Guys - for once, I am in total agreement!
I watched the show last night and don't think I stopped smiling once all the way through it! Seagal is an absolute legend going on that show and, in all fairness, I wasn't expecting much from him - in fact, I feared it could have gone horribly wrong.
For those who don't know, The Friday Night Project is a show here on UK TV which is hosted by two buffoons who like to take the pi$$ out of everyone and everything. However, I think that the long-haired guy especially (Justin Lee Collins) is a major fan, and, for the most part, Seagal was treated with the reverence and respect he deserves. Of course, there was a bit of ribbing, but Seagal took it in good humour, and a couple of times could be seen and heard roaring with laughter at some of the BS the two presenters were coming out with!
The audience treated Seagal with mega-respect - he pretty much got a standing ovation when he was announced and everyone seemed to love the guy - he is a total legend.
Onto the man himself - recent photographs don't do him justice - Seagal looked absolutely awesome - he looked healthy, tanned, (a lot) slimmer and in great shape. Even his hair (which usually looks horrible, in my opinion), looked pretty good. His appearance last night reminded me a lot of how he looked in Fire Down Below, when he was still in shape, but not quite as slim as he was in earlier movies. He looked like a big bear!
As for the show itself, it was billed as being guest presented by Seagal - I took this to mean that he would be on the show for like, about ten minutes or so, but in actual fact, he was on the show from the beginning and actually did more presenting that the two presenters! Right from the outset he was smiling and cracking jokes - he asked where all the action stars of today had gone and then said about Schwarzenegger: "The Terminator has teamed up with a man even older than he is who is even more hell-bent on destroying the world" and displayed a photograph of Arnie pictured with George Bush. He took the pi$$ out of the UK's recent bird flu outbreak and at one point said that even though he is a love god(!), he has had such a good time presenting the show with Justin and Alan that he was thinking about turning gay!
At one point he had to pick someone out of the audience who looked most like an evil bad guy from his movies... so he goes out into the audience and chooses the fittest girl he can see, with massive boobs and wearing a tight yellow top! Awesome!
At one point, Justin (who is 6'3" tall) stood up at the same time as Seagal and Seagal was absolutely towering over him! "How tall are you, Steven?" he asked. "6'5"" came the bored reply!
All in all, I think the show was a massive success - it was so cool to see Seagal on British tv, cracking jokes, smiling and having a great time. His demeanour was far removed from the usual surly behaviour and attitude towards journalists and interviewers that we have come to know. Although I don't think he understood some of the humour of the two presenters, he was a great sport and never stopped laughing for the full hour.
In the shape he is in at the moment, it definitely wouldn't be implausible for him to do Under Siege 3. His appearance on the show last night will have only served to win him new fans, rather than (as I first feared) turn his already strained fans away from him.
He needs to make the most of this recent success and really make some kick ass movies again. After a recent downturn in the quality of his movies (and - no matter how big a fan you are, you cannot deny that his output over the last six years or so has been poor quality), he can grab this opportunity with both hands and it would be a great shame if he goes back to making shoddy, badly dubbed, stunt doubled movies again. I'd rather have one big budget awesome movie (like Under Siege 3) than 10 crappy poor quality low budget ones.
Peace,
G-Man
BTW - mods - I used the word crappy in the last paragraph - you'd better sharpen your booger-picking fingers and edit that out, just in case we offend anyone on your 'PG-13' site.