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Shia Saide LaBeouf (born June 11, 1986) is an American actor, voice actor, and comedian. LaBeouf began his comedy career when he was 10 years old, and then launched his acting career in 1998 at the age of 12. He became known among younger audiences for his part in the Disney Channel series Even Stevens, also appearing in three Disney TV movies. In 2003, LaBeouf made his theatrical film debut in Holes, also appearing in the lead role in The Battle of Shaker Heights that same year.

In 2005, LaBeouf made his transition into more mature roles with The Greatest Game Ever Played. In 2007, he starred as the leads in Disturbia and Transformers. The following year he appeared in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as Indiana's son and starred as Jerry Shaw in Eagle Eye. In 2009, LaBeouf reprised his role as Sam Witwicky in the Transformers sequel Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and appeared in New York, I Love You, before co-starring with Michael Douglas in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010). His upcoming films include the lead roles in Transformers: Dark of the Moon and The Associate. In 2004, he made his directorial debut by directing "Lets Love Hate" with Lorenzo Eduardo. Five years later, he also directed Cage's music video for the single "I Never Knew You".

LaBeouf was in a long-term relationship, which began in 2004 and ended in 2007. He then dated Carey Mulligan from the summer of 2009 to October 2010. In November 2007, LaBeouf was arrested for misdemeanor criminal trespassing in a Chicago Walgreens after refusing to leave; the criminal charges were dropped the following month. In July 2008, LaBeouf was involved in a car accident, which was caused by the other driver. LaBeouf was arrested at the scene of the car accident for misdemeanor drunk driving, and his driver's license was suspended for one year because he refused a breathalyzer examination. As a result of the injuries he sustained from the accident, he has undergone multiple surgeries on his left hand, which has permanent damage and scarring.

Early life
LaBeouf was born in Los Angeles, California, the only child of Shayna (née Saide) and Jeffrey Craig LaBeouf. LaBeouf's mother is a dancer and ballerina turned visual artist and clothing jewelry designer; before she met LaBeouf's father, she ran a head shop in Brooklyn. LaBeouf's father is a Vietnam War veteran who "drifted" from job to job, working as a mime at a circus, a snow cone salesman, a rodeo clown, a stand-up comedian, and touring with the Doobie Brothers as their opening act. LaBeouf's New York-born mother is Jewish and his father is a Cajun (once described by LaBeouf as a "Ragin' Cajun"). LaBeouf was raised in his mother's Jewish religion and had a Bar Mitzvah, though he was also baptized. LaBeouf has said that he comes from "five generations of performers" and was "acting when [he] came out of the womb." One of LaBeouf's great-grandmothers played piano in gangster Lucky Luciano’s casino. LaBeouf's maternal grandfather, a Polish-born Holocaust survivor who shared his first name, was a comedian who worked in the Borscht Belt of the Catskill Mountains and sidelined as a barber for the Mafia. LaBeouf's alcoholic paternal grandfather was a Green Beret in the military and LaBeouf's paternal grandmother was a Beatnik poet and lesbian who associated with Allen Ginsberg.

LaBeouf has described his parents as "hippies", his father as "tough as nails and a different breed of man", and his upbringing as similar to a "hippy lifestyle", stating that his parents were "pretty weird people, but they loved me and I loved them." LaBeouf's father used to grow cannabis, and the two smoked marijuana together when LaBeouf was ten years of age. The actor also accompanied his dad to alcoholic anonymous meetings. LaBeouf has also said he was subjected to verbal and mental abuse by his father, who once pointed a gun at his son during a Vietnam War flashback. LaBeouf says his father was "on drugs" during his childhood and was placed in drug rehabilitation for heroin addiction while LaBeouf's mother was "trying to hold down the fort." His parents eventually divorced, mainly due to financial problems, and LaBeouf had what he has described as a "good childhood", growing up poor with his mother, who worked selling fabrics and brooches in Echo Park, Los Angeles, California. LaBeouf's uncle was going to adopt him at one stage because his parents could not afford to have him anymore and "they had too much pride to go on welfare or food stamps." As a way of dealing with his parents divorce he would perform for his family, mimicking his father.

