was killed in the film’s first 45 minutes. He subsequently made another environmentally conscious film, Fire Down Below (1997), wherein he was an EPA agent fighting industrialists dumping toxic waste in the Kentucky hills, but the movie was commercially unsuccessful. This film ended his original multi-picture contract with Warner Bros.

In 2010, Seagal appeared in his first theatrically released film in nearly a decade, as the main villain in Robert Rodriguez’ Machete.