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I Was Doing Stand Up Comedy When I Was 11, That's How I Got Started; Not Because I Wanted To Do Comedy, But Because We Were Broke, Living In Echo Park In Downtown Los Angeles, From 1986, I Saw The Rodney King Riots; My Parents Didn't Really Work. But I Wanted A New Backpack, That's How I Got Into This Business - I Wanted A New Backpack.

-Shia LaBeouf

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I Was Doing Stand

Shia LaBeouf

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I Was Doing Stand Up Comedy When I Was 11, That's How I Got Started; Not Because I Wanted To Do Comedy, But Because We Were Broke, Living In Echo Park In Downtown Los Angeles, From 1986, I Saw The Rodney King Riots; My Parents Didn't Really Work. But I Wanted A New Backpack, That's How I Got Into This Business - I Wanted A New Backpack.

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I've Learned A Great Deal About A Certain Type Of Filmmaking. But I Have Ambitions Toward Another Type Of Filmmaking That I Haven't Been Allowed To Engage In Yet.

I Grew Up Around A Lot Of Aggressive Guys. My Parents Used To Take Me To Aa Meetings When I Was Very Young. So I Know Aggression, I Know Insanity.

I Was Planning On Going To Yale To Theater School.

If You Asked An 18-year-old What They Want To Do With Their Life, And The Options Are 'transformers' Or Lars Von Trier, He's Probably Shipping Out For 'transformers.' If You Ask A 26-year-old What He Wants To Do, 'transformers' Or Lars Von Trier, He'd Probably Pick Lars Von Trier. So, My Sensibilities Are Changing As I Change.

As An Actor, The Minute You Start Getting Real In Interviews, You Lose Mystery.

Any Time You're A Type, Your Career's Over.

Well, You Don't Make Any Demands To Steven Spielberg.

I Understand Why Marriages Break Up Over Golf. I Can't Even Talk About My Own Handicap Because It's Too Upsetting.

Talent Is To Actors What Luck Is To Card Players. Its Not Really Anything; Its Just A Fictitious Word That People Have Created And Labeled Things. Talent Is Like, You Know, I Never Really Believed In Talent, I Believed In Drive And Determination And Preparation, But Talent Is Sort Of Like Luck.

I Didn't Read The Book On How To Be A Well-adjusted Celebrity.

The Comic Book World Is A Tough Business.

If People Perceive You As A Good Actor Then They'll Wish For You To Be A Good Actor And They'll Root For You When They Watch You, But If You Come Out And You're Going To Clubs Every Night People Don't Root For You Anymore.

All Of The Things That Have Happened In My Life Have Been Self-propelled. I Can't Blame Anybody Else Or Point A Finger At Anybody.

It's Good Filmmaking When You Don't Have To Say Anything And You Can Still Tell The Story.

Child Actors Become Types. The Cutesy Type, The Funny Type, The Dark Type. Any Time You're A Type, Your Career's Over. It's Not Been Effortless For Me; I've Had Bumps In The Road, You Know? I Was In Dumb And Dumberer. It's Not Been A Flawless Thing So Far. But All In All, I'm Proud Of It. Most Proud Of It Because Of The Diversity. Because The Genres Are Different.

Sometimes Perception Is Almost More Important Than The Skill Level Of An Actor. And If You Give Too Much Away, You Have Nothing To Take For Yourself And Put Onscreen. If People Feel Like They Know You Too Well, They Won't Be Able To Indentify With The Character You're Trying To Portray. Or They'll Feel That You're Just Playing Yourself, And Then You Just Become A Personality Actor. And That's The Death Of Any Actor.

There's A Way To Do An Acid Trip Like Harold & Kumar, And There's A Way To Be On Acid. What I Know Of Acting, Sean Penn Actually Strapped Up To That Electric Chair In Dead Man Walking. These Are The Guys That I Look Up To.

Having Emotional Connections To Things That Don't Really Exist, Like Looking At A Green Ball And Really Loving That Green Ball, And Being Sad Whether It's Around Or Not. Stuff Like That. I've Never Done Acting At This Level Before So It Was A Huge Challenge For Me. It Was A Hurdle To Overcome Just To Survive.

Most Actors On Most Days Don't Think They're Worthy.

I Come From Divorce. I'm Only Doing Marriage Once. It's Not A Game For Me.

I Think Every Young Actor In Los Angeles Went Up For That Role. It Was Between Frankie Muniz And Me, And He Pulled Out, So I Got The Role.

If You Can Mix Hilary Duff And Gary Oldman Into The Same Actor, That's My Goal. I Know It's Strange To Think About, But That's The Goal.

