Shia LaBeouf was 20 when he was cast in a franchise that would not only introduce two of the biggest and most controversial stars of the next decade but also change the face of the massively popular Transformers toy line franchise by launching its first live-action movie series.
And as is expected with such sudden and widespread exposure to fame and popularity, LaBeouf was plagued by insecurity after being plucked from relative anonymity and thrown into global stardom.
Shia LaBeouf Opens Up About His Initiation Into Hollywood
Hollywood was blessed with the action genre filmmaker, Michael Bay, whose mind in hyperdrive always churns out movies that are littered with flipping cars, huge buildings and vehicles blowing up, and over-the-top stunt scenes. It was expected then that a movie franchise that inherently builds its foundation on cars and robots would be the ultimate object of creation for him: his magnum opus.
But Steven Spielberg, the executive producer of the franchise, went on to lay down the founding principle on which the film was supposed to be built: that Transformers should be “about a boy and his car” – which sounds like the most Spielbergian of plots if there ever was any. Michael Bay, however, melded that theme with some of his own – including the controversial manner in which he would go on to portray women – and launched the search for his film’s leads, leading to the arrival and debut of Shia LaBeouf who went on to spearhead three films in sequence before calling it quits.
In its aftermath, the young actor who was barely out of his teenage years when he first stepped foot on set then faced the most prominent of all problems that haunt Hollywood celebrities: the feeling of insecurity.
Shia LaBeouf Blamed Michael Bay For His Insecurity
On the surface, the hyperactive Sam Witwicky barely seemed like he was containing himself with the overload of adolescent energy and adrenaline rush from the unfolding action around him. Upon pushing the veil open and revealing the actor inside, Shia LaBeouf was barely holding it together in the aftermath of the first Transformers which launched him into a tsunami of global fame and fandom.
However, that scale of overarching exposure also brought with it a decent chunk of feeling invalidated and inept as an actor. In an interview with MTV News in 2019, Shia LaBeouf claimed:
“If you had talked to that kid, I was 23, 24. I was a scared actor who thought he was sh*t. The world thought I was sh*t. It was sort of like, ‘Hey, he’s the Transformers kid trying to be a real actor over here.’ So I was bucking against my insecurity, I was desperate to prove myself. I’d be in the face of Mads Mikkelsen, having just watched ‘Valhalla Rising’, thinking like, ‘I’m not sh*t to this man.’
That’s me trying to find my confidence. Not even my skillset, just my confidence. In the same way that ‘Even Stevens’ gave me a confidence in front of the lens, when you get in front of real G’s, when you start meeting the Michael Jordans, the people you look up to. Gary Oldmans, Mads Mikkelsens, Tom Hardys, you start getting in front of these people, insecurity washes like a wave.”
Despite the then-young actor’s ambitious declarations of struggling against his own demons, LaBeouf did rise above it all – going on to become one of the most talented (and controversial) people in the industry. His tenure as the leading man of the Transformers franchise however never seemed to fade away in the rear-view mirror.
The live-action movie series which currently stands at a net worth of $4.8 billion in its global earnings did help launch the star and despite its flaws helped him gain a foothold in an industry that can be cruel to newcomers and wide-eyed debutants.
The latest movie in the series, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts premieres on 9 June 2023.
Source: MTV News
