Actor Shia LaBeouf was someone who was willing to do whatever it took to get into the industry. But with other aspiring actors out there pursuing the same roles, he knew the competition was steep. One way the Even Stevens alum got ahead of the competition was by lying to them to get them to leave his auditions.
Shia LaBeouf would tell other actors he won the part during auditions just to make them quit
LaBeouf was willing to fight a bit dirty at a young age to ensure his success. Before he made it big with Transformers, the actor would find himself auditioning for movie roles against other hungry young actors. But he wasn’t about to let these other hopefuls ruin his chances, and was determined to surpass them by any means necessary. Even if that meant lying to them.
“Y’know, my first auditions I used to like, I’d get there two hours early. I would lie to all the other people sitting in the waiting room and tell them I had already booked the role, and I was there to do chemistry tests with the other actors. And actors would get up and leave the waiting room,” LaBeouf said to Kevin McCarthy. “I was, like, the only guy there to audition so they had to hire me.”
LaBeouf didn’t lose any sleep over his tactics, however. The superstar made it clear that he wasn’t in the entertainment business to make friends at the time.
“I was very competitive. Some guys go to auditions and they’re like, ‘Hey, man, good to see you again.’ And you sort of see everybody at every audition. I was never friendly to anybody. It was sort of like, ‘Look, we’re back to the same piece of meat, dude. Go sit over there and leave me alone,’” he added.
Shia LaBeouf lied to other actors about getting the ‘Even Stevens’ role
Shia LaBeouf applied these tactics of his even when auditioning for Even Stevens. But this time there were witnesses to corroborate the story. The cast for Even Stevens came together for a virtual reunion over Zoom fairly recently. The reunion was posted on co-star Christy Carlson Romano’s Youtube channel and featured most of the original cast members sans LaBeouf. In the special, a story was told about LaBeouf lying to other actors in an attempt to ensure his position in Even Stevens.
“I feel like [Shia] told me this story or maybe Matt [Dearborn, Even Stevens creator and EP] or somebody told me this story, that, it was the auditions for Louis Stevens and Shia comes into the waiting room and starts introducing himself to all the other kid actors auditioning for Louis, saying, ‘Hey, I’m Shia, I’m playing Louis Stevens,’” actor A.J. Trauth recalled.
“That’s a true story,” producer David Brookwell added. “Somebody came out of the lobby…saying, ‘Hey, Shia’s saying he’s got the part, and there’s another set of parents that are upset.’ So we had to pull him aside and say, ‘Dude, what are you doing?’ And he’s like, ‘Well, you know, I’ve got the part, don’t I?’”
Shia LaBeouf won over ‘Call Me by Your Name’ screenwriter with his audition
LaBeouf may have lied to other actors to win auditions before. But the star didn’t have to do that with Call Me by Your Name. As most know, the 2017 summer romance film co-starred Armie Hammer and Timothee Chalamet. It was directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by James Ivory. But Ivory revealed fairly recently that if he had it his way, LaBeouf would’ve co-starred in the film instead of Hammer.
“He had been contacted for the part of Oliver. At this, I was doubtful. I didn’t know much about him, so I watched some of his films. He’s an extremely good actor,” Ivory told GQ.
Despite Ivory’s initial doubts, LaBeouf was still given the opportunity to screen test for the role. It was here he exceeded expectations with his audition.
“Shia came to read for us in New York with Timothée Chalamet, paying for his own plane ticket, and Luca and I had been blown away. The reading by the two young actors had been sensational; they made a very convincing hot couple,” he continued.
Unfortunately, LaBeouf was later let go due to all his scandals.
“But then, too, Shia was dropped. He had had some bad publicity. He’d fought with his girlfriend; he’d fended off the police somewhere when they had tried to calm him down,” Ivory elaborated.
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