When The Ship Is Sinking And You're Forced To Choose Sides, The New Solution Is To Jump From Island To Island To Island. You Don't Have To Pick.

The Big Thing For Actors Is The Level Of Commitment.

I Would Like To Be George Clooney - Diplomatic. I Just Don't Have The Wherewithal Yet Or The Inner Serenity.

I Used To Dirt Bike A Lot. I Can't Do That Anymore. Can't Eat A Whole Lot Of Chocolate Anymore, Either. I Can't Be In 'indiana Jones' And Be A Fatso!

To Be Able To Sit In Donald Trump's Apartment And Talk About The Future Of Corporate Real Estate Was Amazing.

I Got To Grow Up In A Situation Where Drugs Were Demonic. To Watch Your Dad Go Through Heroin Withdrawal Is Something That Would Keep You From Doing Any Of That Yourself.

I Didn't Know My Dad For A Long Time. My Dad Was On Drugs And My Dad Was At The Va Hospital, My Dad Was Off In His Own World Selling Drugs Or Using Them Or There Would Be Crack Heads In The House Or Whatever It Would Be.

Have You Ever Noticed How Most Critics Disagree With The Public? That Should Tell You A Lot About Critics.

I Have A Hard Time With Free Time.

People Think That Their Vote Counts. They Go To College, And Everything Gets Mixed Up. People Stop Caring, ... They Raise The Gas Prices, But What The Everyman Makes And Welfare Never Seem To Keep Up. The Hmo System Is So Ridiculous. I'm Slightly Educated. No One Wants To Hear What Hilary Duff Thinks Of The Economy.

There's No Room For Being A Visionary In The Studio System. It Literally Cannot Exist.

Clubs Are So Lame. Nobody Even Dances At These Clubs. They Stand Around And Get Drunk And They Schmooze. There Is No Enjoyment Factor.

The Best Movies Are Simple.

My Life Is Okay, My Life Is Pretty Good.

I Wasn't Cocky, Just Confident; I Went To An All Black School, A White Kid.

Old Americana Vintage Gangster Stuff Has A Fantastical Feel; It Feels Less Dirty In A Way. It Feels Like The Opera Of Crime.

I Am Trying To Impress Myself. I Have Yet To Do It.

You Have To Be A Master To Teach.

Adversity Has A Way Of Introducing A Man To Himself.

Respected, I Almost Want To Be Revered, That's What I'm Chasing.

By Studying Psychology I Want To Be A Better Actor. There's Something About Studying Body Language And Non-spoken Emotion - I Know The Innate Response. But To Really Study It Like A Science Would Be Fun.

When You're Working With The Best Of The Best, I'm Not Gonna Put That On Hold So I Can Work With People Who Studied The Best Of The Best.

Best Of The Best

My Generation Will Actually Be The First Generation That Is Tamer Than The One That Came Before It, And It Will Probably Be Poorer; Less Fun And Less Money. It's Ridiculous. In My Parents' Generation, Rebellion Was Pop Culture. It's Not Anymore.

Every Actor Chooses Their Story At The Beginning.

To My Mind, Talent Doesn't Really Exist. Talent Is Like A Card Player's Luck. It Is Motivation, Ambition, And Luck. It's Just A Drive To Be The Best. I Think Acting Is A Con Game.

I Didn't Jump Onto Anyone Else's Coattail And Ride Their Wave.

Nobody Makes Movies Like Oliver Stone.

I've Had To Deal With All Different Types Of Situations - Positive And Negative And Extremes Of Both.

If I Had More Recreation Time I Would Be Able To Step Back And Reflect On How Life Has Changed. But It Has Been Like A Constant... Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!

My Mom Is At My House Every Day, And She Nags Me About Everything, Especially Hygiene.

When You Look At Golf Films Before Us They're All - Garbage Or Satire. A Lot Of Sports Films Tend To Vilify The Opposition. Where The Opposition Becomes This Big Angry Monster, So Big You Can't Beat Him.

There's No Room For Being A Visionary In The Studio System. It Literally Cannot Exist. You Give Terrence Malick A Movie Like Transformers, And He's F***ed. There's No Way For Him To Exist In That World... Lars Von Trier's Dangerous. He Scares Me. And I'm Only Going To Work Now When I'm Terrified.

You Never Really Meet A Human Being Until You Live With Them Or Know Them For Awhile, So This Is My Clown And They Understand That And So These Interviews Don't Bother Them.

It's Very Weird Because The 'it' Guy Usually Is Not The 'it' Guy Next Year Or Even A Guy That Anyone Is Talking About.

