In the 80’s, Sean Young was a rising star. She co-starred with Harrison Ford, Bill Murray, Kevin Costner and James Woods. She worked with directors Ridley Scott, David Lynch and Oliver Stone. She was cast in the star-making role of Vicki Vale in the 1989 Batman. And then, she became a cautionary tale of career implosion.
What the hell happened?
Young and Green
Sean Young came to Hollywood after working as a model and studying ballet in New York. In 1980, Young made her movie debut in the Merchant Ivory production, Jane Austen in Manhattan. The movie was shown on the BBC and received a limited theatrical release. Young summed up her performance thusly, “Thank God the character was a space cadet because I knew nothing.”
Apparently director Steven Spielberg agreed with that assessment. She read for the role of Marion Ravenwood in Raiders of the Lost Ark back when Tom Selleck was supposed to play Indiana Jones. Ultimately, Spielberg decided Sean Young was “too green”.
That didn’t prevent Young from being cast as Harold Ramis’ love interest in the Bill Murray comedy, Stripes. Director Ivan Reitman said he cast Young for her look and her “sweetness” which he felt would complement Ramis on-screen.
Sean Young’s next movie role was the one she will be remembered for. She played the replicant Harrison Ford falls in love with in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. The movie was loosely based on Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The movie was set in the far-off dystopian future of 2019 Los Angeles.
Scott said he cast Young for her “classic beauty.” Philip K. Dick was so taken with Young’s photograph that he asked to meet her in person. The legendary writer called Young the “super destructive cruel beautiful dark-haired woman that I eternally write about and now I’ve seen a photograph of her and I know that she exists and I will seek her out and presumably she will destroy me.” The face-to-face meeting was never arranged.
On-screen, Ford and Young had amazing chemistry. They were equally explosive off-screen as well in that they did not get along. Tension between the costars was so high that the film crew jokingly referred to the couple’s big scene together as “the hate scene”.
Unfortunately, Blade Runner was ahead of its time. Today, it is rightly regarded as a sci-fi classic. But when it was released in 1982, it opened to mixed reviews and ambivalent audiences.
In fact, Blade Runner performed so poorly at the box office that it was outgrossed by the other movie featuring Sean Young that summer. Young Doctors in Love was a soap opera satire starring TV’s Michael McKean. Gary Marshall’s goofy medical comedy proved to be a modest hit at the box office. Its $30 million dollar take was enough to make it the 23rd highest-grossing movie of 1982. Blade Runner ranked 27th with a gross of $27.5 million dollars.
Tension on the Set
In Baby: Secret of the Los Legend, Young played a scientist who discovers an adorable dinosaur. Costar William Katt was frustrated by the mechanical dinos. “It was a love-hate relationship working with those things,” he said. ”When they worked, it was fantastic. But when they didn`t, it meant long hours sitting around in the blistering Ivory Coast heat. You wanted to chop the creatures up into tiny pieces.
Young didn’t get along with Katt and reportedly slowed down filming during difficult conditions. One crew member told Movieline Magazine:
She was awfully full of herself. In 110-degree weather, after two weeks of rehearsal, she’d ask the director, ‘What’s my motivation?’ and she’d play her goddamn flute till we were ready to strangle her.
Young returned to science-fiction in David Lynch’s big-screen adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic novel, Dune. Unlike Blade Runner, Dune was not an under-appreciated masterpiece. The movie had a long and troubled past even before Lynch came onboard. Ridley Scott took a crack at adapting Dune for the big screen. He planned to divide the story into two movies, but ultimately left the project to make Blade Runner instead.
After the success of The Elephant Man, Lynch was being courted by studios for several different projects. Among them were The Return of the Jedi and the long-gestating adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi novel, Dune. Lynch felt that Lucas would be watching over him too much on Jedi, so he opted for Dune instead.
Lynch’s final version of the film was deemed too long by the studio. They hacked it down to just over a two-hour running time. But the shortened film didn’t make a lot of sense. Given Lynch’s track record, I’m not sure the original cut would have been any more coherent, but I would love to have seen it!
Producer Dino De Laurentiis had secured the rights to adapt Herbert’s sequels to Dune. Lynch says he started writing a script for Dune Messiah. But those plans were scrapped after the lackluster performance of the first movie.
