Shia LaBeouf Discusses Transformers, His Image & Megan Fox

Shia LaBeouf is a very polarizing figure in Hollywood, you either hate the guy or love 'em. There's no middle ground. In an interview with Details magazine LaBeouf revealed the following which may cast him in a different light:

On his image:

LaBeouf wishes he could handle such situations with more finesse. But then again, he doesn't. "I would like to be George Clooney diplomatic," the 25-year-old star concedes. "I just don't have the wherewithal yet or the inner serenity. My bull[shyte] meter is tuned very sensitive. The minute it starts kicking up, I get back to truth, and sometimes that involves, you know, 'I don't want to take a picture.' And if that's the case, am I

an [a-hole] for being honest? Or am I an [a-hole] for being dishonest, smiling in your picture and I [fricking] hate being there? Which one is worse? These are the questions I ask myself that George Clooney doesn't ask."

LaBeouf knows he engenders hostility in certain quarters, a sense that he could stand to be taken down a peg. "This is not to be comparing myself to DiCaprio, but I remember the hatred for him when every girl I liked wanted to . . ." He pauses. "It's not extraordinary envy, like Robert Pattinson fan-worship [shyte], but I do feel animosity from men. They feel like they want to challenge me. 'I just [fricked] up Shia LaBeouf!' It's a story you can tell, and I guess you're cool for it."

If there's one thing that Shia LaBeouf shares with his father, it's a propensity for stirring up trouble. There was that time he rolled his truck while "philandering around," as he says, with his Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen costar Isabel Lucas (then in a relationship with Entourage's Adrien Grenier). "It was sort of disastrous," LaBeouf says. "Neither one of us, I think, were in love. Just sort of experimenting or whatever." Technically the accident—in which LaBeouf's car flipped three times, pinning his arm and leaving his hand mangled—was the other driver's fault. But LaBeouf admits he'd had "three or four" beers a few hours before getting behind the wheel.

LaBeouf doesn't want to change simply to protect his image. He's discussed this at length with Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, and John Malkovich, not to mention his father. "You should hear how they were living at 24. Everybody's got stories. I don't want to not have stories." Plus, there's an upside to posing for the occasional mug shot. "I've noticed that since this 'wild child' [shyte] has been posted on my head," he says, "people seem a little more respectful."

He also gave an emphatic thumbs-down to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. "We were flying by the seat of our pants, with an unlimited budget," he says now, noting that they'd begun shooting without a finished script. "None of us had any clue what we were doing."

Worse, the franchise's coanchor, Megan Fox, had undergone something of a feminist awakening. Embodying the Eye Candy of the Apocalypse no longer felt like a worthy endeavor. "She felt like a prostitute," LaBeouf says. Fox quit her role in May 2010 after a dustup with the director, Michael Bay, and was replaced by the lingerie model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley for the third movie.

Asked if he hooked up with Fox, LaBeouf nods affirmatively. "Look, you're on the set for six months, with someone who's rooting to be attracted to you, and you're rooting to be attracted to them," he explains. "I never understood the separation of work and life in that situation. But the time I spent with Megan was our own thing, and I think you can see the chemistry onscreen." When I inquire about Fox's status at the time with her longtime boyfriend, Brian Austin Green, LaBeouf replies, "I don't know, man. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. . . ."—repeating the phrase exactly 12 times with various intonations, as if trying to get it just right. Finally, he says, "It was what it was."

Whatever audiences think of Dark of the Moon—which LaBeouf swears is by far the best of the three Transformers films—the actor is plainly relieved to have fulfilled his commitment. Not that it isn't a comfortable existence, being one of the most reliable earners in Hollywood—last year he topped Forbes' "Best Actors for the Buck" list, which means his asking price of $15 million per film is considered a bargain.

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