I Became A Christian Man In A Very Real Way. I Could Have Just Said The Prayers That Were On The Page, But It Was A Real Thing That Really Saved Me. And You Can't Identify Unless You're Really Going Through It. It's A Full-blown Exchange Of Heart, A Surrender Of Control.

I Got Accepted At Yale But Never Went.

I'm A Video Game Fan, And I Always Thought It Would Be Cool To Be Able To Control A Character.

You Can't Buy Back Your Respect; You Can't Buy Back Your Career. You Only Get One, So I Don't Want To Mess That Up.

I'm Trying To Find A Way To Eat Up Time Without Being Destructive, 'cause That's My Go-to, It Seems.

My Neighborhood Was Rough, But I Live A Great Life Now. I Don't Fight That Much Now. I Don't Look For It Anyway, But If Someone Hits Your Mother, Whether You're A Star, An Accountant, Or An Astronaut Or Anything... I Mean It's Your Mother, So I Lost My Mind.

This Is Hands Down The Biggest, Most Exciting Thing I've Ever Been Involved With In My Life. I Can Only Compare It To My Bar Mitzvah.

I Love Doing Stuff That I Haven't Done Before. That's The Goal: To Keep Reinventing Myself.

It's Really Easy To Fall For Someone On-set, But In The End You Know, It's A Representative And It's Not Really Them.

Oh Yeah, I'm The President Of The Lucky Club. There Are So Many Talented People Who Don't Work. And The Crop Of Young Actors I'm Surrounded By Is Incredible. When You Have People Like That Around You It Amps You Up A Little Bit. Also, Emile Hirsch And Joseph Gordon-levitt, Or Guys Like Ryan Gosling. It's A Really Good Crowd And I Feel I'm Coming Up At A Good Time. But Equally, There's A Lot Of Good Young Actors Who Don't Get To Work Who Are More Talented Than I. I'm Just Lucky.

Every Time You Make A Movie It's An Adventure.

People Were Going To Geometry Class And I Was Swimming Through Vats Of Chili On 'even Stevens.' It Was Like A Dream!

You Can't Have Bank Holding Companies Acting As Hedge Funds. You Can't Have Them Taking A Million-dollar Pension Plan For Joe Schmo The Bus Driver And Treat It With The Same Risk Appetite That You Treat George Soros' Pocket Money. It's Fundamentally Ridiculous.

I Think, My Generation, It's Hard To Have Hope When You Got A $700-trillion Derivatives Debt To Pay And A Bubble About To Explode And $500 Trillion Worth Of Gdp.

There Is No Grand Strategy. My Sensibilities Push Me In A Certain Direction. Other Actors Have Different Sensibilities. That's All. I Think It Really Is That Simple. There's No Grand Strategy. There Are So Many Variables That I Have No Control Over. I Sign On To Movies I Want To Watch, As A Fan.

I Was In A Relationship With A Girl I Loved For Three Years. Where Do You Go After Three Years? Then You've Got To Start Thinking About Other Things, And I'm Too Young To Think About Those Things.

I Want My Audience To Know Me For My Work, Not Because Of Who I'm Dating Or What Drugs I'm On Or What Club I Went To.

I Think Penguins Are The Most Human Of All The Birds, Which May Be Why People Love Them. They're Cute, They Stand Upright And They Look Like They're Wearing Tuxedos.

I Was The Only White Kid In My Neighborhood For Most Of My Youth Even In High School, So Reverse Racism Was Just As Apparent As Racism.

We're Living Through The Twilight Of American Economic Dominance.

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I'm An Individual, And I Have Opinions.

There's Never Been A Parent In My Life.

I Enjoy What I'm Able To Give My Family.

What's Cool Is When You're Able To Give Your Audience Imagination And You Don't Have To Cage Them In Like Animals.

Comics, For Me, Is Being Able To Sing Alone In The Shower. I Find It Freeing. You Just Pick Up A Pen And Get To It.

It's Fun Right Now, And I Love It Right Now, But I Don't Know Where I'm Going To Be Tomorrow, 'cause I'm Not Psychic. But I Know That Over The Last 10 Years, Acting Has Been The Only Joy, This Has Been - It's Strange To Say, 'cause The Thinking Is Off. But This Is More Important Than My Hobbies, My Family, My Love, My Friends. It's The Most Important Thing In The World To Me.

If You're Trying To Learn How To Act From A Class, You're Analyzing The Teachers' Movements And Their Intricacies, And It Becomes Like A Pantomime Of You Wanting To Be Them, And That's Wrong. Literature Is An Easier Way To Study Acting, Because Then You Can Take Any Kind Of Spin. It's Your Own Imagination, And Your Own Version Of It.