After a couple of TV roles, Young returned to the big screen for the sexy thriller, No Way Out. The movie starred Kevin Costner hot off The Untouchables. Young wasn’t impressed. She said Costner was an excellent businessman and an average actor. On the upside, No Way Out was a hit with critics and did reasonably well at the box office.
That same year, Young appeared in Oliver Stone’s drama, Wall Street. Once again, there were problems on the set. The problems started with casting. Daryl Hannah played Charlie Sheen’s love interest, but she had trouble relating to her materialistic character. Sean Young had no such issues and took every opportunity to lobby Stone for the lead role. Stone later admitted that Young would have been better for the part, but his pride got in the way.
According to Stone, “Sean felt more and more encouraged to lobby for the role, even though we were already shooting. It got to a place where I said, “I’ve had enough!” … So we let her go. She tried to leave with some of the clothes from the movie, and we had a very tough producer who got the clothes back, and I heard she was in the streets of East Hampton, furious, and walking around half-naked.
There was also no love lost between Young and Sheen. Rumor has it that Sheen stuck a very vulgar note on Young’s back when she wasn’t looking. It did not say “Kick Me!”
Not the Boost She Needed
In 1988, Sean Young costarred with James Woods in the drama, The Boost. They played a married couple who fall on hard times when they both become addicted to cocaine. The movie was written by… Ben Stein? Yeah, the former Nixon speechwriter turned actor wrote the movie paired Sean Young and James Woods.
The Boost didn’t make much of an impression when it was released. Since then, it has largely been forgotten. If you remember it at all, it’s probably for the behind-the-scenes drama between Young and Woods. It’s hard to figure out exactly what went down between them. There were rumors of an affair which both actors have denied. But in 1989, Woods and his then-fiancée Sarah Owen, filed a $2-million-dollar harassment lawsuit against Sean Young claiming that she left headless baby dolls outside their doorstep.
The case was settled out of court. Years later, Young told Entertainment Weekly, “It boils down to two people plotting to set me up and make me look like I was a crazy person, partially because of their own mental illness, partially because of revenge.” By that point, Woods had married and divorced Sarah Owen who had accused him of spousal abuse. He replied, “I love and admire Sean and she’s actually half right.”
Regardless of who was at fault, the entire ordeal hurt Young’s career. Rumors swirled making Young out to be a crazy spurned lover out of Fatal Attraction. One urban legend denied by both Young and Woods claimed that she glued his private parts to his leg while he was asleep. Even if most of it was untrue, the public perception was that Young was a loon.
The Boost got mixed reviews although Roger Ebert certainly championed it. It had very little impact at the box office. And yet, it would surely impact Young’s career.
Batman Begins Without Her
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF1SdjdfGDY]
Around this time, an accident forced Young to drop out of Tim Burton’s Batman. Young was originally cast as Vicki Vale, but Young was injured while riding a horse.
The role was recast with Kim Basinger. Instead of a star-making turn in Batman, Young appeared in Cousins, a remake of a french comedy starring Ted Danson.
Cousins was directed by Joel Schumacher and co-starred Danson and William Peterson. Both actors would eventually go on to star on the TV show, CSI.
Director Joel Schumacher was warned against working with Young. But like Reiner, he enjoyed working with her:
”When I hired her for Cousins, I got a lot of phone calls from people saying I was crazy. Sean is an artist, and she doesn’t know how to monitor herself. She will pour out her emotional road map of the day to you, and it can be quite frightening.”
Cousins received mixed reviews and disappointed at the box office.
In 1990, Young starred opposite Nicolas Cage and Tommy Lee Jones in the Top Gun knock-off Fire Birds.
Continuing her tendency to be critical of her leading men, Young described Cage as “a really good actor who’s not very generous or good unless he can be weird in the part.”
Fire Birds got bad reviews and bombed at the box office. I honestly forgot that it even existed.
David Green, the director of Fire Birds, liked working with Young:
“I can’t praise her too highly. She is ruthlessly honest with everyone around her to the point of being blunt. She tends not to filter her thoughts. Some people might see that as being unsubtle or tactless, but there’s an in-built honesty and integrity there. She doesn’t try to hide her emotions. She needs personal attention, involvement in every element of the production, and constant reinforcement of her belief in herself. I think this movie may have brought her through something she needed to get through, both physically and mentally.”
Around the same time, Young was fired from Dick Tracy. The official reason was that she did not come across as maternal enough for the role of Tess Truehart. Young claims she was fired for refusing the advances of star and director, Warren Beatty. Beatty denies this accusation.
