Shia Labeouf

Shia LaBeouf was born in Los Angeles, California, the only child of Shayna and Jeffrey Craig LaBeouf, a Vietnam War veteran who drifted from job to job. His parents eventually divorced, and he had what he has described as a good childhood, growing up poor with his mother in Echo Park, LA. LaBeouf practiced stand up comedy around his neighborhood as an excape from a hostile environment, eventually performing stand-up and "talking dirty" at comedy clubs at the age of ten. LaBeouf subsequently found an agent through the Yellow Pages, being taken on after his doing stand-up act for the agent and pretending to be his own manager, promoting himself in the third person.

 

LaBeouf has said that he initially became an actor because his family was broke, not because he wanted to pursue an acting career. 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 retarded kid with a sister who made a documentary about his disablity. His father, at the time just released from rehab, served as his on-set parent and the two bonded during filming.

 

Shia made his transition from child actor into the adult movie scene with the Disney movie Holes, and 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" and chose to appear in some of his film roles in order to "curse as much as possible" and "age [himself] publicly" after his Disney roles. After Bobby, his most notable film was Transformers. In April 2007, LaBeouf was cast to appear in Indiana Jones IV, which began filming in June 2007 for a May 22, 2008 release date.Spielberg cast him in the film, impressed by his performance in Transformers.

10k+ Emily Published 2/19/08   Message Add to Friends

 

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