NEWSShia La Beouf: I've Been Lucky
Sept. 26 2008, Published 9:00 a.m. ET
These days it seems like every action flick to come out is starring Shia LaBeouf, whether he's battling evil robots in Transformers or fighting the bad guys alongside Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
And now in Eagle Eye the omnipresent Shia is up against intangible villains invading his privacy, something he knows about firsthand.
"I kind of live in a fishbowl, but what people don't realize is that I'm not the only one," he tells Parade.com." The irony is they say to me, 'I don't know how you can deal with being followed and recorded everywhere you go.' And while they're saying that they may be getting recorded."
As for the common reaction that worries about privacy invasion are overly paranoid, Shia admits that he's become a believer when it comes to the idea that we're being monitored.
"I tell you what got my attention," he says. "There was a CIA guy on the set who played back a cell phone conversation I'd had two years ago. It's a tangible reality that one in five phone conversations you have is recorded, that your ADT security box in your home can be activated and used against you and OnStar in your car could allow somebody to shut your car down on the freeway. Big Brother is invading our lives because we've allowed him to and that's terrifying."
While Shia says he didn't shy away from doing hard physical stunts on the set of Eagle Eye, he may have to be more careful in the future after the car accident he was in in July left him with a hand injury.
"I just remember a car coming at me really fast and then my truck flipped twice," he says of the collision. "I had my arm out the window which is how my fingers got crushed. It was pretty bad and I'm due back for a second operation but I think I'll be fine."
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Shia's rapidly rising career hasn't given him a big head, however – in fact, the Disturbia actor thinks anyone could be in his place.
"I think I've just been riding coattails. I mean, come on, Indy Jones was going to be a success whether I was in it or not," he says. "You could have put Freddie Prinze Jr. in my part. Put Frankie Muniz in Transformers and it still would have been a hit. So I realize how lucky I've been."
Whatever the case, Shia's been making a name for himself in the business, a name which is pretty unusual at that.
"In French, LaBeouf means 'beef,' but mine is spelled wrong. It should be 'LaBoeuf, ' " he reveals. "My grandmother was a beatnik lesbian in the '50s, who hated her family and decided to change the spelling, and it's been that way ever since. So you go to France and people are like, 'LaBeouf? You have an illiterate last name.' "
And it's not only his last name that has the French giving him funny looks!
"By the way," he adds, "Shia is a bad four-letter word in French. So the literal translation of my name is 'S*** the Beef.' Kind of rock-starry isn't it?"
