Originally posted by Disciple
I see what you're saying there TDWoj, but I don't think he's being especially coy about his weight. I think people make it an issue because Hollywood is so appearance-fixated, and everyone "has to be thin". Seagal may be heavy now, but there's no denying he carries it well. The only film where he was slim was Above the Law, in every one since then he's been heavy, but as fans we still accepted him. As I've said before, the only problem I have with his weight is if it's going to impact his fight scenes in a negative way (which it HAS done).
But I don't think he's coy about it. He doesn't seem to care about it as much as others do. He looks comfortable with it, and seems just as happy in recent pics as he was in older pics, even given his bad Hollywood reputation and the fact that he's basically straight to video now. He doesn't look like he's unhappy or shy about his weight is what I'm saying.
Maybe not in publicity shots (he was *enormous* at that Victoria's Secret book launch in February, but the Moscow pictures look like he's lost weight since then), but in the films? Actually, I think he is quite coy about it. The Glimmer Man, for instance - he's constantly hiding behind filing cabinets and papers, or, because he's wearing black most of the time, standing at a certain angle so you can't see his paunch.
In HPD, he's wearing long coats, and that loose, baggy prison outfit, so you can't tell how big he is underneath. He's photographed from cutesy angles so you can't see his double chin. In fact, you hardly even get a good look at him even in the scenes where he is supposed to fighting. All you see is a hand, or an arm (and we have to hope it's him, not his stunt double).
In The Foreigner, it's the same thing - notice he never takes his coat off, even when he's indoors? And again, he's being photographed from odd angles. And in the next to last scene, where he opens his coat to holster his pistol, just before he goes back to the cafe - that's a double, a nice, slender, svelte, flat-tummy double we see, not him.
Even as early as MFD, he's being coy about his weight - I mean, get a load of those jackets he was wearing. Talk about camoflauge....
It could be that in OFAK he's finally admitted to himself - and the rest of the world - that he's gone portly, so he - and we - will just have to live with it. If that's the case, then we should see him fight the way he used to, because *now* he doesn't care. But in the aforementioned pictures - oh, yes. He cares very much.
-TD, 'way too observant. But then, I'm one of those awful females.