The Chiklis Hits the Fan
Detective Mackey's in the doghouse.
Michael Chiklis' ex-managers have slapped a $1 million lawsuit on the Emmy-winning actor, accusing him of breach of contract and fraud for allegedly cheating them out of commissions owed them for his stint on FX's The Shield.
The suit, filed Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court, claims Chiklis took his character's tough guy act way too far and turned "abusive" toward his management, Evolution Entertainment. Chiklis allegedly dumped Evolution before the show finished its first-season run in 2002 and hasn't paid commissions since then.
This, even though his reps helped Chiklis score the role that garnered him basic cable's first Emmy award for Best Actor in a Drama Series--as the chrome-domed ass-kicking rogue cop Vic Mackey.
"The more successful Chiklis became, the more and more abusive he would get toward agents and others," the suit says.
Chiklis' diva-like antics were so bad, the suit asserts, that he fired two agents in the past two years, apparently because he was hot, but not hot enough.
"Bruce Willis got Die Hard his first year after Moonlighting. I'm bigger and better than Bruce Willis; where...is my movie?" Chiklis is quoted in the suit.
Such behavior earned Chiklis the title of Endeavor's "most demanding client."
The actor's publicist issued a no-comment on the suit. "But as far as the personal attacks on Michael's character, they are absurd," the publicist said in a statement.
The brunt of Chiklis' wrath, according to the suit, was borne by Evolution's Tiffan Kuzon, the one who purportedly persuaded him to audition for The Shield.
Evolution says that if not for Kuzon "recognizing the concept and the script as having tremendous potential for success and encouraging Chiklis to fight for the role," Chiklis likely would've never have tried out for the series because of bad advice he was getting from friends.
Kuzon and Evolution were actually fired twice by Chiklis--the first time coming in 2000 after the company helped seal a deal for the actor to star as the congenial father in NBC's short-lived sitcom Daddio. After the show's cancellation, he went back to Evolution in May 2001 and landed The Shield.
Before The Shield, Chiklis, 39, was best known for his starring stint on ABC's The Commish and as the cocaine-crazed John Belushi in the 1989 TV biopic Wired. Other credits include appearances on Seinfeld, Miami Vice and L.A. Law, the films Nixon and Soldier, and voiceover work on The Family Guy, Heavy Gear and the Oscar-winning Spirited Away.
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