Los Angeles, Jul 3 (IANS): Hollywood actress Julianna Margulies has recounted an upsetting encounter she had with actor Steven Seagal.

"It was actually the casting director that asked me to go to his hotel room. I had a fourth and final call back the next day and she called me to say, 'He'd like to run the scene with you, he saw your tape, he thinks you're great, come to the hotel room'. And I didn't want to go because I lived in Brooklyn and I couldn't afford a cab, I was waitressing, I was broke. She said, 'Don't worry we will pay for the car, get a car service and I'll be here, we are going to run the scene'," Margulies said, recalling the incident on "The Drew Barrymore Show".

"So, I did that and when I got to his hotel room, the casting director was not there and it was a frightening moment because he asked me to sit on a couch and underneath this cushion, I jumped up because there was something hard and he pulled out a gun, and said, 'Oh I must have left my gun there'."

The actress shared that she was scared as had never seen a gun before and was just 23-years-old.

"I am 23, and I realise I am in an action star's hotel room with a gun, I had never seen a gun before and he is 6'4", and no one knows where I am. He asked me to come into the bedroom because he was tired and he asked to read my palm. He put the gun down so I was calming down a little bit and he read my palm and told me that he was a healer and told me I had weak kidneys," she said.

Margulies then talked about how he was reading her palm. "I thought 'is this the shtick that works on women?' This is ridiculous and I thought, 'Oh my God he thinks this is going to make me think he's some sort of almighty healer and stay'. Anyway, he read the next palm and got in there and started giving me more advice about my body and how he could fix it through his healing," she recalled.

She added that the tough New Yorker in her was inwardly was laughing "because it was so awful and hilarious".

"I just stood up and went, 'Well that was fun, thanks about the kidneys, got to go', and I just ran for the door waving. I got to the elevator and realised he hadn't reimbursed me for the money and I was really broke and it was midnight now and there was no way I could take a subway home from Midtown. I went back and knocked on the door but I made sure to stay on the other side of the door and I spoke really loudly and he had his sort of Cheshire cat grin and I said, 'I was told I'd be reimbursed for the car fare, so you need to reimburse me for the car fare'," she said.

"He reached his pocket and handed me money, I didn't look I ran to the elevator and got in the elevator and looked at my palm, he had given me a $100 bill. I had never seen a $100 bill and I figured if I had just survived in a hotel room with an action figure star and a gun, I could take a subway ride home and payoff my credit card, so that's what I did," Margulies concluded.

Barrymore shared that they reached out to Steven Seagal, and his representativess came back saying that he denies this ever happened.

"I appreciated that story so much as someone who has been put in those situations too and it's like, 'You're absolutely kidding me, I'm walking out of here'. I just appreciated that story," Barrymore said on the show that airs on Zee Cafe in India.