Shia LaBeouf might be one of the most interesting child stars in Hollywood. Since eleven years old, he may have had some ups and downs in terms of his star power, but he’s consistently worked since then.
Like a lot of Hollywood child stars, LaBeouf has been in his fair share of trouble over the years.
And actor Shia LaBeouf just revealed something wild about his last arrest in Georgia two years ago.
Shia LaBeouf has a new movie coming out this weekend called “Honey Boy,” which is essentially his actual life story. Not only does the actor star in the film as his real life biological father, but he also wrote the screenplay for the film – his first.
The 33-year-old actor has been acting since he was a child. He starred in a great episode of “The X-Files” in 1999 and was hilariously good in a popular television show called “Even Stevens.”
But his first breakout role was in “The Battle of Shaker Heights,” which ironically didn’t do so well financially. No, it was because of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s HBO show called “Project Greenlight” – a reality show about giving filmmakers a chance to make their own movie – and “The Battle of Shaker Heights” starred LaBeouf.
This exposure led to bit roles in “Constantine,” “I, Robot” and “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle,” but it wasn’t until his starring role in “Transformers” before the young actor became one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.
And just like any well-crafted Hollywood story, it comes with a roller coaster of dramatic conflict. With LaBeouf it was his chaotic alcohol-infused lifestyle that had many doubting if he was ever going to be a leading man again.
But then he gives you a performance in “Fury,” the World War II tank film and you think to yourself, “honestly, who really cares about his lifestyle if he’s going to give you performances like this.”
Then reality sets in. Like many actors, the gifted ones always have skeletons in the closet but are also specifically special because of that. It’s a double-edged sword where you compartmentalize the life and the talent.
LaBeouf has been arrested on multiple occasions but it was his most recent that made headline news a couple of years ago when he screamed racist comments at the two officers who arrested him.
No need to go into that but the reality is that the state of Georgia cut him a deal. They diagnosed him with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and said you need to go to a “head camp,” which is code for a halfway house with rehabilitation built into it as well.
He described “head camp” as, “Head camp is where the court sends you when the other option is seven years in jail, pretty much. I got arrested in Georgia for terrorizing a police officer, which is a felony charge and they said ‘you’ve got a problem.'”
The reason for that was because he was facing a felony charge where he could’ve gone to jail for up to 7 years. It kept him out of jail. If you thought he was ungrateful about it, think again, because he was over the moon and even thanked the state of Georgia after he was sentenced.
But while he was there was when he wrote a “big chunk” of his new film “Honey Boy.” The reviews are pouring in and most critics are saying it’s not some apologetic excuse for why he acts the way he has in the recent past, but a cathartic realistic truth to his life.
One of the main characters is LaBeouf’s dad, who he plays, and he said on “Ellen” recently, “When I got home, I hadn’t seen my dad in seven years and my director, Alma Har’el, who’s a wizard, she was like, ‘You need to go see your dad. So I went and saw my dad, recorded that, came home and I had the ending, wrestled it down and that was the process.”
“Honey Boy” will probably not get recognized at the Academy Awards considering the amount of amazing films that have come out this year but Shia LaBeouf is a humble force to be reckoned with in this industry.