Edward Norton's Appreciation of Steven Seagal | Joe Rogan

Did you ever see any of Steven Zagal when he was very young? When he was teaching in Japan? I was totally fast. I mean, it's like, it's really... It's weird, right? Like me, right? Like act... like serious actor, thoughtful actor. I'm like, what did you know? But I, like, above the law. Yeah. Because I was into all that stuff when above the law came out. And there was the scene in Above the Law. He's in an Aikido, you know, gi with the black thing. And he's doing this thing. And I was like, oh my God, like, this is so cool. Like, when have you ever seen this in a movie? Yeah. And he was a big guy. And he made it violent. Yeah. It was very unusual sort of contribution to martial arts, because in martial arts movies. Yeah. He made it realistic. Yeah. He was one of the most realistic martial arts movies ever. Yeah, it was. And, you know, when you look back on it, it... There's things about it that don't date super well. Yeah, of course. But he was undeniable. Literally what you just showed. Skillful. Yeah. The thing of the guy coming, it's that simple thing, that thrust and the break and the thing. It's... Yes. He also, in the film, when the guys come at him, and I see this shows you how it burns your brain. There's a scene where there's like a bodega and the guy, I think he smashes a bottle, and he comes at him and he does like a move in Aikido. It's called like Kotakai-shi. It's like he... It's like the wrist, you know, it's like the wrist break flip over. And it was just like, oh my God, like he's doing like, you know, nuanced Aikido moves in a big action movie. It was kind of cool. Well, he was one of the first, I think the first Westerner to run a dojo in Japan. I mean, he was a legitimate Aikido master. Yeah. And I think... But what's interesting is when I studied over there, he was... It was... It was slightly controversial because I don't think he was... He had broken away from like, like, Yushiba Aikido. He was doing... He was doing like the way that Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is not pure Japanese Jiu-Jitsu. He was doing something with... It was somehow it was associated more with Osaka than Tokyo, where the Hombu Dojo and Aikido is. And there was... Some controversy. There was just, you know, like the way things are with schools of thought. But yeah, he had a certain legit kind of thing. And it's really wild because people like Mike Ovid's, who was like the power agent of all of Hollywood in the 80s, you know, Mike got a black belt training with Seagal. Like he was really serious Aikido-ist. I didn't know that. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah, it does. But he's a cautionary tale too, though. I mean, not even Ovid's. I mean, Seagal, you know, Yeah. What did he become? I guess, honestly, I don't know anything about him past a certain point. Like I don't know what went on there. Yeah. But... You can leave it at that. Yeah, I don't.