LaBeouf attended 32nd Street Visual and Performing Arts Magnet in Los Angeles (LAUSD) and Alexander Hamilton High School, although he received most of his education from tutors. Following high-school, LaBeouf was accepted to Yale University but declined, later saying, "[I am] getting the kind of education you don't get at school," although he would like to attend college. In a May 2009 Parade magazine interview, LaBeouf commented on how his parents' personal struggles, and his childhood, had an influence on him, "My dad and my mom were both artists who never found an audience for their artwork. And so I lived in poverty. Now that I'm not poor, I know that is what it was. Like Hemingway said, you can't write anything if you've never been shot at or been gored by a bull, you know? So I look back at that stuff and I'm grateful. It's like scars. You become proud of them." In that same interview, LaBeouf explained that part of what he remembers is in 1988, when he was two, his dad began dressing him up as a clown and putting him to work shilling for the family's pushcart business. LaBeouf recalled, "It was a hustle. We’d walk around the neighborhood in full clown regalia [...] My embarrassment factor didn't exist. I had fun, because I knew that in the middle of a performance my parents couldn't fight. So, for sure, every day, there had to be some peaceful time for us, or we weren't going to make it through the week financially."

1996–2006: Disney career and early projects
Prior to his acting career, LaBeouf's career as a comedian originated when he would "create things, story lines and fictitious tales" during his childhood; he practiced stand-up comedy around his neighborhood as an "escape" from a hostile environment. At the age of ten, he began performing stand-up and "talking dirty" at comedy clubs (including The Ice House in Pasadena), describing his appeal as having "disgustingly dirty" material and a "50-year-old mouth on the 10-year-old kid". LaBeouf, who described himself as an "insult comic", said that his comic material included talking about his first erection and cursing. LaBeouf commented on his stand-up comedy career, "I just knew that money was a solution to whatever the hell was going on in my household. With money, I and my family would have had more options. So I went after a job that I thought I could make the most money for a 10-year-old or an 11-year-old boy."' LaBeouf subsequently found agent Teresa Dahlquist through the Yellow Pages. He was taken on after doing his stand-up act for her 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, having originally gotten the idea from a child actor he met that had things he wanted. He commented, "My humor came from seeing my parents have sex, smoke weed, my mom being naked—just weird hippie stuff, twisted R-rated humor. I’d get up there in my OshKosh B’Gosh outfit and my bowl haircut. I was a little kid with a Lenny Bruce mouth. That was the act. But there’s no money in stand-up comedy, so I went into acting." He began acting when he was 12 years old and made numerous guest appearances on popular television shows from 1998 onward.

LaBeouf became well known among young audiences after playing Louis Stevens on the Disney Channel weekly program Even Stevens, a role for which he was cast three months after being signed by his agent and is considered to have launched his career. Even Stevens aired from 2000 to 2003 and ended with a TV movie that premiered in June 2003, on the Disney Channel. In 2003, LaBeouf was awarded a Daytime Emmy Award for the role of Louis and has said, "[he] grew up on that show" and his childhood was "kind of lost", although being cast in the show was the "best thing" that has happened to him. His father, having just been released from rehab, served as LaBeouf's on-set parent and the two bonded. Around this time period, he pitched an arrangement to Disney inspired by his and his father's residence at motels. Disney bought the rights to the story, but the project, entitled Rent-A-Dad, has never moved out of development—presumably because the material may not have been suited to the family-oriented film studio. He next appeared in two Disney Channel TV movie, Hounded (2001), as the rival of the main character, and Tru Confessions, where he portrayed a mentally challenged kid with a sister who made a documentary about his disability. Gary Marsh, President of Entertainment for Disney Channel Worldwide, described LaBeouf as giving an "unbelievable acting performance", and stated, "to this day I believe [that performance] gave him the leverage and credibility to get a lot of other roles." During this time, he also appeared in sketch shows on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

In 2003, he appeared in another Disney production, Holes, which is based on the book of the same name, as the starring role Stanley "Caveman" Yelnats IV, opposite Jon Voight. While filming Holes, Voight lent LaBeouf acting books that turned him on to the notion that acting could be about more than just a paycheck. When casting for the lead part, the director was searching for a younger actor who was a mix of Dustin Huffman, Tom Hanks and Gene Wilder; once they saw LaBeouf they knew he would be right for the role. Holes was a sleeper hit, making $67 million at the box office, and was well-received by critics. After the release of the movie, he was billed as the next Frankie Muniz and established as a breakout star. That same year, he was heavily featured in the HBO documentary show Project Greenlight, which chronicled the making of the independent film The Battle of Shaker Heights, his first PG-13 movie. In the film, he acted in another leading role as troubled teen Kelly Ernswiler, which was a different type of role for him compared to his recent projects. It was theatrically released on August 22, in limited release and had a poor box office performance. He also had minor roles in the films, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd, both in 2003. In 2004, LaBeouf co-wrote and directed the short film Let's Love Hate with Lorenzo Eduardo, which was LaBeouf's directorial debut. He had a minor role in I, Robot (2004) and, the following year, appeared in the action-horror film Constantine as Chas Kramer, a supporting character.



