Best Known As: The young co-star of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Shia LaBeouf spent three seasons as the title character of the Disney Channel's Even Stevens (2000-2003), then made his mark on the big screen as the young star of Holes (2003, with Sigourney Weaver). Distancing himself from the family friendly roles that brought him fame (and a Daytime Emmy), LaBeouf moved toward more adult roles and appeared in I, Robot (2004, starring Will Smith) and Constantine (2005, starring Keanu Reeves). To make sure audiences knew he had grown up, he played a potty-mouth in the coming-of-age drama A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006, with Channing Tatum) and a naked drug addict in the star-studded feature Bobby (2006, about the day Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated). He has since carried the thriller Disturbia (2007, with Carrie-Anne Moss), and starred in Transformers (2007, with Megan Fox) and the animated feature Surf's Up (2007, with Zooey Deschanel). He played Mutt, the renegade son of fist-fighting archaeologist Indiana Jones, in the 2008 film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (with Harrison Ford and Karen Allen as his ma and pa).
Career Highlights: Transformers, Surf's Up, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
First Major Screen Credit: Hounded (2001)
Biography
Shia LaBeouf decided, during his preteen years, to launch himself as an actor, and stories abound concerning how far he carried his own drive to establish himself. According to People Weekly magazine, LaBeouf auditioned for Even Stevens (2000), the Disney Channel series that delivered him into the spotlight, and subsequently told each of the youngsters who were waiting to audition that he had the part -- thus eliminating the competition. Such determination, coupled with raw ability and charisma, doubtless helped propel LaBeouf straight to the head of Hollywood's young stars.
Born on June 11, 1986, in Los Angeles, LaBeouf grew up in the neighborhood of Echo Park, and was raised in a decidedly colorful family of mixed ethnicity. His Cajun father, Jeffrey LaBeouf, was a Vietnam vet who held a series of odd jobs as a circus clown, a sno-cone salesman, and a stand-up comic. Shia's Jewish mother, Shayna, worked as a clothier and jewelry craftswoman. Upset about his mother's financial struggles after his parents split, Shia observed another boy of about the same age (a cast member of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman) whose financial returns from Quinn gave him a posh lifestyle. LaBeouf suddenly understood the financial benefits of before-the-camera work, and -- though he had no formal dramatic training -- foresaw himself breaking into acting via comedy. He used a phone book to find an agent, then honed a stand-up comedy act over the course of two years, that found him (at age 12) delivering "blue" routines to adult audiences at a Pasadena comedy club, The Ice House. By his own admission, LaBeouf was booted out of every school he attended (for his notoriously profane mouth and for other reasons), but he more than compensated for this with his professional drive. By 2000, he auditioned for the Even Stevens series on Disney, and landed the part.
That sitcom concerned the relationship between Louis Stevens (LaBeouf), a silly and goofy teen, and his older sister, Ren (Christy Carlson Romano). The program quickly found an audience on Disney and lasted for several seasons; its popularity spawned a small-screen feature, The Even Stevens Movie, in 2003. The time span of 2002 to 2003 was a busy one for LaBeouf -- arguably his breakthrough period. In addition to The Even Stevens Movie, the actor signed on to participate in season two of the controversial Project Greenlight, the Damon and Affleck-created national contest for aspiring indie filmmakers, with its attached HBO reality series of the same name. Thus, at-home viewers had the opportunity to watch LaBeouf, Elden Hensen, Kathleen Quinlan, Amy Smart, and other actors endure the tumultuous production of Efram Potelle and Kyle Rankin's quirky comedy drama The Battle of Shaker Heights, months prior to that film's release. When the finished film debuted in August of 2003, it did so to generally terrible reviews, but a number of journalists (Roger Ebert among them) singled out LaBeouf's lead performance as something special amid a decidedly flawed film.
That same year, LaBeouf starred in the Andrew Davis-directed Disney fantasy Holes, as a youngster sent to an oddball Texas detention center and forced to dig a series of 5-foot-deep pits in the desert sun for mysterious reasons; it scored with the public and press and became one of the sleeper hits of 2003. And indeed, its success doubtless spurred LaBeouf on to even greater heights, his dramatic ability honed even more sharply by his interaction with co-star Jon Voight (Coming Home), whom LaBeouf would later list as a key professional influence. In late 2004, LaBeouf signed on for the lead in another Disney film, The Greatest Game Ever Played (2005) -- a biopic of golfer Francis Ouimet directed by Bill Paxton; the film itself divided critics rather sharply but provided an outstanding showcase for LaBeouf's talents.