Young later described Beatty as “impossibly self-centered, more vain than any woman I’ve ever met, and obsessed with sex, his penis, and conquering women.” She claimed she “shocked and annoyed” Beatty by admitting she had never seen any of his movies except for Splendor in the Grass which she misidentified as Tender in the Grass. Young summed up her firing by saying she made Beatty look bad:
I made him look too old and didn’t respond to his endless hitting on me. One day, he said to me on the set, ‘When I get too old, I’ll just direct.’ I turned to him and said, ‘Oh, really? And when will that be?’
Young also filmed scenes for two Woody Allen movies. In 1989′ Crimes and Misdemeanors she played a character who was supposed to end up with Allen’s character at the end of the movie. And in Alice, she played one of Mia Farrow’s wealthy friends. In both cases, Allen cut Young’s scenes from the final movie.
According to Young, she parted on good terms with Allen:
Woody wrote me a letter saying, ‘Don’t feel bad about this. I was experimenting and my performance and your performance just didn’t work.’ He respects me a lot and I adore him.
In 1991, Young appeared in another modern film noir, A Kiss Before Dying.
Young is a natural for the noir genre, but she sleep-walks through her dual roles as wealthy twins pursued by Matt Dillon’s murderous social climber. Her performance was so bad, she won two Golden Raspberries. One for each twin. Sorry to say, they are richly deserved.
A Kiss Before Dying got mostly negative reviews. Roger Ebert championed the film, but it bombed anyway.
While audiences were ignoring Young’s latest release, she grabbed headlines for something else…
Obviously, Batman was a huge hit. So when the sequel was being cast, Young considered herself a front runner for the role of Catwoman. However, Burton wouldn’t see her.
So she showed up at Warner Brother studios in a homemade Catwoman costume and demanded to be seen. Reportedly, Burton hid under his desk.
Later, Young made the unfortunate decision to take her one-Catwoman show on the road. She appeared in her homemade Catwoman costume on the Joan Rivers show and once again pleaded for the job.
Even as a fan of Young’s, I remember wondering what the hell she was thinking. Here’s footage of the train wreck in which Young pleads for the job while telling off Hollywood.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyUx73RJ51o]
The thing is, a lot of what Young says on the show is true. But you don’t go on TV and SAY it!
Years later, Young was still talking about the snub:
”I don’t know who got the idea that I wasn’t right for the part, but you know and I know that I’m exceedingly right for the part, and I don’t know what this bullshit is… ‘The fact that I made them see me, that aggressiveness on my part was just not allowed for women to do. If a guy had done that — if Jim Carrey had done that, if Sean Penn had done that — it would have been ‘Ha-ha, what balls!’ But for me it totally backfired.”
Following the Catwoman debacle, Sean Young retreated Hollywood for Arizona. She still worked, but her career suffered. Young later regretted leaving:
”I should have stood my ground and fought. If you’re not there to stand up for yourself, the rumor turns into a monster. I may have perceived it as self-preservation, but it had the effect of career derailment.”
In 1992, Young appeared as part of an ensemble in the shrill farce, Once Upon a Crime.
Crime was directed by Eugene Levy and co-starred John Candy, James Belushi (aka Jim or “the lesser Belushi”), Cybil Shepherd, Richard Lewis and George Hamilton.
In spite of all this talent, absoultely nothing funny ever happens. The cast just runs in circles and shouts all of their dialogue desperately trying to wring laughs where there are none.
I actually paid money to see this thing. But no one else did.
Later that year, Young appeared opposite Patrick Bergen (the creepy “enemy” in Sleeping With the Enemy) in the erotic thriller, Love Crimes.
I haven’t seen Love Crimes, but Wikipedia descibes it as follows:
Assistant district attorney Dana Greenway conspires with police lieutenant Maria Johnson to go after a serial sexual predator who identifies himself to his victims as “David Hanover,” a distinguished photographer.
Greenway goes undercover, changing her appearance and passing herself off as a repressed schoolteacher. She eventually encounters Hanover, who seduces her, photographs her nude and causes Lt. Johnson to believe that Greenway might actually have fallen under his spell.
Flashbacks to her troubled childhood, including abuse from a father who locked her in a closet, haunt Greenway as she attempts to come to her senses and get the better of Hanover, who clearly intends to humiliate and then kill her.
