Shia LaBeouf has had a rollercoaster of a career, and he’s opening up about its highs and lows. Now as he promotes his new project on the 2025 movie schedule, Henry Johnson, he’s getting candid about some of the lower moments and how he’s risen above them. And while explaining all of this, he also talked about why Timothée Chalamet's viral speech about greatness spoke to him.
During a Q&A, LaBeouf was asked about dropping out of the play Orphans in 2013, which he was set to work on with Alec Baldwin. He explained that the rehearsal space was “contentious” because he wanted to be accepted by his colleague, and he was feeling “insecure.” Meanwhile, he said the 30 Rock actor reportedly got “competitive.” Their relationship turned sour.
Eventually, the Holes actor left the production, and he explained that he didn’t exit this turbulent part of his life until he found religion. While speaking with THR about all this, he said that becoming a Catholic has changed the way he works, which led to his comments about Chalamet and greatness. He explained:
It changes the way you work, for sure. Me and Alec would never have these problems now. But I was in an island. Then I hear Timothée Chalamet get up and he says something like, 'I want to be great.' I so know the feeling. On him, it’s cute. On me, it wasn’t cute. You know what I’m saying?
For context, when Timothée Chalamet won his SAG Award for his performance in A Complete Unknown (which he also got a 2025 Oscar nomination for), he used his time to give a speech about wanting to be one of the greats. Dropping names like Viola Davis, Michael Jordan and more, he confidently said:
I’m really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats.
Overall, the Dune actor’s speech was well-received, and many respected his bold goals. LaBeouf also completely understood the speech and could relate to it. However, he said that that kind of mentality “wasn’t cute” in his own career.
Going back to this story about Orphans, the Transformers star explained that when Alec Baldwin came in, it was after Al Pacino had dropped out, and he was “heartbroken." He was also "living in the park” and “on steroids.”
He was sleeping in Central Park for most of the play's prep period while his co-star had just started teaching at NYU. Things got contentious, however, they’re all good now, as The Peanut Butter Falcon actor explained:
Right. And then Alec started teaching at NYU — a class on acting while I was doing these rehearsals with him. And I was like, ‘How? You’re still not off book!’ So then I started taking his class. It got insane. But me and him are good because he’s gone through a lot. I’ve gone through a lot. We’ve both been able to send each other love and make it right before all the madness happened on both sides. We made it right. He’s a good guy. He’s just like me. Fear will make you move different. I found it came from having absolutely no spiritual life.
He went on to say that that fear made him “a piece of shit” and “not a nice guy.” However, finding religion helped him, and that brings us back around to how it helped him change the way he worked and his thoughts on Chalamet’s speech.
These days, Shia LaBeouf is working consistently, and as this interview showed, he’s being quite reflective on his career. So, if you’d like to see what he’s been up to lately, he has two projects on the 2025 calendar that you can check out now – Salvable, which was released on May 2 and is available for purchase on YouTube, and Henry Johnson, which comes out on May 9.
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