The next several years found LaBeouf signing on for several of the most sought-after A-list roles in Hollywood -- from director Francis Lawrence's apocalyptic fantasy Constantine (2005), as a demon-slayer fighting alongside Keanu Reeves; to Dito Montiel's A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, as a young man struggling to find a different road out of the ghetto than crime and prison. In 2007, the actor voiced a surfing penguin in the CG-animated comedy Surf's Up, and geared up for his role as Sam Witwicky in one of the most hotly anticipated releases of the year, the Michael Bay-directed Transformers -- based on the action figures that were rabidly popular in the mid-'80s. At the same time, audiences could catch LaBeouf in Salton Sea-director D.J. Caruso's thriller Disturbia -- the tale of a deeply depressed, homebound teen who teams up with a local girl to prove that their next door neighbor is a much sought-after serial killer. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
Shia LaBeouf was born in Los Angeles, California, the only child of Shayna (née
Saide), a dancer and ballerina turned visual artist and jewelry designer, and Jeffrey Craig
LaBeouf, a Vietnam War veteran who "drifted" from job to job, working as a mime at a circus and as a rodeo clown.[4][9][10][3][11] LaBeouf's maternal grandfather, who shared his first name, was a comedian who worked in the Borscht Belt of the Catskill Mountains, and his paternal grandmother was a Beatnikpoet and lesbian who associated with Allen Ginsberg.[12][4][13] The name "Shia" is Hebrew for 'gift from God' and the
surname "LaBeouf" is a variation of "Le Boeuf", the French term for 'the beef'.[12][14] LaBeouf has said that he comes from "five generations of
performers" and was "acting when [he] came out of the womb".[11] LaBeouf's father is a Cajun (once described by LaBeouf as
a "Ragin' Cajun") and his New York-born
mother is Jewish. LaBeouf was raised in the Jewish
religion and had a Bar Mitzvah.[11][14][15][16][17][18][19] LaBeouf has
described his parents as "hippies", his father as "tough as nails and a different breed of man",
and his upbringing as similar to a "hippy lifestyle", stating that his parents were "pretty weird people, but they loved me and I
loved them".[11][20] LaBeouf's father used to grow
cannabis, and the two smoked marijuana together when
LaBeouf was ten.[9][11] LaBeouf has also said that his father
was "on drugs" during his childhood, being addicted to heroin and placed in drug rehabilitation for heroin addiction, while LaBeouf's mother was
"trying to hold down the fort".[9] His parents eventually divorced, and he had what he has described as a "good childhood",
growing up poor with his mother (who worked selling fabrics and brooches) in Echo Park, Los Angeles, California, and attending a predominantly Latino and African-American school.[21][15]
Career
Comedian
LaBeouf would "create things, story lines and fictitious tales" during his childhood, and practiced stand-up comedy around his neighborhood as an "escape" from a hostile environment.[15] He began performing stand-up
and "talking dirty" at comedy clubs (including the The Ice House in Pasadena) at the age of ten (describing his appeal as having "disgustingly
dirty" material and a "50-year-old mouth on the 10-year-old kid").[22][21] LaBeouf
subsequently found an agent through the Yellow Pages, being taken on after doing his
stand-up act for her and pretending to be his own manager, promoting himself in the third person.[15][23]
Actor
LaBeouf has said that he initially became an actor because his family was broke, not because he wanted to pursue an acting
career.[22] He became well known among young
audiences after playing Louis Stevens in the Disney Channel weekly program
Even Stevens, a role for which he was cast three months after being signed by his
agent. LaBeouf also played in the Disney Channel hit Tru Confessions where he played a mentally challenged kid with a sister who
made a documentary about his disablity.[15] His father, at the time just released from rehab, served as his on-set parent and
the two bonded.[24] LaBeouf was awarded a
Daytime Emmy Award for the role of Louis[11] and has said that he "grew up on that show" and that his childhood
was "kind of lost," although his being cast in the show was the "best thing" that has happened to him.[9] During this time period, LaBeouf also
appeared in sketch shows on The Tonight Show with Jay
Leno.[22] In 2003, he appeared in
another Disney production, Holes,
as Stanley "Caveman" Yelnats IV, opposite Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight and Tim Blake Nelson. While filming Holes, Voight
gave LaBeouf a book on acting, and this made LaBeouf realize acting could be more than a job.[4] The film was a moderate box office success. Steven Spielberg
was also a fan of Shia in Holes, saying he reminded him of a young Tom Hanks.[3]