LaBeouf made his transition into more mature roles, playing the lead role in the 2005 Disney film The Greatest Game Ever Played, as Francis Ouimet, a real-life golfer from a poor family who won the 1913 U.S. Open Championship. While reviewing the film, Jeff Vice of the Deseret News regarded LaBeouf as a "terrific lead". He co-starred alongside Lindsay Lohan and Demi Moore in the 2006 ensemble drama Bobby as Cooper, a campaign volunteer for Robert F. Kennedy. In Bobby LaBeouf's character goes on a LSD trip and strips naked, showing his backside. LaBeouf said that his father helped him act out the scene involving him on a LSD trip, saying "My father was very descriptive about the high and what happens, and he broke down the timeline for me." He also stated that he never considered using a body double for the nude scene. As part of the cast of Bobby, he won a Hollywood Film Award, and was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award. Also in 2006, LaBeouf played the younger version of Dito Montiel in A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, the older version being played by Robert Downey, Jr. in a semi-autobiographical account of Montiel's upbringing in 1980s Astoria, Queens. Initially, Montiel refused to see LaBeouf for the part, having only seen him as the "Disney guy". Once he got to audition for the role, he "fucked his office up", putting a into the wall and went as "crazy" as he could in order to change the image he had of him to land the part. The film received positive reviews from the press. Among them was Entertainment Weekly, with Lisa Schwarzbaum describing LaBeouf as being "lavishly talented".

Breakthrough and commercial success, 2007–2008
2007 marked a significant turning point in LaBeouf's career, when he appeared in a string of blockbuster films. In 2007, LaBeouf starred in Disturbia, a thriller released on April 13. He played a teenager under house arrest who suspects that his neighbor is a serial killer. LaBeouf said his character was important to him because it is a "character-driven" role. The film was a sleeper hit and LaBeouf received positive reviews for the role, with The Buffalo News saying, he "has grown into an appealing, bright young actor who is able to simultaneously pull off [the character's] anger, remorse and intelligence", Kurt Loder of MTV wrote "[LaBeouf] gets his star ticket decisively punched", and the San Francisco Chronicle noted, "[LaBeouf is] fast becoming the best young actor in Hollywood". In comparing the film with Rear Window, the New York Daily News described LaBeouf's appeal as "more John Cusack than James Stewart". He hosted Saturday Night Live on April 14, and also provided the voice of narrator Cody Maverick in the animated mockumentary film Surf's Up. It was another commercially successful for him, making $149 million worldwide. Also in 2007, he played teenager Sam Witwicky, who becomes involved in the Autobot-Decepticon war on Earth, in Michael Bay's Transformers, released on July 3. Executive producer Steven Spielberg cast him in the role, having been impressed by his performance in Holes. Bay initially considered LaBeouf too old for the part of Sam, having only seen his performance in Constantine, but was "bowled" over by his enthusiasm. LaBeouf performed his own stunts in the film, and was paid $500,000. Transformers became an international blockbuster success, grossing more than $700 million worldwide. He received critical acclaim for his role, with Empire's Ian Nathan praising him as "a smart, natural comedian, [who] levels the bluntness of this toy story with an ironic bluster". For his work, he garnered nominations for an Empire Award, and a National Movie Award, as well as being named 2007's "star of tomorrow" by the ShoWest convention.

