Shia LaBeouf's school of hard knocks, the 'Details'

By April MacIntyre Jul 31, 2008, 18:16 GMT

Shia LaBeouf - had a tough upringing, no easy path to stardom...© Glenn Harris / PR Photos

Shia LaBeouf's had a hard road to hoe, and his recent problems are just part of the toll of going from zero to 60 in seconds.  He's poised to become the biggest star of his generation, if he can get out of his own way.

In an interview that was a premonitory expose to the issues that LaBeouf faces as a young man making big money and balancing the pulls of celebrity, LaBeouf spoke to Details magazine at length about the pathos of his fame, and the work to get there.

LaBeouf wrapped "Eagle Eye," directed by D.J. Caruso, described as a "highbrow thriller about two Americans framed as political assassins by a terrorist cell."

LaBeouf's had some bad press, an ill-placed and advised "faggot" You Tube video, plus a misdemeanor arrest in a Walgreens, and the recent early morning DUI crash that apparently was not his fault, though he was still under the influence.  

An actress in his passenger seat who many thought was romantically linked to another man escaped with minor injuries.

Details recounts his rise in fame, as we saw him as an up-and-comer in the "Battle of Shaker Heights;" then his first breakout role in Disney's 2003 sleeper hit "Holes." LaBeouf, 22, since has been in big moneymaker films. "Transformers" grossed $700 million worldwide, and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" may zoom past that total.

A poor kid with nothing to lose, LaBeouf tells Details that he cold-called his first agent at the age of 12 and "promptly nailed an audition with a Disney casting director."

"I never chose to do this because there was meaning in it or I was talented or gave a shit about acting," LaBeouf says. "I got into this because I was broke."

Details notes that true working actors are most likely "enigmas" (think Heath Ledger) or "exhibitionists" (think Jim Carrey). The key that Shia has tapped into is the ducat of "relatability", a la George Clooney. (early) Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks.

"There's a form of selling out," LaBeouf says. "It's necessary. You have to become edible for people in Texas. You have to become edible for the Christian right, for mass audiences."

It is his brushes with the law that have LaBeouf on a knife's edge.

He walked into a Chicago Walgreens to buy cigarettes, had a drunken argument with a security guard, and was arrested after refusing to leave the store.

In February, he was cited for smoking a cigarette on public property in Burbank, California.  Made worse when he failed to appear in court for that charge.

"I don't ever remember getting arrested sober. I was always arrested drunk," he says to Details. "It's when I'm drinking that I don't have the wherewithal to be able to realize the position of my life. There's too much at stake for me to throw it away. I enjoy what I'm able to give my family. I enjoy the people that I'm able to wake up and work with. And I don't want to throw away what I've worked so hard for 12 years to achieve, based on an argument that takes place in 20 minutes."

LaBeouf had a hard knock life, an only child, he came up poor in Echo Park, which was a working-class Latino neighborhood near artsy SilverLake, in Los Angeles.

"None of my friends were ever as broke as I was," he says. "That's not some dramatic spinning of a tale—my uncle was going to adopt me at one point because my parents couldn't afford to have me anymore. They had too much pride to go on welfare or food stamps."

He tells Details his parents sold snow cones and hot dogs in a park near their apartment while LaBeouf, performed in a clown costume.

Only 12-years-old, he did X-rated stand-up in Pasadena comedy clubs; his mother, played piano on Lucky Luciano's gambling boat, he claimed to the magazine.

LaBeouf says his father actually grew his weed on the sides of LA freeways. And claims that he spread sinsemilla seed around the states like a stoner Johnny Appleseed.

"Every actor chooses their story at the beginning," he says. "There's this weird dichotomy of having to appear human yet be a mysterious entity in order to continue doing your craft. I need something to talk about, and then you don't have to get into deep, personal introspection."

Details features Shia on the September cover, on newsstands August 12.