With slicked-back hair, an impeccable wardrobe and a maturity and intensity that belies his 20 years, young actor Shia LaBeouf has certainly grown up since the days of slapstick comedy on the Disney show "Even Stevens."
LaBeouf's newest movie "Disturbia," directed by DJ Caruso, is a smart teen horror flick slated for release April 13, rife with misunderstood teen angst, pop culture references and corpses galore. In "Disturbia," LaBeouf plays Kale, a troubled teen still grieving over the sudden death of his father. After violently lashing out at his Spanish teacher, Kale is sentenced to three months house arrest. This gives him loads of time to play video games and spy on his neighbors from his bedroom, but some lighthearted voyeurism turns sinister when he inadvertently stumbles upon the nefarious deeds of his homicidal neighbor, played by the ever-creepy David Morse. Of course, the authorities don't believe Kale, and so he must join together with his friend Ronnie (Aaron Yoo) and love interest Ashley (Sarah Roemer) in order to save the day. A "Rear Window" for the 21st century, "Disturbia" packs a powerful performance by LaBeouf, and though it may not be the most groundbreaking of plots, "Disturbia" provides a smart commentary on our society's present heightened state of paranoia.
Phoenix: How are you doing today?
Shia Labeouf: I'm good, I'm good. This is my wind-down mode. You're getting toward the end of my day.
Phoenix: That's a good thing?
SL: Yeah, yeah it's great. This is where it gets really fun, this is where it gets interesting.
Phoenix: So, what music are you listening to these days?
SL: The Shins. The Shins and a rapper named Cage. There's this small little rap label called Definitive Jux. If you've heard of Aesop Rock or Mr. Lif … those type of guys.
Phoenix: Did you have any influence over the music that appeared in "Disturbia?"
SL: Oh, the movie? I remember listening to System of a Down nonstop. God, it's my favorite band, so I was listening to that constantly. So T.J. (the director) would come up to me and he'd take an earphone out, and he'd listen, and I think [he] put that in the movie. It's a great song.
Phoenix: So, your movie takes place in the suburbs. Did you grow up in the suburbs?
SL: No, I grew up in a place called Echo Park (near Los Angeles, Calif.) which is not like the ghetto or anything, but it's not like the suburbs either.
Phoenix: How'd you get your start?
SL: I was doing stand-up comedy when I was 10 at a place called the Ice House, a big comedy house in L.A., in an HBO theater, and I opened for big acts when I was, like, 10. That was my initial start. Because I was told the way to get in [to the acting industry] was to be a model or to be a stand-up comedian, and I was not going to be a model. At that point I looked like a miniature Gary Shandling. So I knew that was not my route. Nope. Not happening. So I was like, "Maybe I should go this other route." And that's how I got into comedy.
Phoenix: What was your material like?
SL: It was all disgustingly dirty.
Phoenix: Even better, coming from a 10-year-old.
SL: Yeah, that was the whole shtick. No joke would be better for a 10-year-old than to start talking about masturbation. Or seeing your parents have sex. And you gotta think, HBO theater, the Ice House, these are places that serve alcohol. So you'll be coming in and because you're young, they gotta keep the alcohol off the table. So already, you're starting with enemies. Some people aren't even there to hear comedy. They're there to drink. So you can't come in there like, "Knock knock. Who's there? It's little Billy with little Willy." There'd be a riot.
Phoenix: So, "Disturbia" is a pretty terrifying film. What's your personal favorite scary movie?
SL: Um, I'd have to say "Straw Dogs." It's a Dustin Hoffman film. He's locked in a house, in an English neighborhood. He's an American.
Phoenix: Sounds terrifying.
SL: (Laughs) The whole neighborhood is attracted to his wife; they want to rape her, and there are no police in this rural area, so now it's him against the neighborhood. And it's scary because it's so real. Hoffman could play anything and make you believe it.
Phoenix: Yeah. Hey, is that a tattoo on your wrist?
SL: Yeah, it's a timeline, 1986-2004. That was when I was born, and that's when I was 18 (points to tattoo). A lot of actors say, "Aw, I've been working my whole childhood. I don't even remember it, it just flew by," and I didn't want that to happen.
Phoenix: So, out of all the movies you've worked on, what has been your favorite so far?
