Whatever Happened To Rachael From Blade Runner?

Throughout much of the 1980s, Sean Young was a bona fide star. The Kentucky-born and New York-educated talent landed her first gig as Ariadne Charlton in Merchant Ivory Film's Jane Austen in Manhattan, which both introduced Young and waved goodbye to Oscar-winning acting legend Anne Baxter. From there, she landed roles in Stripes and Blade Runner, where her gifts were clearly on display.

Young's career continued to trend upwards throughout the '80s thanks to roles in Young Doctors in Love, Dune, and Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend. She followed those up by starring alongside Kevin Costner and Gene Hackman in 1987's No Way Out—which, unfortunately, marked the pinnacle of Young's young career.

The first instance of what Young calls her "character assassination" took place after she was cast to play Kate Gekko, the wife of Gordon Gekko, in Oliver Stone's 1987 hit drama Wall Street. What was originally supposed to be a central role was ultimately cut down to an entirely insignificant amount of screen time after Young had some apparently serious disagreements with both the director as well as her co-star, Charlie Sheen, resulting in her being virtually removed from the film and literally removed from the set.

Despite the apparent problems while filming Wall Street, Young has insisted she likes Sheen. "He had a funny sense of humor," she told The Hollywood Reporter. "He wrote very dark poetry. He went in the makeup room one morning and he read his poetry, and we all kind of stood there quietly and we looked at him. I remember saying to him, 'That's like two or three days on Platoon, buddy.' I'd write about flowers, and he would write about the dark night of the soul. I actually like Charlie, but show business is tough. It can whack people out."

In Hollywood, Young became the butt of a lot of jokes and a punchline to those involved in the movie-making business. After landing the role of Tess Trueheart in Dick Tracy, she was kicked to the curb after creative differences with Warren Beatty—whom she claimed fired her for declining his sexual advances. Things got even worse when she charged into the studio wearing a homemade Catwoman suit in an infamous (and unsuccessful) bid to land a role in Batman Returns.

Not everyone considered Young to be as unstable as her reputation suggested, however. "When I hired her for Cousins," Joel Schumacher remembered, "I got a lot of phone calls from people saying I was crazy. Sean is an artist, and she doesn't know how to monitor herself. She will pour out her emotional road map of the day to you, and it can be quite frightening." Nevertheless, Schumacher enjoyed working with her—but most of Hollywood seemingly didn't want to deal with the "crazy" Sean Young.

Sean Young carried her reputation for being more than a bit unstable into the 21st century, most notably with her attempt at crashing Vanity Fair's Oscar party in 2006.

As reported by The New York Times, Young skipped up behind Jennifer Aniston, gave a few poses, waved, and then took off into the party. Problem was, she wasn't invited, and pandemonium ensued as security guards stopped invited guests from entering the venue while they frantically searched for her. Eventually, security announced over the radio that "we got her" and she was escorted out the back door. "It was degrading," Young told Entertainment Weekly two years later. "But when you have nothing to lose, it's really not that big of a deal."

Sadly, this wouldn't be the only time Young would be escorted from a high-profile event.

Following her outburst at the 60th Annual Directors Guild of America Awards, Sean Young checked herself into rehab for alcohol addiction.

"Actress Sean Young voluntarily admitted herself yesterday to a rehabilitation center for treatment related to alcoholism," her publicist stated a few nights after the awards show. "It is understood that Young has struggled against the disease for many years." The DGA also issued a statement, announcing it "wishes to respect Ms. Young's privacy at this difficult time and declines further comment."

Years later, Young would enter rehab again—this time, by joining the cast of Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. "I turned them down," she told The Hollywood Reporter, "and eventually they offered me so much money, and I thought 'If I don't do this, this is dumb. I have a family I have to take care of.' After the DGA, they were left with the impression that I would make a good candidate for [Celebrity Rehab]. I only had to work 10 days on it, and it was over quick. Actually, I did have a really good time on it because I learned a lot and I went on to really [stop] my drinking. I don't drink anymore, so that made a big difference."

In November and December of 2010, Fox gave the whole celebrities-on-skates idea another go with Skating with the Stars, pairing the likes of Mötley Crüe singer Vince Neil, Disney Channel star Brandon Mychal Smith, and—of course—Sean Young with professional figure skaters.

"I've put skates on before, like when I was a kid... and then I had some time at a Culver City ice rink where my kids would like to go ice skating on Saturdays, but that was really just like puttering around," Young told Access Hollywood Live. "The last five weeks [of training for the show] have been very challenging and actually amazing fun. You have to have a kind of athletic personality for it and I do. I have a dance background, so I'm athletic and I learn quickly, which is lucky in this situation."

Young approached the skating competition with a positive attitude. "My biggest competition is within me," she claimed. "It's your own mental game. It's like you wake up and you say, 'I need to face this with a good attitude, I need to do my very best and at the end of the day,'" she shared. Unfortunately, it didn't help much—Young was the first celebrity eliminated from the show.

After a career's worth of negative press, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Sean Young isn't particularly keen on talking to reporters.

"I don't really like doing interviews," Young told Entertainment Weekly's Karen Valby, who described the actress as seeming "wearily resigned to her unshakable reputation for being seriously unhinged," in 2008. "I'm so easy to make sound bad," Young explained, "but what are you going to do that hasn't been done to me already? Who's going to f*** me over any more than they already have?"

Young also reiterated the same sentiments to The Guardian's Danny Leigh in 2015, ending her final regret-filled email to the author by asking: "Please don't write s*** about me, OK?"

She's fought unflattering rumors about her mental health, but Young has no qualms about admitting she buys into a lot of conspiracy theories.

For example, she's very firmly anti-vaccination and thinks the powers that be are responsible for intentionally spreading whooping cough and measles: "The thing is, you have a very big pharmacological industry, and they want those bucks to keep flowing," she told Gawker. "It's definitely not impossible to imagine that there are agents that spread this kind of thing. Remember when the English came over with blankets that were laced with tuberculosis and they gave all those blankets to the Indians? You think that doesn't happen today?"

She also has a thing or two to say about chemtrails. "I know people will call me a conspiracy nut or whatever, but the evidence is out there," she added. "There's an interview on Red Ice Radio from the guy who worked at the CDC who said that there was evidence of autism and they buried it. And the whole idea that a corporation is responsible for performing their own tests. Are you f***ing kidding me? We'll do our own in-house testing and then we'll present what we want, and that's supposed to be the evidence that the EPA accepts? You don't think there'd be any conflict of interest in that. This stuff is obvious..."