The Big Thing For Actors Is The Level Of Commitment. So, If You Know Something's Already Happened, There's Not A Whole Lot Of Whys And Hows That Go Down. You Just Innately Commit 'cause It Happened. It Does Help With Commitment.

I Hated Golf When We First Started, But A Big Part Of The Training Process Was Falling In Love With This Sport, So I Went On Tour With The Ucla Team.

Falling In Love

Probably The Sexiest Woman I Know Is My Mother.

I Turned Down Twelve Films Last Year... Huge Money Films, But I Had No Respect For The Writer Or The Work.

And If You're A Golfer And You Watch A Golf Film And Matt Damon Swing, And It's Not Great, Then You're Not Going To Believe In The Golf Story, You're Not Going To Believe In The Rest Of The Film. That's The Whole Movie, So If That Swing Looks Like Crap, The Movie's Crap.

I'm Just Selfish. I Have To Be For What I Do.

There's Beauty In People Who Reinvent Themselves. Actors Live A Thousand Lives, As Do Hackers ... The Personality Can Play Around Forever.

A Lot Of People Like To Think That Golf Is A Lazy Man's Sport. Or It's A Rich Man's Sport, Or It's A Sport That They Can't Be Involved In.

I Don't Know, I Just Want To Be Happy. I Could Be In A Hole Somewhere. Or I Could Completely Lose It And Be Some Hippy Living In The Woods With My Dad.

My Family's Lineage Is Five Generations Of Artists Who Never Made It.

I Think There's A Form Of Honesty, Because I Used To Be Very Honest With The Press, And Then It Backfired On Me, And I Understood It.

My Family, My Parents Are Hippies.

Sometimes I Feel I'm Living A Meaningless Life, And I Get Frightened.

My Generation Will Actually Be The First Generation That Is Tamer Than The One That Came Before It, And It Will Probably Be Poorer; Less Fun And Less Money.

Animation Has Completely Changed And I've Always Been A Big Fan.

I Feel Like I'm Really Honest In My Interviews, To A Fault. I've Lost Friends Over It. Major Friends. And I'm Heartbroken About That.

Never Wanted To Do Anything Else Than Acting Ever In My Life. But I'm 20, And There's So Many Possibilities. It Would Be Insane For Me To Say, "yeah This Is Definitely It, I'm Never Doing Anything Else." I'm 20 Years Old. I Don't Know What I'm Doing. I Don't Know Anything About Life. So I Don't Know. I May Be A Train Conductor In 10 Years. I Have No Idea. And That's The Joy Of This All.

I Was Doing Stand Up Comedy When I Was 11, That's How I Got Started; Not Because I Wanted To Do Comedy, But Because We Were Broke, Living In Echo Park In Downtown Los Angeles, From 1986, I Saw The Rodney King Riots; My Parents Didn't Really Work. But I Wanted A New Backpack, That's How I Got Into This Business - I Wanted A New Backpack.

I've Never Been Able To Learn From Other People's Mistakes - I'm Not That Smart - So I Usually Learn By Trial By Fire.

And I'm Not A Personality; Otherwise I'd Be Coming Out With An Album, Performing On Mtv. All That Stuff Is Possible And I Can Do That Tomorrow. I Just Have No Need.

Now My Dad Is With Me, Traveling With Me And A Big Part Of This Whole Thing Is I Like To Mix It Up A Little Bit, You Know. Who Gets To Take Their Father On A Private Jet Across The Country And Stay In First Class Hotels? So We're Enjoying It, But I'd Stop If It's Not Possible.

My Mom Is The Backbone Not Just Of My Family But Of Many Families.

Literature Is An Easier Way To Study Acting, Because Then You Can Take Any Kind Of Spin.

You Can Prepare All You Want, But If You Never Roll The Dice You'll Never Be Successful.

I Turned Down A Scholarship To Yale. The Problem With College Is That There's A Tendency To Mistake Preparation For Productivity. You Can Prepare All You Want, But If You Never Roll The Dice You'll Never Be Successful.

I Go To Sleep At Night, And I Feel Like I Just Dreamed The Whole Day.

Agents Are Used To The Parents Pimping. They're Not Used To The Kid Pimping.

No, I Come For A Hippy Lifestyle, It's Very Open; My Parents Are Both Hippies.

I Trained More Than Anybody Ever In A Golf Film Ever Made - My Swing Is Pretty Hot.

And Yeah, My Handicap Was Down To A 10 When We Were At The Thick Of It. I Trained For Six Or Seven Months, Golfing Every Day For Six Hours, Seven Days A Week, With Eight Trainers. It Was Intense.