That same year, he was heavily featured in the HBO documentary show Project Greenlight, which chronicled the making of the independent film The Battle of Shaker Heights. He also appeared in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle as Max Petroni, an orphan whom the Angels end up
protecting. He had a small role in I, Robot (2004) and appeared in the
action-horror filmConstantine (2005),
opposite Keanu Reeves and Rachel Weisz, and in the
Disney film The Greatest Game Ever Played, playing Francis Ouimet, a real-life golf player from a poor family who won the 1913 U.S. Open
Championship.[4] In 2006,
LaBeouf co-starred in the ensemble film drama Bobby, which called for him to do
his first nude scene when he strips naked while on an LSD trip. LaBeouf has said that he is not the "All-American Disney role model"[3] and chose to appear in some of his film roles
in order to "curse as much as possible"[25] and
"age [himself] publicly" after his Disney roles, specifying that Disney is "great and all" and a "nurturing place"[22] but "dehabilitating for an actor", being "one constant
string of same".[10] He has also said that he
enjoyed being a child actor and hated school.[26]
In 2007, LaBeouf starred in Disturbia, a thriller released on April 13. He played a teenager under house arrest who suspects that his
neighbor, played by David Morse, is a serial
killer. The film was a hit and LaBeouf received positive reviews for the role, with the
Buffalo News stating that LaBeouf "has grown into an appealing, bright young actor who is able to simultaneously pull off
[the character's] anger, remorse and intelligence",[27]Kurt Loder of MTV writing
that LaBeouf "gets his star ticket decisively punched",[28] and the San Francisco Chronicle noting that
LaBeouf is "fast becoming the best young actor in Hollywood".[29] In comparing the film with Rear Window, The
New York Daily News described LaBeouf's appeal as "more John Cusack than Jimmy Stewart".[30] Also in 2007, LaBeouf provided a voice role as Cody Maverick in the
animated film Surf's Up and played teenager Sam Witwicky, who becomes involved
in the Autobot-Decepticon war on Earth, in Michael Bay's Transformers, released on July 3. LaBeouf has said that he is a
fan of The Transformers television series and the 1986
The Transformers: The Movie,[31] and executive producerSteven Spielberg cast him in the role having been impressed by his performance in
Holes.[4]Disturbia was the most important film to LaBeouf of his three 2007 films, because it was a "character-driven"
role.[15]
In 2007, LaBeouf presented an award at the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice
Awards on March 31, appeared on The
Tonight Show With Jay Leno on April 2, and hosted Saturday Night Live on April 14.[32] He was named 2007's "star of tomorrow" by the ShoWest convention of the National
Association of Theater Owners.[33] In April
2007, LaBeouf was cast to appear in Indiana Jones and the
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which began filming in June 2007 for a May 22,
2008 release date.[34] Spielberg cast him in the film, impressed by his performance in Transformers. LaBeouf
has stated that he would subsequently like to appear in a smaller-scale role.[3] His next film will be Eagle Eye, a thriller directed by
D. J. Caruso and scheduled to begin filming in the fall of 2007.[35] He has also signed on for two Transformers sequels.[36]
Public image
Reception
LaBeouf's on-screen talent has received overwhelming credit following his roles in both Disturbia and Transformers. Several
media publications have speculated that LaBeouf, whose screen persona was described by Time
magazine as that of the "scrappy kid next door",[4] might become a major film star throughout 2007.[5][6][7][8]
LaBeouf has cited actors Dustin Hoffman,[22]Jodie Foster, Jon Voight and John Turturro as inspirations,[7] and has said that he is "very serious" about his career and has made "a
calculated effort to stay away from the party scene", believing that "if the industry takes you lightly because you're always
partying, then they will take your work lightly as well".[11] Interviewer Jamie Portman of The Vancouver Sun
described LaBeouf as seeming to have a "love-hate relationship with the teenage culture that has spawned him".[8]
LaBeouf has said that although he does not devoutly practice Judaism, he has a "personal
relationship with God that happens to work within the confines of Judaism".
Off-screen, LaBeouf co-wrote and directed Let's Love Hate, a short drama and winner of the Children's Jury Award in 2004
and the Children's Audience Award in 2005.[40]
References
^ According to the State of California. California Birth Index,
1905-1995. Center for Health Statistics, California Department of Health Services, Sacramento, California. At
Ancestry.com
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