In February 2008, he was awarded the BAFTA Orange Rising Star Award, which was voted on by the British general public. In May, LaBeouf appeared in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as Mutt Williams, a greaser who is Indiana Jones' son. He was Spielberg's first choice for the role, again having been impressed by his performance in Holes. LaBeouf said that he signed on to the film without reading the script and did not know what character he would play. He said, in order to prepare for his role in the film, that he worked out seven days a week for three hours a day and described his diet as being "protein-heavy, carb-heavy"; he gained over fifteen pounds of muscle from training. LaBeouf said of the experience, "I have definitely not trained like this for anything in my life. I'm preparing like I'm going into battle." During filming LaBeouf pulled his rotator cuff while filming a fight scene, which was the first injury of his career; the injury got worse throughout filming, and he pulled his groin. Grossing a total of $780 million, it was the second highest grossing 2008 film worldwide. His performance was met with mixed reviews with Todd Gilchrist of IGN commenting "one can't quite help but wonder what Spielberg saw in the young actor that inspired him to cast LaBeouf". LaBeouf, for the second time, hosted Saturday Night Live on May 10, with musical guest My Morning Jacket. His next film was Eagle Eye, a thriller about a young man (LaBeouf) and a single mother who are brought together and coerced by an anonymous caller into carrying out a plan by a possible terrorist organization. Released on September 26, Eagle Eye proved to be another commercially successful film for LaBeouf, grossing $177 million worldwide. His performance received mixed reviews, with Josh Bell of Las Vegas Weekly saying "[LaBeouf] makes a credible bid for action-hero status, although his occasional stabs at emotional depth don’t really go anywhere." In December 2008, he dropped out of the film Dark Fields due to a hand injury he had acquired in a car crash which would not be fully healed by the time production started.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and beyond, 2009–present
In 2009, LaBeouf teamed with rapper Chris "Cage" Palko to direct the music video for "I Never Knew You," the first single off of Cage's third album, Depart From Me. The music video was shot on location in downtown Los Angeles in February and features cameos by other Definitive Jux artists, such as El-P, Aesop Rock, Yak Ballz, and Alex Pardee. According to LA Weekly, this video marks the first in a series of collaborations between LaBeouf and Cage and will ultimately result in a film about the rapper's life, starring LaBeouf. When asked what it was like directing the video, LaBeouf said, "I'm 22 and I'm directing my favorite rapper's music video. This shit is better than riding unicorns." The video premiered on May 18, on MTV2 and MtvU. LaBeouf reprised the role of Sam Witwicky in the 2009 sequel to Transformers, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Filming for the movie began in May 2008 and ended in late 2008. Due to LaBeouf's injury from his car accident, Bay and screen writer Roberto Orci had to rewrite the script to protect his hand throughout filming. LaBeouf said production was only delayed two days after his accident because Bay made up for it by filming second unit scenes, and LaBeouf recovered a few weeks earlier than expected, allowing him to return to the set. Near the end of filming, LaBeouf injured his eye when he hit a prop; the injury required seven stitches. He resumed filming two hours later. For his work, LaBeouf was reportedly paid around $5 million. The movie was a commercial success, grossing $800 million worldwide, but was panned by critics, with LaBeouf sharing a nomination for the "Worst Screen Couple of 2009" Razzie Award with "either Megan Fox or any Transformer."

He next played a limping bellboy, in the romantic comedy New York, I Love You (2009), a collection of short stories about finding love in the five boroughs of New York and the sequel to Paris, je t'aime. His only 2010 movie was the Oliver Stone-directed film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, the sequel to Wall Street (1987), playing an ambitious Wall Street trader who is in a relationship with Gordon Gekko's daughter, Winnie. As part of getting into character, he chose to stay "skinny" because "hedge funders are big in cardio" and they are "lean." The movie, which closed the 2010 Cannes Film Festival in May 2010, was another mixed critical success for him. Writing in The Daily Telegraph, David Gritten observed "LaBeouf is just about old enough to play a smart young trader, and does so efficiently, if not particularly interestingly." LaBeouf will reprise his role in the third Transformers film, which is expected to be released on July 1, 2011. In December 2008, LaBeouf agreed on to star as Kyle McAvoy in the film adaption of the novel The Associate by John Grisham, having been hand-picked by the author himself who was enthusiastic of the actors casting. In late 2009, LaBeouf left his agents at William Morris Endeavor over the disappointment of losing a project (The Promised Land). After trying to go without an agent, he eventually signed with Creative Artists Agency in January 2010.

Personal life
LaBeouf bought his own two-bedroom house at the age of 18. He is a cigarette smoker,  but he said in June 2009 that he had recently begun trying to quit. LaBeouf has two bulldogs named Brando and Rex. LaBeouf has said, "sports are so big in my life", and that he is a "film junkie". He enjoys the music of The Shins, CKY, and the hip hop label Definitive Jux. LaBeouf has said that he is a fan of The Transformers television series and the 1986 film, The Transformers: The Movie. He is a fan of the Los Angeles Clippers and Los Angeles Dodgers. While doing research for his role in the Wall Street sequel, he developed an interest in stock market trading, which he described as his "favorite hobby".

LaBeouf has said that he is "very serious" about his career and has made "a calculated effort to stay away from the party scene," believing that "if the industry takes you lightly because you're always partying, then they will take your work lightly as well." He has said that religion "never made sense" to him, and also that he has a "personal relationship with God that happens to work within the confines of Judaism". The actor 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. However, he specifies that Disney is "great and all" and a "nurturing place". He has said that he enjoyed being a child actor and disliked school.