I don’t know whether or not Young’s character was killed. But I have to imagine Young was plenty humiliated by Love Crimes.
In 1993, Young had a small role in Gus Van Sant’s Even Cowgirl’s Get the Blues opposite Uma Thurman, Lorraine Bracco, Pat Morita, Keanu Reeves and Heather Graham.
Cowgirls was meant to be an edgy independent film, but the response to it was incredibly negative. Among the huge cast, Young was singled out for a Worst Supporting Actress Razzie nomination.
Young returned to comedy with Carl Reiner’s Basic Instinct spoof, Fatal Instinct.
Young co-starred with Armande Assante and Sherilyn Fenn. The film set out to parody several erotic thrillers of the time, but most of the jokes fell flat.
Reiner had concerns about Young’s reputation for being unhinged. But according to the veteran director, working with Young was a breeze:
”I was apprehensive when I first met her and I put it right to her: ‘You’re perfect for the role, but are you going to drive me crazy?’ And then I found out it was all a fairy tale…. She’s a very gifted comedienne and actress.”
Sean Young fan that I was, I actually paid to see this one too.
In 1994, Young appeared opposite Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.
Ace Ventura was Carrey’s first vehicle after years of appearing on the TV show In Living Color. Expectations were non-existent for the silly comedy. But Carrey’s brand of humor hit a nerve with audiences and Ace was a surprise smash.
Odds are, this is the last time you saw Sean Young on the big screen.
In 1995, Young appeared in the last movie I ever saw her in, Dr. Jekyl and Ms. Hyde.
The movie is supposed to be a comedy in which Tim Daly’s Dr. Jekyl transforms into sexy villain Helen Hyde played by Young. But the movie’s one joke isn’t very funny.
It’s basically The Nutty Professor except instead of Eddie Murphy in a fat suit, the joke is that Tim Daly grows boobs.
Daly told the AV Club that Ace Ventura inspired him to agree to the movie:
At certain points in my career, I’d tried to be a snob about material, and I thought, “This is a silly, stupid comedy.” But I’d just seen Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, and I thought that was stupid, but it was funny. And I thought, “Maybe this’ll be something. Maybe this’ll be stupid and funny!
When asked about what it was like to work with Yong, Daly insisted the reporter turn off the tape recorder. According to the interviewer, the story was “hysterical”. If I ever meet Daly, I’m going to ask to hear it.
Since 1995, Young has made a steady string of direct-to-video movies. She played Mena Suvari’s mom in the dark cheerleader comedy, Sugar and Spice. Young described working with Suvari:
I hear the movie is hilarious. It’s a little part, but I had fun. Talk about brave: I wear this big, scraggly hair and have a scratchy Southern voice. What’s nice about Mena is that it cheered her up greatly that I was in the movie. She asked me for autographs and she expressed to me her appreciation of my work. I feel very strongly that younger women dig me. Actually, I feel like a lot of women dig me.
And she has appeared in TV shows like One Tree Hill.
Young is a competent tap dancer and tried to get cast on the hit show, Dancing With the Stars. But when they rejected her, Young applied for and was cast on Skating With the Stars instead. Unfortunately, she wiped out and was eliminated early.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOOt8Oc9T98]
Young’s 2011 stay in rehab was shown on the VH1 reality series, Celebrity Rehab as a patient of celebrity ambulance-chaser Dr. Drew.
Around this time, Young appeared on The Late Show the purpose of which was to convince people that she is not in fact crazy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKdGopLaRic
In the interview, she discusses the whole Catwoman affair. And then she dons the outfit again. It’s meant as a joke. Funny or Crazy? You be the judge.
And then, at a 2012 Oscar party, there was this:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcwls-iHEME]
Young made headlines for getting arrested for striking a security guard after crashing an Oscar party. This comes after a high-profile incident in which a drunken Young was escorted from the Directors’ Guild Awards for heckling.
In 2012, Young appeared in the Epix original movie, Attack of the 50 Foot Cheerleader.
Attack of the 50 Foot Cheerleader was produced by Roger Corman. It aired in 3-D and was every bit as cheesy as it sounds without being much fun. It stars beauty queen Jena Sims as the giant cheerleader. Young plays her horrible mother who is only concerned with beauty.
I watched the movie primarily to see what Sean Young was up to. She makes a good stage mom, but the movie is terrible and her part is essentially a cameo.
