Shia LaBeouf

He attended 32nd Street Visual and Performing Arts Magnet in Los Angeles (LAUSD) and Alexander Hamilton High School, although he received most of his education from tutors.

In an interview, LaBeouf said that, looking back on his childhood, he feels grateful and considers some of those memories as scars.

Shia Saide LaBeouf (born June 11, 1986) is an American actor, performance artist, and filmmaker.

LaBeouf was born on June 11, 1986, in Los Angeles, California.

He is the only child of visual artist, jewelry designer, and dancer Shayna Saide and professional clown, Jeffrey LaBeouf.

His mother died of heart failure in August 2022.

LaBeouf's mother was Jewish, and his Cajun father is Christian.

He has stated that he was raised around "both sides" — he was baptized and Bar Mitzvahed.

One of the camps he attended was Christian.

He embraced the Catholic faith in 2022.

LaBeouf has described his parents as "hippies", his father as "tough as nails and a different breed of man", and his upbringing as similar to a "hippy lifestyle", stating that his parents were "pretty weird people, but they loved me and I loved them."

His parents eventually divorced, mainly owing to financial problems, and LaBeouf had what he has described as a "good childhood", growing up poor in Echo Park with his mother, who worked selling fabrics and brooches.

LaBeouf's uncle was going to adopt him at one stage because his parents could not afford to have him anymore and "they had too much pride to go on welfare or food stamps."

As a way of dealing with his parents' divorce, he would perform for his family, mimicking his father.

LaBeouf has stated that during his childhood, his father was "on drugs" and was placed in drug rehabilitation for heroin addiction, while LaBeouf's mother was "trying to hold down the fort."

During a period when his father was in rehab for his addictions, when Labeouf was around the age of 10, he overheard his mother being raped by a stranger in their home.

Labeouf then lived with his father from the age of 12 whilst he was filming Even Stevens, with his father serving as his on-set guardian.

During this time, he accompanied his father to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous.

LaBeouf has also said he was subjected to abuse by his father, who once pointed a gun at his son during a Vietnam War flashback.

LaBeouf remains close to and financially supports his father, as he did for his mother until her death.

He made his film debut in The Christmas Path (1998).

In the early 2000s, LaBeouf became known among young audiences after playing Louis Stevens on the Disney Channel weekly program Even Stevens, a role that later earned him a Daytime Emmy Award.

He has said that "[he] grew up on that show" and being cast was the "best thing" that happened to him.

He played Louis Stevens in the Disney Channel series Even Stevens, a role for which he received Young Artist Award nominations in 2001 and 2002 and won a Daytime Emmy Award in 2003.

His other credits include the films Holes (2003), Constantine (2005), Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010), Lawless (2012), The Company You Keep (2012), Nymphomaniac (2013), Charlie Countryman (2013), Fury (2014), American Honey (2016), Borg vs McEnroe (2017), Honey Boy (2019), The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019), Pieces of a Woman (2020), and Padre Pio (2022).

In the next several years, he appeared in the film Holes (2003), which received praise.

In 2004, he made his directorial debut with the short film Let's Love Hate and later directed a short film titled Maniac (2011), starring American rappers Cage and Kid Cudi.

In 2005, he co-starred in Constantine, playing the role of Chas Kramer, with Keanu Reeves in the starring role.

The same year he provided the voice of Asbel in the Disney-produced English dub of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.

LaBeouf made his directorial debut with the short film Let's Love Hate with Lorenzo Eduardo.

In 2007, LaBeouf starred in the commercially successful films Disturbia and Surf's Up.

From 2007 to 2011, LaBeouf starred in the film Transformers and its sequels Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Transformers: Dark of the Moon, playing protagonist Sam Witwicky.

The three films were commercially successful.

In 2008, he played Henry "Mutt Williams" Jones III in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

LaBeouf completed the 2010 Los Angeles Marathon on March 21, 2010, with a time of 4 hours, 35 minutes and 31 seconds.

Prior to acting, LaBeouf practiced comedy around his neighborhood as an "escape" from a hostile environment.

At age 10, he began performing stand-up at The Improv, describing his appeal as having "disgustingly dirty" material and a "50-year-old mouth on the 10-year-old kid."

He subsequently found an agent through the Yellow Pages and was taken on after pretending to be his own manager.

LaBeouf has said that he initially became an actor because his family was broke, not because he wanted to pursue an acting career, having originally gotten the idea from a child actor he met who had things he wanted.

Since 2014, LaBeouf has pursued a variety of public performance art projects with LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner.