Film interview Transformers - Shia Labeouf
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We talk to Shia LaBoeuf about his meteoric rise to fame and appearing in Michael Bay’s Transformers…
You've rapidly become something of a shooting star...
Shia LaBeouf: I'm just an actor for hire, man.
Is it difficult to process how quickly you've risen in terms of the Hollywood A-list?
Shia LaBeouf: Oh yeah, I'm the president of the lucky club. There are so many talented people who don't work, and the crop of young actors I'm surrounded by is incredible. You look at Jamie Bell, he's an ace: the dude is incredible. You watch him in Billy Elliot and it's like: "F***, I can't keep up..." When you have people like that around you it amps you up a little bit. Also, Emile Hirsch and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, or guys like Ryan Gosling. It's a really good crowd and I feel I'm coming up at a good time. But equally, there's a lot of good young actors who don't get to work who are more talented than I. I'm just lucky.
You have been described as the "face of new Hollywood" and are now working with the likes of Steven Spielberg. Is that description something you now have to take on board when approaching projects?
Shia LaBeouf: No, that's too much weight, that's crazy thinking. I haven't accepted any of this yet. It all seems like the craziest thing in the world. I'm a kid from Echo Park and I shouldn't be working with Steven [Spielberg]. I mean it's wild when Steven becomes Steven! And "hey Harrison [Ford]". That's crazy to me as well. My dad didn't give a s*** about movies, ever. He doesn't care about any of this stuff, which helps to maintain normality. But then when I tell him something like: "We were training today and Harrison pulled out the whip and started doing whip training... [for Indiana Jones IV]" My dad went nuts because Harrison is a modern day Steve McQueen. So that makes my dad proud of all of this and it's a great feeling.
And now you're a leading man in films like Transformers?
Shia LaBeouf: It's just another gig. There's a lot of pressure but I can't think of it that way otherwise it'd be too much for me to deal with. There's a lot of weight, a lot of pressure, you don't want to be Jar Jar Binks, you know...
What made you decide to become an actor?
Shia LaBeouf: I didn't get into this for the craft of it. I got into it because it was available and I was broke. We were living in Echo Park and this was a means to an end. This was a way to support my family. I got a show called Even Stevens and I was getting paid and living in a motel. I didn't know about the craft until I met Jon Voight and he changed my whole life. Had I not met him I wouldn't be doing this still. He introduced me to the magic of what this is and books I'd never have read, or movies such as Blackboard Jungle. Voight changed my life and he doesn't even think much of it. But he changed my whole outlook on the responsibility of an actor, the difference between personality and performance, what you have for sale, what to say and how much mystery to maintain, how to deal with this type of stuff. I'd never thought about it before.
So in that sense you're self taught?
Shia LaBeouf: That's what I'm saying. I shouldn't be here.
How much did Transformers change your life?
Shia LaBeouf: Actually, Disturbia [another of Shia’s 2007 films] actually changed the world for me. But Transformers is big - it's the biggest movie I've ever been a part of. As a fan it's incredible. I was a fan first. I grew up with Transformers. My childhood was Transformers, Yogi Bear... so to be involved with it is like treading on a cloud. It's wild when your dreams become true - you almost don't want to drive the dream bus because it's the dream bus; it's weird when the dream bus becomes the bus. So my dreams are changing. I don't dream about unicorns because I'm on set with them. I can touch them. The transition is tough, especially when you're sitting there and eating lunch with Harrison. You're just floating on a cloud and it's like this weird dream sequence all the time, a montage of insanity. I couldn't have imagined it any crazier.
