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Shia LaBeouf's Wild World
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The Transformers star likes to talk about his drinking problem, watching his parents have sex and do drugs, and how he seeks out trouble. Kim Masters on the last Hollywood rebel.
Shia LaBeouf has been talking, a lot. The press engines have been roaring with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen en route to a gargantuan opening weekend this Friday. But LaBeouf isn’t serving up the usual pabulum about having fun on the set.
“I seem to like to kiss trouble on the forehead and then try to back away,” he told the British paper, The Guardian. “I didn’t have the most grounded childhood,” he told Playboy. “I don’t handle fame well,” he told Parade, where his dark musings stood out starkly against the usual mild gossip and other kitsch. “I have no answers to anything,” he said. “Why am I an alcoholic? I haven’t a damn clue! What is life about? I don’t know.”
“It’s appealing to his generation, his fanbase,” says one studio chief. “To girls, that’s like, ‘Oh, he’s the bad boy.’ To guys, they’re like, ‘That looks cool.’ ”
At 23, LaBeouf has a refreshingly direct take on the challenges of celebrity and the mysteries of stardom. But he’s too young to exercise discretion and too old to have it imposed upon him. His behavior—including the drinking and several brushes with the law—would alarm any colleague in a normal environment. Hollywood is not that.
Normal may be a nebulous concept but clearly LaBeouf has spent very little time anywhere near it. By his account, he was brought up in Los Angeles by a drug-dealer father and a frequently nude, goddess-worshiping mother. In Playboy, LaBeouf described watching his father shoot heroin and smoking pot with his parents on holidays.
In the Guardian, he painted this picture of his start in show business as a 10-year-old stand-up: "My act was like, 'Yeah, I walked in from school on my mom and dad screwing today ... and you go from there, building up such a disgustingly accurate description that the audience would start thinking it was insane what they were listening to—this little kid... who can only legally perform if all the alcoholic drinks are taken off the tables."
LaBeouf is shrewd enough to recognize that in Hollywood, he is a commodity and a valuable one. In tight times, word is that LaBeouf is getting $8 million for Fox’s Wall Street sequel and a hefty $17 million for the third Transformers. “I gather he’s surviving despite his relationship with alcohol,” observes a producer who’s worked with him on a very successful film. “But that can only happen for so long.”
Still, this producer seemed surprised when I asked whether he’d plunge into another project with LaBeouf. “Of course,” he replied. “I have no evidence that he doesn’t show up for the set. [So] it’s not my job, it’s the insurance company’s job. It’s when they get so bad that they can’t do work any longer then it’s a problem.”
I canvassed a number of high-level players—studio bosses and talent representatives, all of whom have high-stakes business with LaBeouf. Each had his own reason for dismissing LeBeouf’s comments. More than one reiterated the point that as long as he shows up for work, they’re satisfied. “I have my own kids,” one said. Another said, “He’s about to be in the biggest movie of the summer. His audience isn’t going to read [those interviews].”
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Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
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Kim Masters covers the entertainment business for The Daily Beast. She is also the host of The Business, public radio's weekly program about the business of show business. She is also the author of The Keys to the Kingdom: The Rise of Michael Eisner and the Fall of Everybody Else.
cenerentolo
yea yea yea
i bet it is a matter of time before something happens to take the bloom off, speaking from experience, then again, calumny runs in my family, and he is 1.5 generations further down what might be progress...maybe the dead woman live boy paradigm...
then again, money talks.
if the money ever stops, there will be problems: problems like going for surgery in germany where your health insurance was and attending a rocky horror picture show performance and feeling obligated, as the possessor of a local american patina that includes a vaudeville house turned movie hall turned fri/sat midnite rocky horror picture show place, to teach the germans the responses....
it didnt go so well in the theater... the audience was scared the actors were freaked.
and then a month later, my agent told me that he knew that i during my most recent german trip i showed up for a rehearsal 'high as a kite' screaming obscenities and disrupting everything.
didnt make them money... but then again, what opera singer has EVER made money? :)
OffenbachStutz
What is this gibberish? Thanks for sharing!
jglass54
Wat opera singer has EVER made money? Uhhhhh......Renee Fleming, Anna Netrebko, Placido Domingo, etc., etc. They have made a bundle and they have brought in a bundle to the opera houses where they have played.
bigwurzz
Opera singers need agents? Wow, you learn something new everyday.
doko84
I'm 24, and this article is incredibly insulting to my generation. most of us think LeBufff is a spoiled, no talent rich boy. I don't look at him and say "that looks cool". what the fuck does that even mean???
