How I liked Sean Young. She could be elegant and sophisticated, like the replicant Rachel in Blade Runner, but also a feisty Fremen in Dune or a fearless helicopter pilot in Firebirds.
During the 80s she was raffled off, she worked with great directors, her films were acclaimed, unforgettable that scene in the limousine with Kevin Costner in No way out (No Way Out).
And she could have had many other great roles, but in the '90s, a mix of bad luck, personal clashes, and professional decline ended up driving her off the Hollywood scene. What has become of her?
"On the set of Blade Runner Harrison Ford was never happy," Sean Young once recounted. The only time he was happy was when they told him that he was done ».
It has always seemed very curious to me how different an actor's perspective can be in his work and the 'film' that we put on in our heads when we go to the movies or watch television. For me, as for many others, Blade Runner is a masterpiece, something perfect and worthy of adore. And although over time it became a cult film, and in the opinion of many, it is the best interpretation of Sean Young, it seems that for her the experience was not so pleasant, much less her relationship with Harrison Ford, a friction that seems to have it came from pearls to the icy romance between Rachel and Deckard.
But it wasn't all great roles, even in his golden 80s. He also did his commercial botch, like Baby, the secret of a lost legend, with the 'great American hero', and some of his performances suffered drastic footage cuts as in Wall Street (1987) due to his open confrontations with his co-star Charlie Sheen.
He also missed the boat with some films, such as The Princess Bride (1987), where he was going to be Princess Buttercup, a role that ultimately went to Robin Wright, and especially Batman (1989), where he was going to be the journalist Vicki Vale.
In fact, she was already incorporated into the filming of the Tim Burton movie when she had the bad luck of falling from a horse and breaking her arm. Result: she gave Kim Basinger one of her most remembered roles. But her misfortunes had only just begun.
In 1988, she starred with James Woods in the film Sensual Impulse (1988) and it seems that there was some chemistry between them, with explosive results: some time later Woods sued the actress, assuring that she was harassing him and his then partner, to the one who left creepy messages on the phone, and who had even left a disfigured doll at the door of her house.
Sean Young denied everything, including that there had been a relationship between them, because at that time she was already dating the one who would later become her husband, the actor and singer Robert Lujan, whom she met in a television mini-series. in 1985 called Blood and Orchids.
James Woods and Sean Young went to court and although in the end they reached an agreement between them, the bad publicity marked her career.
"There were a lot of rumors going around about me. And since I didn't defend myself, my absence helped create even more rumors“Sean Young said in an interview.
Hollywood producers began to look at her with different eyes: they saw her as unbalanced and that seemed to be confirmed with Dick Tracy (1990), where she was going to play Tess Trueheart. They finally settled on another actress, because they thought Sean Youn wasn't "motherly" enough for the role.
She proclaimed to the four winds that her dismissal had been a punishment for not reciprocating some alleged attempts by Warren Beatty, claims that Beatty denied.
"I was being s*xually harassed by him. This kind of thing was not news to anyone. There is a rule in Hollywood that is never broken: don't tell the truth about people to the press. I broke that rule and paid a very, very big price," the actress later lamented.
When Tim Burton returned to the Batman franchise, Sean was excited to play the role of Catwoman but the producers weren't looking to play her. Then, outraged, she put on a classic Catwoman costume and immediately appeared on a television show to protest against the producers and blame them for the fact that they owed her that opportunity for her lost role as Viki Vale after the horse accident. . Do not miss it here, at minute 4.36:
Unsurprisingly, she was not given the part, which went to Michelle Pfeiffer. Catwoman was added to her list of missing roles, which are massive in her career. To those already mentioned we must also add that of Marion in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and that of Blythe Hunter in the series Wicked Wicked Games (2006), which she lost due to a confrontation with the producers (again). Even Woody Allen 'cut' her from two of his films, Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) and Alice (1990), in whose final cut she dispensed with the scenes in which she appeared.
The 90s were the fateful time for her. Sean Young sought solace in comedy (or maybe it was the only thing he was offered), with movies like Fatal Distraction (1993), a compilation of murder thriller parodies and clichés, and Ace Ventura, a detective with a difference ( 1994), in which she played a transs*xual police officer in a scene that, by the way, has been considered a great example of transphobia.
Ace Ventura was a huge commercial success but it didn't exactly help Sean Young's career. She was only offered mediocre roles in mediocre movies, so she retired with her husband and her two children to Arizona. But even that didn't work out for him, because they divorced in 2002.
She also suffered other losses and incidents, such as the painful deaths of her father (in 1995) and her mother (in 2012), several episodes of brawls at galas, such as the one she starred in in 2012, when she was arrested at an Oscars after party for slapping a security guard.
She until then she had moved on with independent and / or foreign films. In this regard, she highlighted her performance as the popular dancer Isadora Duncan in the Russian mini-series Esenin (2005). She also participated in individual episodes of series such as ER, C.S.I.: Las Vegas and One Tree Hill.
In 2010 she participated in the Skating with the Stars contest but was eliminated in the first round.
Finally, she opted for another television reality show that, apparently, was more in line with her profile: Celebrity Rehab, where she accepted that a problem with alcoholism had dragged her through much of her life and she was willing to overcome it and make a clean slate.
Since then, it seems that she has found a balance in her life. Her ex-husband Robert Lujan went to visit her during her rehabilitation process and they reconciled. She remarried in 2011 and already in her fifties, with her children already grown, she continues to work actively with small roles in small productions and also wants to go into directing.
Among her most curious works in recent years, in 2013 she participated in the pilot episode of a series created by Star Trek fans called Star Trek: Renegades, in which other actors linked to the galactic franchise such as Walter Koenig (Chevov ).
She now calls herself Mary Sean Young, perhaps in an attempt to 'reset' her life.
