Context:

Shia LaBeouf opened up about his difficult period while working on the Broadway play 'Orphans', which led him to sleep in Central Park due to tensions with co-star Alec Baldwin. Despite the challenges, including LaBeouf's insecurities and Baldwin's limited preparation time, the two eventually reconciled and made amends. LaBeouf reflected on how his lack of a spiritual life contributed to his struggles and noted that finding Catholicism profoundly changed his outlook and behavior. He also expressed understanding towards Timothée Chalamet's ambition, comparing it to his own past feelings of inadequacy. Additionally, LaBeouf addressed a controversial documentary about his confrontations with acting students, standing by its depiction.

Dive Deeper:

• Shia LaBeouf shared that during a troubled time in his life, he ended up sleeping in Central Park while rehearsing for the Broadway play 'Orphans', highlighting his personal struggles and insecurities during this period.

• LaBeouf's relationship with Alec Baldwin became strained due to LaBeouf's eagerness to prove himself and Baldwin's rushed involvement after Al Pacino's departure, which led to tensions in their working relationship.

• Despite initial conflicts, LaBeouf and Baldwin were able to reconcile and now share mutual respect, acknowledging that both have undergone significant personal growth and hardships.

• LaBeouf attributed his past difficulties to a lack of spiritual grounding, which he believes made him unpleasant and difficult to work with, but noted that embracing Catholicism and the teachings from living in a monastery have changed his perspective.

• He drew a parallel between his own past ambitions and those of Timothée Chalamet, recognizing the same drive for greatness that he once had, while emphasizing the difference in public perception.

• LaBeouf defended a documentary that portrays him in a contentious light, arguing that it accurately depicts the altercations with his acting students, suggesting a complex relationship with his own past actions.

• Shia LaBeouf is getting candid about his struggles.

• The 38-year-old actor revealed in a new interview that at one point in his life, while he was working on a Broadway play, he was “sleeping in Central Park.”

• Shia spoke with The Hollywood Reporter alongside his Henry Johnson director David Mamet, and reflected on a point in his life when he was “not in a good way” while working on the play Orphans, which he eventually dropped out of.

• Shia also recalled the tensions between himself and Alec Baldwin on Orphans ahead of him dropping out of the project, but said that they eventually “made it right.”

• Keep reading to find out more…

• “By the time Baldwin got there, it was almost unfair. So he’s dealing with both my fractured little weak ego, right? All this hard prep that I’d done for two years, and my desperate need to show him all my prep, or that he would accept me somehow. I was so insecure. Well, that got contentious in the room. Then he got competitive. That’s just what our relationship turned into,” he explained.

• “I’d be off book, he’d be on book, and he didn’t want me to look at him be off book. That makes it hard to play these scenes out or block this thing even. And no fault against him, he had two weeks to come in because Pacino [dropped out]. I had built the whole thing based on my relationship with Pacino. And that’s gone. So I was kind of heartbroken. When he came in, I’m living in the park and I’m on steroids and I’m not in a good way,” he went on to say.

• “Yeah. I was sleeping in Central Park. They keep horses there at this little fire basin. And there’s a whole lot of room around there where you can just chill. You got to move every three or four hours and the guy comes around, but you can spend most of your time there,” Shia continued.

• He went on to explain what happened.

• “Alec started teaching at NYU — a class on acting while I was doing these rehearsals with him. And I was like, ‘How? You’re still not off book!’ So then I started taking his class. It got insane. But me and him are good because he’s gone through a lot. I’ve gone through a lot. We’ve both been able to send each other love and make it right before all the madness happened on both sides. We made it right. He’s a good guy. He’s just like me. Fear will make you move different. I found it came from having absolutely no spiritual life,” he said.

• Not having a spiritual life “made me a piece of s–t” and “not a nice guy,” he said, adding that finding Catholicism and having lived in a monastery “changes the way you work, for sure.”

• “Me and Alec would never have these problems now. But I was in an island,” he continued.

• “Then I hear Timothée Chalamet get up [at the 2025 SAG Awards] and he says something like, ‘I want to be great.’ I so know the feeling. On him, it’s cute. On me, it wasn’t cute,” he added.

• Shia LaBeouf is also standing by a documentary that depicts him allegedly initiating physical altercations against some of his acting students.