Steven Seagal

Steven Frederic Seagal is an American actor, producer, screenwriter, martial artist, and musician. A 7th-dan black belt and shihan in Aikikai aikido, he began his adult life as a martial arts instructor in Japan where he became the first non-Japanese and American to operate an aikido dojo. He later moved to Los Angeles where he continued teaching aikido. In 1988, Seagal made his acting debut in Above the Law, which is regarded as the first American film to feature aikido in fight sequences. By 1991, he had starred in three commercially successful films, and would go on to achieve greater fame in Under Siege (1992), where he played Navy SEAL counter-terrorist expert Casey Ryback, a role he reprised in the sequel Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995). In 1994, he starred in his directorial debut film On Deadly Ground. During the latter half of the 1990s, Seagal starred in three more feature films and the direct-to-video film The Patriot. Subsequently, his career shifted to mostly direct-to-video productions.