Movie Set Heist

Some things are just too good to be true. This was my thought as I was recording an episode of Drunk Gossip, my podcast. There was a missing segment that needed to be filled, and then my celebrity gossip alert sounded off—the snippet read "Sean Young wanted by the police." Celebrity gossip and true crime? It was a win/win! Why is the actress wanted? She was caught on tape stealing production computers from Charley Boy, a film she was supposed to direct.

To understand what happened, let’s back up a bit. Charlie Boy was filming in Astoria, Brooklyn. What is it about Brooklyn that these weird crimes keep happening? Thomas Hines was brought in to help get the film going because there had been clashes between Young and the cast. Hines says, “I think that she was in over her head and I realized… I was making choices that were actually going to allow this movie to get made, which it did.” But things were not going as well as Hines had hoped they were. Young tried to fire him. The Executive Producers then decided that she was the problem and fired her instead.

Apparently, she took this to mean that since she was the problem, she should cause some real damage. Young went back to get some personal items and began taking out things that belonged to the production company. The staff changed the locks because something seemed amiss. Hines reveals, “We were concerned because we all got the feeling that she didn’t want to come in here just to pick up her stuff and that’s why she kept leaving things here.” Why did it take them so long to figure out that something was wrong? And how did Sean Young figure out a way around this?

How did she get to the computers? The production and police believe that she recruited her son, Quinn, to help. Since the doors were locked, the chances of film employees letting her into the offices were very slim. So they improvised. They went through the bathroom window! Yes, really! And they did this in front of cameras! That cannot be stressed enough. “You can see her stealing the computer equipment and going and coming and going as if it was 1945 and there aren’t cameras everywhere on 4K,” Hines explains. For those that aren’t sure or don’t know, 4K cameras are a very high resolution. Young and her son were caught stealing red-handed. There is no plausible explanation out of this. Hines finished, “There is a warrant out for her arrest right now and she is going to be arrested, And she is going to jail for this because basically, this is the stupidest thing she has ever done in her life.” Hold my beer, classic Sean Young says.

This is not the first time that Young has acted irrationally on a movie set. In 1989, the actress was cast as Catwoman in Tim Burton’s Batman. Alas, she injured her arm and with that, the role ultimately went to Kim Bassinger. That did not deter Young. She fashioned her own Catwoman costume and accosted Tim Burton and Batman himself, Michael Keaton. When they didn't budge or fire Bassinger, Young took her act to The Joan Rivers Show. For many years, Sean Young was blacklisted because of that stunt. This may do the same thing to an already fragile career.

This would be funny if it weren’t so tragic. At one time, Young was a rising star. She had her pick of roles. Now she’ll be lucky if she gets to pick which bunk bed she sleeps on in jail. Some things are too sad to be true.