In 2013, while promoting the low-budget Jug Face in which Young plays a scary redneck, she spoke on the subject of Ridley Scott’s rumored sequel to Blade Runner. According to Young:
When I met with them they didn’t make any offer-plans to include me. And when I called Ridley Scott’s office, he doesn’t call me back. So I guess they’re going to go, like, prequel or…I don’t know what they’re going to do. But my official opinion is that, if they don’t include me in it, everybody should boycott it. Because it’s stupid not to have me in it. It’s really stupid. That’s my opinion! I mean, you try to tell people something sensible in Hollywood and sometimes they just don’t listen, you know. And they usually pay the price too, because everybody’s an expert.
For the non-Blade Runner fans out there, let me remind you that Young played a robot. A robot who, in a key plot point of the original movie, will never age.
That seemed like it would present a major obstacle for Young’s involvement in a sequel to Blade runner. After all, more than twenty years had passed since the original movie. No one would be able to pass for a non-aging robot after two decades.
In 2017, the Blade Runner sequel finally happened. Young’s character from the first movie, Rachel, does make an appearance but Young didn’t film any new footage for the movie. Instead, through digital effects wizardry, her image was grafted onto actress Loren Peta. Young was on the set that day to serve as a creative consultant.
In 2018, Young was wanted for questioning by the NYPD burglary! Greg Kritikos, himself a recovering alcoholic, hired Young to direct his upcoming movie, Charlie Boy. The movie would have been Young’s directorial debut, but she was fired from the project. Kritikos claimed he was trying to offer Young a second chance. “I believed that she had changed her life.”
After Young was fired, she asked to come by the office in Queens to pick up her stuff. Kritikos claimed she never showed up when she was expected. When she did arrive, Young was caught on a security camera packing up several items including two $5,000 MacBooks.
Young initially responded to the accusations by claiming it was “a slander campaign in order to create a buzz about their film.”
The producers of Charlie Boy alleged that Young was drinking on the job. They said she had as many as 16 glasses of wine during her lunch break. Young flatly denied these charges as well. In fact, she said she quit the movie because “I didn’t end up respecting the people involved in the project.”
Eventually, the laptops were returned and all charges were dropped. Young waved the whole thing off as a misunderstanding. “I gathered what I believed to be my property but later discovered I was mistaken.”
So, what the hell happened?
First, Young missed a key career opportunity when an accident forced her to drop out of Batman. Then she alienated a lot of her co-workers with behavior that they found too aggressive. I’ll give Young credit for the argument that the same behavior probably would have been acceptable from a male actor. But double standard or no, it hurt her career.
Young gained a reputation for being, well, crazy. A lot of the more off-the-wall rumors probably aren’t true. But her public intoxication is well documented. If she’s not crazy, she’s at least unpredictable.
In 2007, Young told Entertainment Weekly she was a “comeback waiting to happen”. With trademark modest, Young explained, ”No one deserves it more than I do. So what I would wish for me is good luck. Just a lot of good luck.”
But then again, what do I know? Sean Young herself dropped by in 2011 to voice her opinion of this article. I’ll let her have the last word:
Dear Mr Lebeau, you actually must be full of it, or just another member of the psychopathic community. You have no idea what you are talking about as far as it concerns descriptions about me. What is it about you psycho’s? You are the one spreading toxic waste, not me, as evidenced by your meaningless dribble here on your pointless blog. Get a life! Sean Young
Dear Mr Lebeau, you actually must be full of it, or just another member of the psychopathic community. You have no idea what you are talking about as far as it concerns descriptions about me. What is it about you psycho’s? You are the one spreading toxic waste, not me, as evidenced by your meaningless dribble here on your pointless blog. Get a life! Sean Young
: ) Love you Sean, can’t wait for your comeback! : )
Okay, I was doubtful at first. But I verified her info and this was really posted by Sean Young! Ms Young – Or any other celeb I have written about or will write about – It’s all meant in fun. As I have said over and over in various articles and comments, I have a great deal of affection for everyone I write about. Obviously, it can’t be personal. We’ve never met and never will. As always, I wish all of my subjects the best both personally and professionally. Thanks for reading. I have never been more honored to be… Read more »
Dear Sean Young, I agree with you. It’s self-aborbed directors, actors, and columnists (who are so full of themselves they’re left wondering why a fine actress like you didn’t trip all over herself for a night with them) that think they’ve said the last word about you–they haven’t. You’ve been spurned by Hollywood, but you’re NOT crazy, because your sons are your legacy of your sanity, as well as all your work recorded on films for many of us, who miss and support you, to keep enjoying. [Such as: after your Susan Atwell character was murdered in No Way Out… Read more »
Sean Young: taking bat-shiat crazy to the next level since 1980-something.