SL: To work on, it's been "Bobby." Maybe the outcome, "Guide to Recognizing Your Saints." And ["Disturbia"], I love a lot. But "Guide" was my favorite overall because it was in New York, shot guerilla-style and you know those stories you always hear about those actor living in New York in the '70s and living in a studio apartment, and it just felt very … actory. You know every story I've ever read about all my heroes, all of them lived in New York, in the middle of the theater explosion, and [Gene] Hackman and [Dustin] Hoffman, they were all living in an apartment together, so that [movie] was like living a dream.
Phoenix: What attracted you to this role?
SL: [Director] DJ Caruso. He made "The Salt and the Sea," which is on my very favorite top-10 list. And I heard he was making a movie for a younger skewing audience and I was like, "How is that even possible? He's never made a PG-13 film." And I found that trippy, and then I heard that he and Spielberg had come up with this, "Let's take 'Rear Window' and 'Say Anything' and 'The Conversation' and let's mix it all in a hat and let's pull out a movie. And that's what we did. And DJ was just a great director to work with. Plus David Morse was involved, and he's one of the greatest character actors on the planet. Carrie Anne Moss is playing my mom, which is crazy because she's Carrie Anne Moss. So that was a big deal for me.
Phoenix: Tell me about your experience working on the Disney Channel.
SL: Disney Channel is a great place to come up; it was a nurturing place where you just get to show up and unload. At 12 and 13 all you want to do is have a food fight. You don't want to go to school, do math homework. You don't want any of that. You want to jump in a vat full of chili and swim around like a moron. Those are your childhood dreams that I got to experience that all the time. Pie in the face? Everyone wants to do that! And I got to do it all the time. So it was shticky, I mean I wasn't even thinking about acting. I was getting paid. I'm from a poor household, so my family was sustained by the money I was making. It wasn't a painful situation. I got to goof around all day, I didn't have to go to school which I despised, so it was a great experience for me. But I didn't even think about acting, I mean it wasn't like I got into this because I wanted to be an actor. I got into this because I was broke. I wanted a backpack, I wanted an XBox, I wanted new shoes. So it was really money-driven at first. Then I met Jon Voight when I was making "Holes," and I was introduced to what acting could be and the magic of it. So I watched a lot of Dustin Hoffman, a lot of Voight. And you start feeling like these dudes are magicians, and there was this beauty to not having to be yourself. Playing other people and not having to be yourself was very therapeutic, and reading all these books - Strasberg, Stanislavsky, Meisner, Moss, just reading it and trying to find and finding a style was really interesting to me because it was something I could call my own. Voight was - he still is - my mentor. He's taught me everything. He started teaching me subtlety. The one who helped me transition from Disney was him.
Phoenix: So will you go back to TV?
SL: The TV I've done was one-note, that's the way Disney goes. It's kind of debilitating for an actor because there's not many places you can go, there's not many different textures or shades you can go, it's like (sings vaudevillian tune). You know, it's big and broad and life isn't like that. But some TV is better than film.
Phoenix: A lot of your peers who've grown up in the public spotlight seem to have a rough time dealing with the attention and publicity. How have you dealt with that?
SL: I'm not really a star. I don't walk down the street and hear people go, "Oh! Shia!" It doesn't happen to me. So I can't comment on that type of fame. I haven't dealt with the paparazzi. I don't have that lifestyle. Thank God for it, too. My goal has never been to be a "personality." I've kind of veered away from that, partly by choice and partly because I am not an Adonis, I am not this dude with a crazy lifestyle and a Ferrari. My life's kind of tame. Other than this stuff [acknowledging his hotel room and movie posters]. This stuff is insane. But I'm not the most talented actor, I'm not the most prestigious actor, I'm not the most exciting, I'm not the most anything. So I've kind of been blessed. I'm an under-the-radar, middle-of-the-road guy.
Phoenix: What do you look for in a script?
SL: I look for diversity because if you do the same thing twice, you become "that guy." So if you have a couple movies coming out in one year, they have to be very different. I don't plan on making three movies in a year ever again in my life. It just so happened that all of this came about. Initially it was just supposed to be "Disturbia" this year. But then it morphed into something else. "Surf's Up" happened, then "Transformers" happened, and it all just snowballed.
Phoenix: Where do you see yourself in 20 years? What type of roles do you see yourself in?
SL: I want to be Dustin Hoffman. I want to be able to do everything. I don't want to be typecast or locked down in one thing. I don't want to be the funny guy or the dark guy. I don't want to get shoe-boxed. I want to be working when I'm 70. That's the goal.
1 comments