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There was a time when Blade Runner star Sean Young was one of Hollywood's hottest young
talents, putting together a string of roles in a number of noteworthy films.
By the mid-1990s, however, she'd retreated from the spotlight, and these days, you're
far more likely to see Young in low-budget indies and reality television.
What went wrong?
Well, it's kind of a long story…
Trouble in Tinseltown
Throughout much of the 1980s, Sean Young was a bona fide star.
She landed roles in Stripes and Blade Runner, and her career continued to trend upwards
with pics like Dune and No Way Out.
However, her relationship with Hollywood began to sour when she claimed she was the recipient
of some creepy advances from a Hollywood bigwig who, when she turned him down, attempted to
stifle her career.
She later mused to Entertainment Weekly, "The city of angels?
It's the city of devils.
The city of smiling cobras.
This [town] eats venom for breakfast … I've been forced to deal with my character assassination.
I never hurt anybody in this business, ever."
But while she might not have hurt anyone herself, she did manage to make a few off-screen scenes
that subsequently steamrolled her own reputation.
The wolf of Wall Street
When Sean Young was cast to star in Oliver Stone's 1987 hit drama Wall Street, she was
expected to have a more significant role in the film than what made it into theaters.
However, her part was ultimately cut down after she feuded with the director and co-star
Charlie Sheen — and had to be removed from the set as a result.
As she told The Hollywood Reporter, "He cut my part because I wasn’t good at taking
sh*t, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles."
After that, she faced a string of additional career setbacks.
After landing the role of Tess Trueheart in *** Tracy, she was kicked to the curb after
creative differences with actor-director Warren Beatty — whom she claimed fired her for
declining his *** advances.
Things got even worse when she charged into the studio wearing a homemade Catwoman suit
in an infamous bid to land a role in Batman Returns after losing her role in the original
Batman after a horse-riding accident.
"I would've been in a big box office hit.
I would've been able to go on to other big box office hits."
Things got so bad that, after casting Young in his 1989 picture Cousins, director Joel
Schumacher said he was bombarded by people warning him not to work with her.
He explained, "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."
Schumacher might've been willing to take a chance on Sean Young, but clearly others were
not.
Battling it out
Young also attracted years of negative press when James Woods — her on-screen husband
in The Boost — filed a harassment lawsuit against her, following a rumored real-life
affair and an alleged on-set romance.
Woods reportedly dumped his on-screen wife and returned to his real-world fiancée — something
Young allegedly didn't handle very well.
Woods claimed Young sent him anonymous hate mail and even an iodine-soaked doll with a
slit throat.
The FBI got === involved… and the more the tabloid press followed the story, the more
difficult it became to discern the truth from the rumors.
Though Young still denies everything, and the twisted Hollywood lovers' quarrel was
settled out of court, her public profile never quite recovered from the incident.
Stunt work
Sean Young would again make headlines for all the wrong reasons when she attempted to
crash Vanity Fair's Oscar party in 2006.
She showed up and gave a few poses before heading into the party.
The problem was, however, that she wasn't invited — so she was detained by security
and forced to leave.
She told Entertainment Weekly that the experience "was degrading … But when you have nothing
to lose, it's really not that big of a deal."
Sadly, this wouldn't be the only time Young would be escorted from a high-profile event.
At the 2008 Directors Guild of America Awards, she heckled director Julian Schnabel as he
accepted an award for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
Young was promptly escorted from the premises after that.
She then checked herself into rehab for alcohol addiction, but she hardly learned her lesson
about awards show decorum.
In 2012, while trying to gain entry into The Governor's Ball, Young was denied on the grounds
that she wasn't invited.
She was asked to leave and then came back, at which point she was placed under citizen's
arrest and booked for misdemeanor battery.
She later claimed to have been sober during the incident and demanded an apology from
the Academy for mistreating her.
Reality bites
Amidst her career decline, Sean Young turned to the reality TV scene to collect what earnings
she could.
She had a very brief run on Skating With the Stars and also appeared on Celebrity Rehab
with Dr. Drew.
She might've joined the projects for the paychecks, but she told The Hollywood Reporter, "I did
have a really good time on it because I learned a lot and I went on to really [stop] my drinking.
I don't drink anymore, so that made a big difference."
However, while she has continued to quietly work and appear as herself on-screen, she
doesn't expect her career to ever return to its original luster.
As she told The Guardian, "It’s like putting a beautiful racehorse out to pasture before
her time and then after 20 years expecting her to be the same horse."
Speaking of horses, she also bit the hand that fed her when she insisted that Blade
Runner fans boycott the eventual sequel if she wasn't in it … and while she did make
it back into the movie, it was only by way of a motion-capture, computer-generated revival
of her original appearance.
Ouch.
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