So true. At least she looked good doing it.
Thanks LeBeau! Once again, you’ve left no stones unturned! It’s moments like this that I ponder life, and why things are the way they are. I mean, she had it F’ING made LeBeau! All she had to do was NOT act psycho, but as you’ve explained that very quality just seemed to escalate over the years. The archival film that you uncovered of her appearance as Catwoman on the Joan Rivers show is legendary. I honestly turned away at one point out of embarassment. That is some powerfully implosive footage. Not to dwell on it, but: SHE HANDMADE A CATWOMAN… Read more »
Glad you enjoyed it and thanks for the suggestion! Sean Young was a perfect candidate for this column. But that also meant she was totally off my radar. Yeah, she’s done some TV work and a slew of direct-to DVD movies. I meant to include this in the article, but I’ll just include it here in the comments. If anyone wants to read a great interview with a post-fame Sean Young, here is an interview Young did with Entertainment Weekly in 2007: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20056516,00.html Good stuff. Sean Young definitely shot herself in the foot. I also think she had some bad… Read more »
I respect her for going after the role with such gusto. It may have been too much, but had she gotten the role and killed it (as I believe she would have), she would have been hailed for her gutsiness. I think in this article you focus a bit too much on her eccentric behavior, and not other reasons her career may have stalled. She was a beautiful lady, more so than most of the leading actresses of her time, and she could act, e.g. The Boost. I am a fan, and loved the Boost and No Way Out. She… Read more »
Fair enough. Although, I don’t think you can focus too heavily on her eccentric behavior.
I was just reading an interview this morning with Tim Daly who starred with Young in Dr. Jeckyl and Ms. Hyde. The reporter asked Daly what it was like to work with Young. Daly said he would only tell his story about Young off the record. Unfortunately, Daly’s story didn’t get relayed in the article since it was off the record. But the reporter said it was hysterical.
For every story I included, there are likely dozens that never got told.
She took the advice everyone hears all the time, “Do something, even if it’s wrong.” Thereupon, everyone jumps down her throat.
I don’t think that even begins to scratch the surface of where Sean Young went wrong.
Yes, there is no doubt that it’s wrongfully less acceptable for a woman to act out aggressively. I personally don’t find Val Kilmer’s behavior to be any more acceptable though. And as far as the James Woods stuff goes, I actually don’t buy his story. James Woods has had his own legal problems over the years, and quite frankly when you have two different kinds of nuts in the mix, it doesn’t always make a party. No, she definitely got the raw deal on that one. I think they were both out of line, but he came out on top.… Read more »
Agreed on the James Woods stuff. I remember reading an interview with him in Miovieline magazine probably about a decade ago. My god that man talks a lot of shit! According to Woods, he bagged and dumped just about every actress in Hollywood. He talked about Sean Young in that interview of course. But the story that stuck out to me was one he told about breaking up with Heather Graham. In his story, they had just finished in the bedroom. And Graham says, “James, you just like me because I’m blonde and have big tits.” Cause you know, that’s… Read more »
Actually, that Woods interview is available on-line. Here’s a link if you’re interested. The Heather Graham story is on page 2. But it makes for a good read.
http://www.movieline.com/2000/02/james-woods-the-man-who-loves-women.php?page=1
Agreed. Oh, and by the way, the Joan Rivers clip comes across with an extra bit of creepiness without the audio.
Looking forward to the next one! I’ll let you know if I think of anybody, but it will be tough to top the triple Batman threat of Keaton-Kilmer-Young!
Yeah, people ask about Keaton cause they genuinely miss the guy. They ask about Kilmer and Young cause those two are crazy! Whoever I spotlight next, they probably can’t live up to Kilmer and Young in terms of fireworks.
I did find the silent Joan Rivers clip extra creepy as well. You can imagine what she was saying. I vaguely recall he talking in a weird Ertha Kitt from the 60’s TV show kind of camp. And Joan was playing along like it was the funniest thing ever.
Holy crap! Sean Young is on Celebrity Rehab! I wondered why so many people were Googling her all the sudden!
I think she was just on Y&R. Didn’t make the connection until just now.
