Steve Zak Photography/FilmMagicShia LaBeouf might have "retired" from public life, but he seems to be fully back in it, openly discussing his stint in rehab and life as a celebrity. Note: he is a performer and doesn't want to be known as a star.
The Transformer actor-turned-performance artist opened up to Variety about his return to the Tribeca Film Festival, where he and director Alma Har'el debuted LoveTrue, an "experimental" drama that combines documentary and fiction. LaBeouf served as executive producer of the film, or as he says, "I gave her the money."
Even though his involvement in LoveTrue is purely away from the cameras, the Even Stevens star told the trade publication that he will never consider directing because he is a "performer." But even that has its problems because, according to LaBeouf, acting and performing are very different.
"The craft of acting for film is terribly exclusive and comes with the baggage of celebrity, which robs you of your individuality and separates you," he explained. "The performance work is democratized and far more inclusive. As a celebrity/star I am not an individual—I am a spectacular representation of a living human being, the opposite of an individual. The enemy of the individual, in myself as well as in others."
LaBeouf further explained his celebrity mentality, saying stars are beholden to everything else but themselves. "The requirements to being a star/celebrity are namely, you must become an enslaved body. Just flesh—a commodity, and renounce all autonomous qualities in order to identify with the general law of obedience to the course of things. The star is a byproduct of the machine age, a relic of modernist ideals. It's outmoded."
Fellow celeb Rob Lowe, however, couldn't have disagreed more. The Parks and Recreation star tweeted his disdain for LaBeouf's comments, writing, "He's right. It's SO hard being famous. So very, very, VERY HARD. Goodbye everyone, I retire as well."
Please don't retire! (Although we do have to wonder...which of Lowe's many personalities is the one issuing this tweet?)
With exception to his presence at the Tribeca Film Festival and random outings with ladylove Mia Goth, we haven't seen much of the former Disney star. But he talked to The Hollywood Reporter about his stint in rehab last year and described some of the activities in which he had to participate.
"I just got out of rehab nine months ago, and in rehab you do this kind of operatic therapy, where you go in and sit with your small little group, three or four people, and you work through your s--t. Somebody will play your father, somebody will play your mother, and there's literally like an action/cut thing and you go all the way there," he said.
"For me, it's like method acting...The only way you can actually have something like that go on is when everyone agrees that that's what the reality is," he added. "You rarely get that on a film set because you got people looking at you like, 'You're just a f--king actor.'"
So does this mean he won't be appearing in more films? Unclear.