I also resent the fact that he is being defended with the argument that he he is "candid" and doesn't have to "censor" himself like other kids in his generation do. This kid is a fucking movie star! His whole existence is a front!
kim masters... hollywood... what the fuck.
hockeydog
right toe, doko!
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n--Y--alcamadustourist13
yes, you speak for all of your generation. Thank you ambassador 20 something.
Bunx05
Totally agree. I'm 26, and this LaBoeuf shit is ridiculous. If it's just him they're talking about, fine; no worries. But to put him up as the paradigm of OUR generation? What?
Huh?
Total BS.
tblunt
"One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor."
politico83
I really have no idea what that exec is talking about. Like the above poster I'm in my 20s and I have never for a second thought "thats cool" about anything related to Shea Lepoof. As far as most girls I know, being rebellious and having swagger is sometimes attractive, yes, but with guys who look like James Dean or Colin Farrel not guys who, at 23, look like the nerdy 15 year old kid everyone turned down for the prom. Now he's just the 15 year old kid that sneaks into his fathers liquor cabinet and shows up to the prom alone and drunk, not much cooler.
Shea is just coincidentally lucky that he has been in a bunch of major event films that he sort of tagged along on. Like anyone saw Indiana Jones or Transformers because he was in it, not a chance. The only movie I can think of that he was really asked to carry was the Battle of Shaker Heights in which he was somewhat amusing, but the movie only made a few million (even with being the project greenlight movie heavily hyped on HBO).
That he is a "hot commodity" doesn't really go to his prowess as an actor, but rather the dearth of 20 something actors worth a damn in hollywood currently. That he's old enough to be halfway through his graduate degree and is still playing a college freshman is a good indicator that he is not as long for the scene as many seem to think. Who in the world would go see him in a Harrison Ford role (IE Indiana Jones)? How anyone could think he could possibly make the transition from playing some kid in all these movies to leading man as he ages out of looking 15 but remains unattractive and 5'8 is beyond me. Anyone who thinks he's going to be the white Will Smith is crazy.
Bunx05
Heeey! There's nothing wrong with being 5'8". . . . Is there?
artbeefine
Hollywood is smarmy. How sad to be treated like nothing but a commodity. Hollywood is the only place where a person can behave that way and still get paid millions of dollars. I mean what incentive is there to grow up and acquire character when you don't have to? In any other profession, he would be gone in a day. The studios don't care because he makes huge amounts of money for them. Agents and publicists do their job, which is to work for him, because that's what they are getting paid very well to do. He's obviously had a hard life so far, but no one in Hollywood gives a rat's ass.
Caradog
Sleepy LaBeef talks a lot of crap. If he can dodge the daggers and put in uniquely great performances, bravo. I ain't seen shite yet.
BTW: alcohol is a gateway to egotism and churlish behavior, as well as AA meetings, where some effective networking can be done (see The Player).
bryanlevi
If you have money & time, you can always go to the best rehabs in the world when the time comes.
Sounds like he has both, so no sympathy here.
nickmagoo
rich, annoying twentysomething movie star (who has yet to actually make a GOOD film) drinks a lot and likes to have fun, then extemporizes inanely about said behavior? snoooore.
bgcajun
Shia LBeouf is a pussy. As are most of the 20-something actors being shoved down our throats.
oh50990
I'm 19 and I do not look up to Shia for his drinking problem and I do not think most kids do. I do think he is very sexy and enjoy his movies. To the person who said he has never carried a successful movie on his own, did you not see Disturbia or Eagle Eye? They both were very successful at the box office.
Shinjuku
I dont look up to Shia but I do admire what he has achieved for himself at such an early age. He really has had an awesome career ( as far as I know). I dont know why everyone analyses (Im from the UK by the way, hence no Z) the guy, why cant you just enjoy his movies or not and just leave it at that! He has been in some awesome movies I think.
So he has a drinking problem, look at it from his point of view. He is a very young guy with a shit load of money just ask yourself this 'what would you do?' I'm in recruitment so I have earned quite a bit of money for my age to me �3000 a month thats circa $6000 and I have done some silly things, just imaging if you had a couple of mil in the bank.
I think he is extremely likable there is only a few famous people that I would like to meet and he is one of them just because he seems a stand up guy.
People that seem to rip into him, in my position are just jealous that he is clearly having an awesome time.
Go on Lebouff!
Thank you.
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