You are correct. She did a stint on Y&R last year.
And of course she can currently be seen on Celebrity Rehab and my blog.
Yes, her latest gig is LeBlog (part of the reason why I knew it was her). Out of all the celebrities you’ve covered, only Sean would have the gumption to actually post here – that’s a compliment Sean, don’t get mad.
Sean, you do constantly feed us new material:
http://blog.moviefone.com/2008/01/29/crazy-sean-young-ejected-from-dga-awards-show/
I’m a little shocked that you’re surprised by the fact that people find your antics interesting blog fodder. I think when you posted here, you may have added another “Sean moment” to your list.
All the best to you. I think you’re a great actress.
Crazy is as crazy does, right? I think that all of the money and attention and just Hollywood of it gets to some of them. I don’t think that everyone is cut out to handle the strain that the movie business puts on people. Very few have what it takes to get into the business and make a few movies. Only the really strong willed and strong minded make it to the top of the heap. Personally, I don’t know how more of them don’t go crazy. I know I couldn’t do that kind of work. Too much of anything… Read more »
I think you’ve summed that up rather nicely.
I definitely agree that it takes a really grounded person to not act crazy once in a while in that business. My undergraduate degree is actually in acting. The technique I was taught can be personally/emotionally dangerous if used inappropriately. And that’s just the actual work. Never mind the crazy that can be instilled through fame, money, etc. I never enjoyed any real success (I am now a medical proffessional and I do theatre in my free time) but the egos that were apparently necessary just to keep yourself going at a pretty low level were sometimes alarming/amusing. The nature… Read more »
That’s a good point. In order to survive in the business, it takes a certain kind of personality…
why I left after working in one of the top three hollywood talent’s agencies then . . .two years was enough, and I saw all of this up close, made my decision to go into grad school for psychology , this was a perfect introduction . . . . 🙂
I KNEW I had read this and not imagined it:
http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-sean-young-debacle-now-with-video,9944/
And the slightly more respectable:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/nyregion/07bold.html?_r=4&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Great find! Thanks for the links.
Is that the same incident that I linked above or did she do this more than once? Sean, I love your work, you’re a great actress!!!
Same one, different angle. Thanks, Geo & L! I believe she reads here. I truly hope she hits my AC blog, I will I have 8 years clean come December and hang out with a lot of folks from AA (I am in the OTHER fellowship). We are NOT a glum lot, heck I think I am wilder clean & sober. Anyhow, if you gotta hide or be ashamed of something from ‘partying’, some DEEP introspection is due.If you have an addiction and do nothing about it, jails, institutions, and death are what awaits. AND not in that particular order.… Read more »
Your contributions to the discourse are always welcome!
I have my doubts Ms. Young will be coming back to this (pointless) site. Which is a shame. I get the impression she didn’t actually read the article or the comments since we are all fans of hers.
Here’s hoping she comes out on the right side of things.
Terribly sad. She was truly mesmerizing in Bladerunner. Who would have guessed it would not work out for her at the time? A girl so beautiful and full of talent..
I kept waiting for Sean Young to hit big. I really expected Ace Ventura to serve as a bit of a comeback. But, I’m wrong a lot.
Whenever I see a spike in the site stats, I know one of my “What the Hell Happened subjects has made headlines. Usually, it means Val Kilmer can’t pay his bills or Sean Young is in rehab. (The weekend someone spread a rumor that Eddie Murphy had died in a car crash was surprising.) But now, we’re back to the usual suspects. ————– Los Angeles police say actress Sean Young was placed under citizen’s arrest after a fight at the official post-Oscars party. The 52-year-old star of Blade Runner and Stripes was arrested at the Governor’s Ball Sunday evening and… Read more »
HA! I just read about this on MSNBC. Good lord what a loon. Saddest thing is they refer to her as “star of Blade Runner”. As in we only remember her from something 30 years ago. How and why is she still able to dress up in furs and try to crash these parties? Could someone this messed up possibly have invested her money wisely enough that she’s still living off the procedes??? Maybe she’ll pop in here again and give us the answer!
It has got to be humiliating to be famous but have to sneak into an Oscars party. I sympathize with that…but she’s kinda forcing the issue, isn’t she? So often, the path of least resistence is the right one.
I saw a video of her leaving the police station. She was incoherent. Getting arrested at the Oscars for fighting (I assume under the influence of something) is the definition of an avoidable problem. If I’m not invited, I don’t show. And if I do sneak in, you bet your ass I’m on my best behavior.
