Steven Spielberg is one of the most revered directors working today. It's not surprising that an actor like Shia Lebeouf would have dreamed of working with him. However, it apparently didn't work out quite as the young actor had hoped. In a recent interview, Shia Lebeouf says the Spielberg he met was not the one that he had looked forward to working with and that he really didn't enjoy making those movies.
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 [the first] Transformers.
Shia Lebeouf and Steven Spielberg actually worked together quite a bit after the young child star ended his TV series with Disney. Lebeouf worked with Dreamworks, a company Spielberg helped found, on projects like Disturbia and Eagle Eye as well as the Transformers films, in which Spielberg also was the executive producer. Then, of course, there's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. There, Shia Lebeouf worked directly under Spielberg as a director. It's a position that most would dream to be in. It's unfortunate that apparently, it didn't work out quite that way.
Whether or not Shia Lebouf's comments are accurate, they're certainly rough. The actor doesn't hold back with Variety, calling Steven Spielberg a "fucking company" as opposed to a director. It's certainly true that Steven Spielberg's business has only grown over the years. As it stands, he has over 100 more producer credits to his name than he does director credits. Certainly, the man does run a company. At a certain point, one has to run things a certain way if they want their company to succeed.
What seems clear from the interview is that Shia Lebeouf has taken all the crap he's gotten from people fairly hard. He knows what people think of the Transformers movies. He understands that fans don't like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It would seem that he has his own criticisms of the projects as well.
What do you think of Shia Lebeouf's comments? IS he right that Steven Spielberg is more business than man now, or is he being overly harsh? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
