Entertainment
When Steven Seagal broke Sean Connery’s wrist
(Credit: Far Out / YouTube Nonetheless / Warner Bros)
Years earlier than he gained traction within the business as a ponytailed practitioner of martial arts in a string of B-tier motion motion pictures, Steven Seagal scored considered one of his first jobs in Hollywood on essentially the most hotly-contested James Bond film ever made.
Regardless that he went uncredited, Sean Connery established that Seagal was very a lot concerned within the battle choreography for 1983’s By no means Say By no means Once more, which proved mighty detrimental to the enduring star’s well being after he significantly overestimated his personal familiarity with hand-to-hand fight methods.
Connery might have held a black belt within the Kyokushin self-discipline of karate, however he was a younger man then. When he agreed to return as 007 within the unofficial story that solely existed resulting from a long-running authorized battle relationship again to the Nineteen Sixties, he was effectively into his 50s and hardly a spring rooster. Positive, he could still play a tough guy on-screen, however he received greater than he bargained for when he examined Seagal.
By that time, the aspiring actor had already been coaching relentlessly for many years, and whereas it needs to be taken with a pinch of salt that he secretly educated CIA brokers, as he would recurrently go on to assert, it might’t be denied that by the point By no means Say By no means Once more started manufacturing, Seagal was an aikido black belt who owned and operated a dojo in Los Angeles.
It had been a dozen years since Connery final threw on the tux in 1971’s Diamonds Are Without end, and whereas he wasn’t precisely off form on the time, he wanted to get combating match to persuade each himself and audiences that he had enough gas left in the tank to persuade because the suave undercover agent. Not solely as a result of he was three years youthful than present official incumbent Roger Moore, however as a result of By no means Say By no means Once more was heading to cinemas mere months after Eon Productions’ Octopussy.
Not {that a} celebrity of his calibre had something to show, however that didn’t forestall him from getting a contact too large for his boots nonetheless. Admitting to Jay Leno that “there was a risk I used to be going to do aikido and what have you ever,” Connery made the error of pondering his personal expertise in martial arts matched as much as Seagal’s.
The unique 007 praised his reverse quantity for being “actually very, superb,” whereas Connery “received a little bit cocky as a result of I assumed I knew what I used to be doing.” Throughout their sparring session, by his personal admission, the actor “received a bit flash” attempting to sq. as much as Seagal, who promptly broke his wrist.
Regardless of being in severe ache, Connery had a popularity to keep up and soldiered on via the bodily demanding shoot of By no means Say By no means Once more, with Seagal lucky the A-lister didn’t resolve to attempt to sink his business aspirations there after which for making a idiot out of him.
