Shia LaBeouf Speaks

Shia LaBeouf recently sat down for a nice long interview with Variety. Here's what he had to say:

On refusing to pose next to wine bottles for the Variety photo shoot:

“No. That sh-t almost fucked up my life.”

On being sober for one year:

“You don’t touch it. Alcohol or any of that shit will send you haywire. I can’t fuck with none of it. I’ve got to keep my head low...I got a Napoleonic complex. I start drinking and I feel smaller than I am, and I get louder than I should. It’s just not for me, dude.”

On whether or not his personal issues have affected his career:

“I had people tell me it was going to. People I respected — dudes I wanted to work with — just looked me in the eyes and said, ‘Life’s too short for this shit.’ I’m still earning my way back. I’m happy working...I don’t think I’d be working with the directors I’ve been working with if I had not fucked up a bit. They wanted a fucking fireball. They wanted a loose cannon. I’m learning how to distill my ‘crazy’ into something manageable, that I can shape and deliver on the day...I was an open wound bleeding on everything.”

On how he came to get Missy Elliot tattoos on his knees while filming American Honey:

“One of the things we’d do as a group, we’d all go to the fucking tattoo shop. I don’t love Missy Elliott like I wanna get two Missy Elliott tattoos. But you’re in a tattoo parlor, and...peer pressure.”

On the possibility of winning an Oscar:

“The Oscars are about politics. I gotta earn my way back. It’s not about who is the best. I’m not that guy for a long time — for a long, long time. I’m good with that, though. Sometimes that shit is a curse.”

On Michael Bay:

“Mike is an artist. People don’t realize how dope that dude is. He’s got to get a little ballsier with his moves — he’s trying to toe the line and be James Cameron, but James Camerons are dying. I don’t know what he’s chasing, but that version of director is dead. If Mike is to sustain, he’s got to get fucking weird.”

On Stephen Spielberg:

“I grew up with this idea, if you got to Spielberg, that’s where it is. I’m not talking about fame, and I’m not talking about money. You get there, and you realize you’re not meeting the Spielberg you dream of. You’re meeting a different Spielberg, who is in a different stage in his career. He’s less a director than he is a fucking company...Spielberg’s sets are very different. Everything has been so meticulously planned. You got to get this line out in 37 seconds. You do that for five years, you start to feel like not knowing what you’re doing for a living...I don’t like the movies that I made with Spielberg. The only movie that I liked that we made together was ‘Transformers’ one.”

Read the full interview at Variety.