By Matt R. Allen (@MattAllenAI)
Star Buzz Daily • Hollywood | Comedy | True Stories
I once watched my mom hijack my wedding to read a personal letter from Steven Seagal. She stood up, grinning, and said:
“Mr. Seagal couldn’t be here today, but he did send this note…”
Then she read it, word for word, as if quoting scripture:
“Dear Matt, congratulations on selling your script… I’m always interested in good stories… Sincerely, Mister Steven Seagal.”
My best man collapsed laughing. My bride’s face froze. My dad’s went crimson. That surreal moment became the seed for my most personal screenplay — Son of Seagal, a true and embarrassing story — A Hollywood comedy I had no choice but to write.
The Story Behind the Story
Son of Seagal follows a young screenwriter whose idol turns out to be the least of his problems. It’s a film about a father who thinks he’s a martial-arts demigod, a mother addicted to nasal spray, and a son trying to survive both. It’s not based on a true story — it is one.
Years before I wrote Four Christmases, I was a kid from Sacramento obsessed with Seagal’s Above the Law. When my mom wrote the star a fan letter “on my behalf,” we somehow wound up meeting him on the Warner Bros. lot. He told me, “To make it in this town, you’ve got to create something from nothing.” So I did — I created a movie about the absurdity of believing that advice too literally.
Read the Screenplay If Do Dare
Why It Still Matters
Hollywood is obsessed with origin stories, but few are as ridiculous — or as real — as this one. Son of Seagal is about the blurred line between hero worship and self-delusion, between the movies we watch and the ones we live. If The Disaster Artist and The Royal Tenenbaums had a baby raised on VHS action tapes and bad karate, this would be it.
The Takeaway
Steven Seagal once taught me how to “create something from nothing.”
Turns out, that “something” was both my career — and a lifetime of therapy fodder. So thank you, Sensei. You were the muse I never saw coming.