Last week, you may have been entranced by Shia LaBeouf watching all of his own movies [1] and reacting to them on the live stream that showcased his every emotion. It was fascinating: he laughed, he cried, he ate pizza, and now, in his first interview about the project, he is opening up about it all. In an interview on NewHive, LaBeouf, along with his collaborators Nastja Säde Rönkkö and Luke Turner, shares how he felt during certain movies [2]. Find out what was going through his head during the first movie that showed, what the most emotional surprise was, and how that whole pizza situation came about.
During the First Movie, Man Down, Everyone Was Staring at Him
LaBeouf set the scene for what it was like to begin the mini film festival of his own movies. Kicking off with 2015's Man Down, he said that all eyes were on him, not the movies, which, happily, changed by the end. "I never really looked around the room until the last couple of movies. And when I started looking around the room, no one was looking at me. The last couple of movies it became more than what it started as. When it first came in, Man Down is a movie that hasn’t been released yet, we just showed it at two film festivals, and no one was watching the movie. Everyone who came into the theater sat down and stared at me. And I felt it. And then they left within ten minutes, because they expected me to do some high wire act. That’s not what we were there to do."
Even Stevens Is the Emotional Glue That Held the Whole Theater Together
Though LaBeouf is transparent about the films he regrets making in his younger years, 2003's The Even Stevens Movie (an offshoot of his Disney Channel series), is not one of them. It showed toward the end of the viewing, since it's one of his early movies, and LaBeouf reported that the entire audience enjoyed it immensely — and profoundly.
Continuing what it was like to be in the room of audience members, LaBeouf said, "In that room it was egalitarian. Yes, I was being stared at and I’m the focal point and the pointing is happening, but the pointing is happening for me too. If we’re all pointing, then we’re on the same level. Yes it’s a film festival where you’re watching all of my movies, but a lot of this stuff — especially Even Stevens . . . The Even Stevens Movie was interesting, it’s all of our childhood. It’s mine and it’s yours. It wasn’t just me smiling like that. If you look at the freeze frames, everyone is smiling like wow, I remember Beans. I remember that stupid-ass song. We were all looking at our yearbook together and we’re all in the yearbook. It felt like family, we were sitting there like a high school class."
Dumb and Dumberer Made Everyone Laugh For Different Reasons
LaBeouf addressed this forgettable 2003 sequel that he costarred in. When he mentioned that he and the audience "were laughing at things that weren’t jokes onscreen," Turner added: "Or the utter sexism of Dumb and Dumberer. Sexist, racist, homophobic, it was utterly deplorable. LaBeouf agreed, "We were all feeling it. There wasn’t one person in that movie who didn’t feel it." Turner: "Except maybe this one guy who thought it was the funniest film ever. That was very strange."
On Lawless Being the Turning Point For His Career
LaBeouf was not shy about calling his movies before 2012's Lawless "sh*t." Turner called out a point during the marathon "where the audience suddenly realized that you were in the same boat as them." LaBeouf responded: "I think it started after Lawless. When the movies started getting sh*t. I’m telling you. When the movies started getting sh*t and they knew that I felt it too, it was the shared secret that we all had . . . not just because I’m in it . . . I’m in the same boat as you, I’m a viewer in this and this is hard for me to watch too. In fact, I’m gonna go take a nap ‘cause I hate myself, not ‘cause I’m tired, but because I’m dying right now. And nobody had a problem with that."
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Was a Particular Low Point
LaBeouf continued that thought: "When I woke up an hour later and watched Transformers 2 they could feel when I sunk in my seat. That’s not a performative thing. That’s me going through some kind of crisis. And I’m not the only one. I remember right before I fell asleep I looked next to me and the guy next to me was falling asleep. You can see it on the screenshot we’re both asleep. And the guy behind us is asleep."
See?
The Pizza Story Is Pretty Epic
One of the best parts of the live stream is when LaBeouf happily housed a pizza. NewHive cofounder and CEO Zach Verdin laid out what happened to us and LaBeouf: "These girls called and they were young and were like 'We’re going to send a pizza!' and to look out for it. The pizza shows up and I take it downstairs and put it in the break room. You were still on a film. And about 15 minutes later they call me and they say, 'Did you get the pizza? Did you give it to Shia?' And I said, 'Yeah, I put it down in the break room. I’ll definitely go down and let them know that you delivered a pizza when it’s over.' And then they called me about ten minutes later, 'Can you actually just like bring the pizza down the aisle and like give it to him.' And you could tell these girls, I don’t know how old they were, it was like a medium pizza from Dominos, but they were sitting around the phone, watching this live stream, just like all they wanted was to see you have the pizza. So I went there and I said to you, like, 'Hey man, these girls gave you the pizza.'"
LaBeouf then revealed the flavor: "Pepperoni jalapeño. Amazing."
Verdin added, "I don’t know if you realized this but there was a moment where you walked back in the theater and you sat down and you were finishing the piece of pizza. I don’t know if you were consciously doing that," to which LaBeouf insisted, "No. I was just eating pizza."
LaBeouf said he shared the pie, to the surprise of some people: "I remember saying, 'Hey man, you want pizza?' and they looked at me like, “Holy sh*t. Yeah I want pizza.' And they took the pizza and everybody started sharing pizza around the room and we were all sitting there eating pizza that these girls had ordered, we don’t know nothing about the girls who ordered it, everyone was enjoying a meal together. There was a point where I remember eating the pizza and this guy in the back got the pizza and he was like, 'F*ck yeah! Pizza!' Everybody giggled. It was humanizing for me."