He has three known tattoos as of May 2009, which are: 1986–2004 on his inner right wrist, a dog paw tattoo on his upper left arm, and a hand with a shackle on it on his left upper side torso. Regarding the reason why he got the tattoo on his wrist, he said, "I’ve been doing this [acting] for 10 years, a lot of people say, ‘Oh, I forgot my childhood or I miss my childhood’ so that’s just precautionary." LaBeouf described the tattoo on his upper side torso, "It’s like an artist drawing his own prison," and continued, "Just life. That’s where I’m at". He has cited actors Gary Oldman, Dustin Hoffman, Jodie Foster, Jon Voight, John Turturro, and Francis Lawrence as inspirations. LaBeouf described his agent Teresa Dahlquist, who paid for his head shots and rent during his Disney career, as being "one of the few pillars" in his life, adding that "she lifted me up and cared for me."

Despite having a hard relationship with both his parents during his childhood, he remains close to them both. During the winter, LaBeouf's father usually stays with him; during the summers, he lives in a tepee in Montana on a $10,000 plot of land LaBeouf bought him. LaBeouf bought his mother a house that is a ten-minute drive from his own house, in Tujunga, Los Angeles, California. He commented, "They don't work. I take care of them, and they get to create art for the rest of their days." When LaBeouf was 19, after a neighbor in his Studio City apartment complex had allegedly insulted his mother and rear-ended her car, LaBeouf brought a knife, and a friend for backup, to the neighbor's apartment, which resulted in LaBeouf being assaulted by the neighbor and six of the neighbor's friends.

From 2004 to 2007 LaBeouf dated China Brezner, whom he met on the set of The Greatest Game Ever Played. He said of the reason for the break-up, "My focus became so work-related that I couldn't devote any time to a relationship", but, "We were inseparable, she was my best friend and my love". He described the break-up as being like "rebuilding after a tornado." LaBeouf has said he tries to avoid relationships with co-stars saying, "It's really easy to fall for someone on-set, but in the end you know, it's a representative and it's not really them." He dated British actress and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps co-star Carey Mulligan from August 2009 to October 2010; they were introduced by the film's director, Oliver Stone, prior to filming and began dating shortly after.

Arrests
Early in the morning of November 4, 2007, a security guard asked LaBeouf to leave a Chicago Walgreens; after refusing to do so, Labeouf was arrested for misdemeanor criminal trespassing. The criminal charges were dropped on December 12, 2007. In March 2008, an arrest warrant was issued for LaBeouf, after he failed to make a court appearance. The hearing was in relation to a ticket he had received for unlawful smoking in Burbank, California, in February 2008. When neither LaBeouf nor a lawyer appeared at the court, at 8:30 a.m., a $1000 bench warrant was issued for his arrest. However, the court commissioner in California recalled this warrant on March 19, 2008, after the actor’s attorney arrived a day late to plead not guilty on LaBeouf's behalf, and a pre-trial hearing was set for April 24, 2008. The charge was dismissed, after the actor paid a $500 fine.

At approximately 3 A.M. on July 27, 2008, LaBeouf was involved in a car crash, at the intersection of La Brea Avenue and Fountain Avenue in Los Angeles. His Ford F-150 was hit from the side by a vehicle running a red light. LaBeouf had been gripping the top of the windowsill as he drove and, upon impact, the truck rolled onto his exposed left hand, crushing it. While responding to the accident, police officers smelled alcohol on LaBeouf's breath. Because he refused a breathalyzer examanization, authorities arrested LaBeouf at the scene for misdemeanor drunk driving, and his driver's license was suspended for one year. Bay stated that LaBeouf had been drinking hours before the car accident and he had felt that, by the time the accident had occurred, the alcohol had worn off. LaBeouf had to undergo one of many hand surgeries immediately after the accident. His passenger, Isabel Lucas, and the driver and passenger in the other car suffered only minor injuries. Due to severe damages from the accident, LaBeouf's truck was totaled; his father keeps the vehicle at his home as a memento.

Two days later, a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesman announced that LaBeouf was not at fault in the accident as the other driver had run a red light. LaBeouf returned to the set of the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, at this time, and shooting resumed. In September of that year, LaBeouf described the car accident as being "eye-opening and terrifying." He said that, as a result of the injuries, he had screws and plates put in his left hand; there is also scarring. A screw was placed in one of his knuckles, and he had a shaved piece of bone from his hip made into a bone for his finger. In April 2009, he stated he had undergone three hand surgeries. He said that he would regain "probably about 80-something percent" usage of his hand and, while he would be able to make a fist again, "there’s a knuckle [I will] never be able to move again." In May 2010, he said that he has "completely" regained movement in his fingers; however, it is unknown if he means he has hit his target of "80-something percent" or exceeded it to 100%.