2007 - Transformers Interview

We had a chance to sit down with Shia LaBeouf and he was kind enough to spill the beans on the new Transformers movie. From working on the set, to what its like dealing with a Michael Bay Production. In 1984, the Transformers brand took the world by storm with its compelling saga of the "Robots in Disguise," and quickly became a childhood rite of passage with a tremendously successful toy line from Hasbro and Takara, comic book series, television program and animated feature film.
Twenty years later, a new generation of kids has discovered the excitement of the Transformers brand and the legendary characters, such as Optimus Prime and Megatron, that truly are "more than meets the eye." Here is what he had to say.

Q: So what was it like working on Transformers?

Shia LaBeouf: Transformers was crazy. It’s just a different type of movie, a different form of it.

Q: A lot of green screens and blue screens?

Shia LaBeouf: Not a lot.

Q: Oh really?

Shia LaBeouf: No. We build the robots, we blew stuff up. This all really happened. There’s stuff we could’ve done on green screen but the way that [Michael] Bay works, and the way he works with actors, which is why it’s funny to me he goes to such lengths to put his actors in situations that are safety (??) and dangerous for their reaction and their response. He’s actually an actor’s director. It’s conducive to the performance because then you are responding. And he goes out of his way to do that. If you’re shooting a movie in 80 days, you can easily go to green screen and fake me being on the Orpheum Theatre, blowing the roof up, hanging by one hand while my feet are on fire.
 
You know that stuff you can do on green screen. But he took us to the Orpheum Theatre, blew the Orpheum Theatre up, lit my feet on fire. You don’t have to go mind F yourself, you know. You show up to set and the works done for you. You just have to respond. And so it’s funny to me that people say he’s not an actor’s director. If I didn’t have Bay, I wouldn’t have gotten through Transformers. There’s only one dude who could’ve made that movie. You couldn’t have DJ make Transformers and Michael Bay couldn’t have made Disturbia. They’re two different textures, two different paints. You know the difference between a Warhol and a Picasso, and I’m not saying that they’re either one of those or that they’re at that level, but they’re just two different textures.

Q: Were you a Transformers fan before you even signed up?

Shia LaBeouf: Huge.

Q: Really?

Shia LaBeouf: Star Wars was a bit early for me so I didn’t fall into the fanatical Star Wars thing. But Transformers was the male Barbie. I mean Transformers was at everyone’s house, not just at yours, but you’d go to a piñata party or something or a Quinceañera, everybody had them.

Q: So it was a dream come true in a way?

Shia LaBeouf: Yeah, but again, it was a cheesy cartoon. It was never what it is now and it’s turning into like… it’s becoming very serious. They’re making a whole storyline. Now they have a prequel book that I just read that just came out and it explains all the stuff that I had never even thought about. There’s the whole lingo that goes along with it. It’s very similar to Star Wars and the fan base and the passion of it. I don’t know about the mass and how big that fan base is, but the people who are into it are into it. They have Decepticon back logos, tattoos all over the place, Transformers, arm pieces.
 
You don’t see people getting Pirates of the Caribbean Jack Sparrow on their back. They don’t get those back pieces, they get Decepticon logos. They take the Ford symbol off their car and replace it with an Autobot symbol. People are fanatical about it. You go on Ain’t It Cool News or any of these websites and Chud or any of these and it’s all Transformers. Again, now I don’t know what the internet amounts to, but I know we’re the most downloaded trailer in Yahoo’s history. But again, you can’t count on things like that. Snakes on a Plane had a huge internet following and then what happened.

Q: It sounds like you have gone on line and read some of the things.

Shia LaBeouf: Oh, non-stop. Of course.

Q: As it gets closer to the release and it’s going to get more and more intense, are you going to be like ‘Okay, I can’t deal with this anymore’?

Shia LaBeouf: No. You have to be aware of it, because when you get questioned about it, especially if you’ve got a guy who’s on those sites and there’s passion behind it, you’ve got to be informed about the discussions and the topics, especially when you’re the head speaker for the Transformers movie and there’s so much behind it, you need to be educated to all of it – the lingo, the robots, the back talk, the combos, the rumors, all of it.

Q: Does that stress you out a little bit?

Shia LaBeouf: No, I’m a Transformers fan. I’d be doing this even if I wasn’t in the movie.