Put your mind to it. Work diligently. Stay honest and stay out of trouble. Just do all that, and you’re sure to achieve Hollywood success.
Stop laughing. It worked for Shia LaBeouf.
From humble beginnings as a foulmouthed, preteen stand-up comedian, the L.A. native worked his way steadily through Disney TV kid land (“Even Stevens”), prime-time episodes, Disney kid movies (“Holes,” “The Greatest Game Ever Played”) and sidekick-to-stars stuff (with Will Smith in “I, Robot” and Keanu Reeves in “Constantine”).
Now LaBeouf, who turns 21 in June, is a main attraction in three big movies: the teenage voyeur thriller “Disturbia,” opening Friday; the June talking-penguin cartoon “Surf’s Up”; and July’s special-effects extravaganza, “Transformers,” a live-action version of the goofy TV show/toy line directed by blast master Michael Bay and executive-produced, as was “Disturbia,” by Steven Spielberg.
“I’m very fortunate,” notes the intense but refreshingly unpretentious LaBeouf. “I mean, when you start this business, the pinnacles are, like, meeting Spielberg, working with Scorsese, winning an Oscar, doing ‘Saturday Night Live’ (he’s hosting Saturday), things like that. And, at 20, some of those things are off my list. It’s jarring, it’s very weird. Hasn’t gotten normal, it’s very strange.”
Hard to imagine what LaBeouf considers normal. Growing up poor in Echo Park, young Shia – Cajun on his father’s side, Jewish on his mother’s – had few playmates among his Latino neighbors and his classmates at a predominantly African-American school (he eventually became tight with guys he got into fights with, and they remain among his closest buddies to this day).
The peewee comedy thing was both an escape from a hostile environment and a practical move.
“I had a good childhood. I can’t say it was entirely painful,” LaBeouf explains. “But everybody’s got pain. And I always loved to create things, story lines and fictitious tales. That was my life even before all this started, so it seemed like a natural progression. Plus, it helped us get out of where we were. When I first got in, it was primarily a financial decision. We were pretty broke.”
After talking dirty to angry comedy club patrons – when the 10-year-old got on stage, all the drinks had to be removed – and winning them over, LaBeouf took the next logical if unlikely step in marketing himself.
“I got an agent through the Yellow Pages,” he says. “She said, ‘Come see me.’ She was interested because, usually, you have the parents pimping the kid, rather than the kid pimping himself. So I did my stand-up for her, and about three months later, I got ‘Even Stevens.’ ”
Now happily relocated to Burbank (“I love the Valley. It’s bigger than Los Angeles. It really is!”), LaBeouf maintains a remarkably pragmatic view of his burgeoning career. Though “Surf’s Up” and “Transformers” look to be much bigger films than the modest “Rear Window” rehash “Disturbia,” he makes no bones about which matters the most.
” ‘Disturbia’ is the most important one for me personally, selfishly,” LaBeouf says. “Because this is really a performance movie. People are going to see ‘Transformers’ regardless of my involvement; people want to see Optimus Prime. ‘Surf’s Up’ is driven by a whole different type of animal, literally. ‘Disturbia’ is character-driven, very different.”
In the film, LaBeouf plays the teenage Kale, who gets understandably moody following his father’s death. When he strikes out at an insensitive teacher, Kale is sentenced to house arrest, with a transmitter on his ankle that will bring the police if he wanders more than 100 yards from home.
Bored beyond belief, Kale takes to spying on his neighbors.
Ashley (Sarah Roemer), the hot new girl next door, goes from being an object of ogling to Kale’s partner in spying on the intimidating Mr.
Turner (David Morse), another new neighbor whom Kale becomes increasingly convinced is a serial killer.
It was a challenging performance, to say the least.
“It’s tough to be on screen for 90 minutes and it’s basically you in a room,” LaBeouf notes. “How do you make somebody enjoy that? That’s a lot of pressure; there’s not a lot of scenery to chew up.” According to “Disturbia” director D.J. Caruso, LaBeouf won the role over many other young actors for one profoundly simple reason.
“Shia is just very real,” Caruso says. “Everything about him is real, everything that comes out of his mouth is authentic. If dialogue is not working, he can just change it ever so slightly and make it flow.
“And he’s also a guy that, the more time you spend with him, the more good-looking he gets. You know what I mean; the more endearing he gets because he’s so witty and has so much charm. And his eyes are so expressive, and a lot of this movie is about the eyes.”
Did the director just say his leading man isn’t very attractive? If so, it doesn’t seem to bother Shia.
“I look like a young Garry Shandling or something,” the actor says, shrugging. “I’m not an Adonis, that’s for damn sure. I’ve never really thought of myself that way, and it doesn’t matter to me. My favorite actors aren’t Adonises. Dustin Hoffman is a flawed-looking man; he’s amazing to me. Tom Hanks is flawed-looking; people love him. Same with Gene Hackman.”
Whatever. At least his attractive leading lady thinks LaBeouf has a great sense of humor.
“Shia’s a really funny guy,” Roemer says. “He was constantly cracking jokes.”
Uh, really. As mentioned, he seems like an awfully serious, driven young man, stand-up history or not. Ask him about appearing in yet another talking-penguin cartoon, and you get a lecture … at first.
“I understand, talking penguins,” he says without the slightest hint of a grin. “But there is an allure to that. Penguins are the most human of all the birds. They look like they’re wearing tuxedoes. They hang out in groups like humans do. They’re upright birds. And they’re cute as hell.
“And they’re taking over the industry – actors’ jobs, it’s done. In the next five years, they’re going to make ‘The Elephant Man’ with penguins.” OK, so he does have a sense of humor. But don’t expect to see LaBeouf in any dumb teen comedies.
“I want to do comedy,” he says. “I don’t want to do dumb anything. I feel like there’s a tendency for movie companies to make stupid movies for kids. But kids have never been smarter, so why not make smart movies for a smart group of people?
“I see no point in making dumb movies. I could probably make a lot of money doing them, have a huge house in the hills somewhere, drive a Lamborghini and never be able to sleep in my really rich, comfy bed because I’d hate myself. I have a pride thing that won’t let me do that.”
Admirable attitude. But, isn’t “Transformers” about alien robots that turn into cars? And it’s directed by the guy who made “The Island,” isn’t it?
“The ‘Transformers’ movie is much smarter than the TV show – oh, God, yes,” LaBeouf says (and if you’ve seen the trailers, it does indeed look more like “The Rock” or “Armageddon” than one of Bay’s lesser, if no less noisy, efforts).
“Bay is great; he’s Gen. Patton,” LaBeouf enthuses. “It’s a different type of relationship. D.J. Caruso couldn’t make ‘Transformers,’ and Michael Bay couldn’t make ‘Disturbia.’ They’re two different shades of artists.
“But when your head’s on fire and you’re hanging off of a building and there’s a robot shooting torpedoes at you and seven people below you are all on fire and there’s a car exploding and a helicopter dropping, you don’t want the director to come up to you at that moment and discuss the depths of your character’s feelings. You want the guy that goes, ‘Your hair’s on fire. Let’s strap up and shoot.’ ”
Convinced; we’ll be there. And we’ll understand if, after all that’s happening to him this year, LaBeouf goes a little Hollywood.
After all, he’s been working hard for half his life for that, too. Just don’t tell him that that has the remotest chance of happening in this known universe.
“I’m a pretty regular dude,” he says. “I come from a different type of family. At the end of the day, I’m always going to be grounded. I’m not a star in their eyes, I’m still their son, and they love me. I have a good set of friends that I’ve had since before I was in this industry. I have a pretty cemented foundation to build all of this on.”
