Spring Break
Q&A with Shia LaBeouf
Rising star makes the transition to blockbuster fare with 'Disturbia' and 'Transformers'
Colin Boyd
|
Shia LaBeouf, the rising star of "Disturbia," talks candidly to College Times about scary co-stars, "those other" horror movies and his role in this summer's blockbuster, "Transformers."
College Times: The trailers make "Disturbia" look a lot like a modernized version of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. Is that a fair assessment?
Shia LaBeouf: There are definitely aspects of "Rear Window," but comparing us to "Rear Window" is like comparing "Cincinnati Kid" to "The Hustler." They're just two different films. They have similar storylines, but there are aspects of "Say Anything" in our film, "The Conversation," "Straw Dogs." There's a lot of thing going on, a lot of different tones.
And David Morse is your co-star and he looks like he could be a killer.
He has the mentality of a killer. I didn't talk to that guy until two months into the movie. I didn't talk to him until we got to fight scenes, and the first words he said to me were, "Duck, kid. This is a real bat."
Wow, that's pretty intense. And especially since you don't look like you've done a lot of action scenes before. Talking to me now, I'm pretty accustomed to it. At that point, no, I hadn't done "Transformers." I had only done minimal fight scenes before that.
How much can you tell us about "Transformers?" It's got to be pretty exciting to be involved in a project that huge. .
It's absolutely insane. The movie's insane. The situation is insane. The genre has never seen anything this big. The graphics have never been done like this. You couldn't make "Transformers" two years ago; the graphics are just another level. ILM, the company that did the graphics, said that this is the most intense film they've ever worked on. So when you have a company that does "Pirates (of the Caribbean)" of the world, and then they say that about your movie, it's pretty exciting.
What was the one thing that made "Disturbia" stand out in your mind when you were reading the script? There are a lot of similar movies being made now and you've always struck me as a guy who doesn't obsesses about box office and chooses his projects based more on the story. .
The thing is, if you go the money route, you have a stagnant, short career. The goal is to be Michael Caine and still working when you're 70. The reasons 80s films for teens are so classic is they weren't written stupid. Now, everything in the horror genre is, "Let's cut an arm off here." "Rip a leg off and show the most gory thing possible." This movie is a psychological thriller, not "gore porn." I haven't seen a movie like "Disturbia" in a long time: A psychological thriller aimed at the teen genre.
Did you just say Al Gore made porn films? .
No (laughs)! But if you get a chance, watch "An Inconvenient Length." That's the porn film he did make. It's a classic.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Jamie
posted 4/13/07 @ 9:22 PM MST
Shia makes a lot of good remarks on how they don't make horror films such as,Disturbia, any more and its quiet sad.I saw the previews for "Transformers" now that is what I call a graphic movie! The graphics are so intense it's insane. (Continued…)
Post a Comment