You kind of have to listen to the Behind the Bastards podcast about him. He's worse than you imagine.

TRUE STORY:

I once sold Steve Seagal Cuban cigars. It was when I ran a cigar shop in Scotland, and one evening he came through with his (small) entourage. He made it worth my while and ran up a $300 bill, but he and his staff were not polite.

I never saw him again.

I've worked with so many people who have not good stories about him. A friend of mine acted in some TV show he did and had some good ones.

He only acts in the scenes that are his close ups. Everything else (master shot, coverage on other actors, etc.) is done with Seagal's body double. When he comes to set, they light a special incense and everyone has to stop what they're doing and look at him. He has an entourage of people that my friend described as looking like the presidential motorcade. The distance between Seagal's trailer and set was like 100 feet, but he and his entourage took three cars to get to set, but because three cars in a line physically can't drive such a short distance, they did some kind of banana shaped u-turn so everyone would notice when he arrived.

The director asked my friend to make sure Seagal doesn't stray off script. Seagal will not learn his lines at all and instead has them on cue cards which are always held up by a young, attractive woman in a halter top. This is why Seagal is always looking off camera in his films. He fired one girl for not...I don't know, flipping the cards fast enough or something. My friend, having had enough of his shit, waited until Seagal went off script, then went off script too and ad-libbed something really generic like "What are you going to do?" and it completely threw Seagal off.

The costume designer on this show went to do a fitting with him and he made her wait in the hotel lobby for an hour and a half at the end of what was a long work day for her while he meditated and burned incense. Then he went through the clothes and threw out things he didn't like and said he wanted to wear stuff he did like without trying anything on.

Everyone knows stuntmen won't work with Seagal and why that is. My friend had a fight scene with Seagal that they rehearsed and planned out without him because he came to set at the last minute and then completely changed everything. During a rehearsal, he threw my friend through a wall. There's a part in the fight scene where my friend draws a gun on Seagal's character, he grabs his hand, and they do some kind of flip thing. My friend said to the director "The second he touches my hand you yell cut." Seagal got indignant and asked why. My friend said "BECAUSE YOU JUST THREW ME THROUGH A FUCKING WALL.