But then, I’m not Sean Young. The train wreck aspect is all she has left.
sean young was talented then when she did blade runner and stripes, but then later on in life she got to be a real looney toon. i wasn’t used to seeing her in dr. jekyll and ms. hyde. it kind of seemed weird before the remake of the nutty professor. i heard ridley scott is doing another sequel to blade runner as well as a prequel to alien. if the sequel to blade runner is good like the original i also hope harrison ford reprises his role as rick deckard the android hunter cop that ridley scott now thinks is… Read more »
If Deckard is an android, it completely ruins the point of the movie which is that Roy is more human than Deckard.
I like Ridley Scott, but I have low expectations of his Blade Runner and Alien-inspired projects. I’ll be surprised if Ford or Young return.
If Deckard is an android why does he get his butt kicked by every other replicant?
It just doesn’t make any sense- films need internal logic.
I have never bought that Deckard was a replicant. I don’t care what Scott says. Deckard being a replicant ruins the movie. I wrote a piece on it a while back.
If you havn’t seen it, I can heartily recommend checking out her performance in the somewhat obscure “Cousins”. The movie is only so-so, but she’s great as the selfish uber-bitch wife of Ted Danson. Someone should really cast her in a similar role
I actually saw Cousins when it was out in theaters. I skipped over it in the article because it’s kind of a forgotten movie, but I remember enjoying it.
At this point, why would anyone want to take a chance casting Sean Young? She’s a liability. She needs to get herself together before anyone’s going to take a chance on her. If she does that (and stops making headlines for the wrong reasons) I could see her making a comeback ala Jessica Lange on American Horror Story.
She not crazy….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA4fw6vqX2E
lol – I hadn’t seen that before. Thanks for sharing.
I stand corrected. Sean Young is the picture of “not crazy”.
you’d thinki somebody would think to co star her with Gary Busey in something. That actually could be really funny. I’m sure they would be both up for it
That’s a reality show I would watch! Just turn on the cameras and let the sparks fly. I wonder how long before Sean Young shows up on Celeb Apprentice…
Since Young was in ‘Blade Runner,’ I thought this would be the appropriate place to ask this. This may sound bizarre, but would a “What the hell happened to Harrison Ford?” article be feasible? First, a confession: I actually enjoyed “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” mainly because it was such a treat seeing Ford as Indy again. What I disliked about the movie wasn’t the aliens or that ‘nuke the fridge’ thing (hey, was it any worse than Indy’s old man killing birds in order to stop that Nazi plane?), but rather the obvious CGI prairie… Read more »
Ford was one of my top candidates up until Crystal Skull gave him a bit of a career bump. The criteria have changed a little. These days, I will write up people who are still working as long as they are no longer on the A-list. So Ford is very high on my list of people to profile.
And I agree with you about Indy 4. I had a great time wathcing it for the nostalgia factor. And really, the Indy sequels had already dropped the bar pretty low.
“Otherwise, the last film Ford did that I thought was actually good was ‘What Lies Beneath.’” Unrelated story about that: I was working in video rentals when that movie was released, and one night a guy calls up and says (imagine this spoken by a gravelly-voiced, dumb-sounding Southern drunk): “Uh, have ya’ got ‘Whut Lies Beneath Michelle Pfeiffer’?” Begs a lot of amusing but inappropriate replies, right? He insisted this was the title we’d posted in the store for the movie. As it turned out, he’d seen a poster we had in the can up front which had the stars’… Read more »
lol
I’ll continue the drift. I was standing in line to buy tickets and the guy in front of me asks for 2 for “Jurassic Hillbillies”. Turns out the theater was splitting a screen between Jurassic Park and the Beverly Hillbillies and had abbreviated both titles with one word on the same line.
Who wouldn’t want to watch Jurassic Hillbillies if such a thing existed?
“Jurassic Hillbillies” Starring Woody Harrelson, Gary Busey, Jessica Simpson, and Larry the Cable Guy. Coming in 2013 to theatres way too close to you.
Like many of you I’m equally enthousiastic about MSY. From the publicly available pieces I have gathered I think she’s struggling with her identity. On multiple occasions one can hear she talks about her introversion( and how that is an obstacle in her life). I suspect that she not smiling about her obstacles is her real obstacle. It’s sheer intuïtion talking. She’s a good person.