I Think I'm Prone To Not Being A Good Guy In Relationships.

Hey, I'm A Human Being Also.

We Did This Two-week Boot Camp Before We Filmed The Movie. I Got To Know Everybody In The Group And We Became Friends. We Got Really Tight Throughout Those Two Weeks.

Copying Isn’t Particularly Creative Work. Being Inspired By Someone Else’s Idea To Produce Something New And Different Is Creative Work.

My First Car, I Got It In An Auction At My Temple. It Was An '86 Volvo That I Got For 500 Bucks, And Then Wound Up Throwing $10,000 Into The Stereo System And Put Tvs In The Foot Rests. It Was The Most Ridiculous Volvo You'd Ever Seen, But I Had Never Had Money Before And I Was Out Of My Mind.

I've Spent More On My Dodger Tickets That I Did On My Car.

My Parents Are Retired, Basically.

I Was Always Raised On Cowboy Films, And Then When I Could Start Making Choices About The Movies I Wanted To Watch I Found Myself Wanting To Watch Gangster Films Which Were Slightly More Sophisticated Than The Baseline Stuff That Was In Westerns.

If I Could Meet My Mother And Marry Her, I Would. I Would Be With My Mother Now, If She Weren't My Mother, As Sick As That Sounds.

People Are Still Emulating The Old Fashioned Criminal.

The Hardest Thing In Acting Is Going From Child Actor To Adult Actor. It's Taken Me A Long Time.

I'm Still In The Middle Of The Transition. I'm Still In Man-boy Mode. And That Won't Go Away For A While. But It's A Fun Time To Be In, Because It's Very Rare That People Get To Work Through This Time. It's Rare To See A John Cusack In Say Anything. It's Rare That You'd Find An Actor Right In The Cusp Of The Child-to Adult Transition, Just Got Through Puberty, Just Getting Into A Different Way Of Life. There's Few Movies Like That, And Few Roles Like That, So It's Going To Be Tough To Pick And Choose. I Guess The Goal Is Good People, Work With Good People.

I'd Love To Go To School And Have A Normal Life, But I Don't See Any Professor At Yale Being Able To Teach Me More Than Steven Spielberg.

I Don't Have To Live This Lavish Lifestyle.

Lavish Lifestyle

I've Been In Fights, But That Doesn't Make Me Cool Or Like A Tough Guy Or More Interesting Actor, I'm Not Proud Of It.

I Just Wish The Crowd I Was Associated With Was More Passionate About What They Were Doing And Less Consumed With The Commerce Of The Art Form.

My Humor Came From Seeing My Parents Have Sex, Smoke Weed, My Mom Being Naked - Just Weird Hippie Stuff, Twisted R-rated Humor.

There's A Form Of Selling Out. It's Necessary. You Have To Become Edible For People In Texas. You Have To Become Edible For The Christian Right, For Mass Audiences.

I'm Not A Strikingly Handsome Guy, But I'm In Movies.

No, I Was An Unknown When I Walked In That Room. He Didn't Know Who I Was From A Fly On The Wall.

I Think Envy Motivates A Lot Of People.

When A Gust Of Wind Hits A Broken Bone, You Feel It.

I'm A Little Territorial And Defensive.

But This Is A Little Different. This Is The Adult Acting. This Is A Different Crowd. It's More Work And More Good Work. That's It. People Will Have Their Opinion Regardless.

I Drink Protein Shakes Nonstop - Three Or Four A Day - And I Run A Lot, So You Get Rid Of The Bad Carbs And Keep The Rest So You Have The Energy To Make It Through.

To Be An Actor, A True Actor, You Have To Be Brokenhearted.

A Relationship To Me Is Never About The Romance.

My Dad Is A Motorcycle Guy, Not Some Hollywood Dude.

I'm Constantly Jumping Off Cliffs And Developing My Wings On The Way Down. ... It's A Gamble, A ... Spiritual Gamble. You Are Who You Choose To Be.

I Got Kicked Out Of Every School I Ever Went To.

If I Have Enough Money To Eat I'm Good.

I Like The Dark, Mysterious, Maybe Even Gothic Type Girls. They Have To Have A Good Personality Too! I'm Very Picky!

I've Learned To Be More Reserved, Watch What I'm Saying; I Got In A Little Bit Of Trouble. People Tell Me 'never Lose That, Never Lose That,' But Then I Get In Trouble So I Have To Lose It. I'm Trying To Keep A Little Bit; I'm Never Going To Lose Who I Am, I Just Gotta Tone It Down A Little Bit.

None Of My Friends Were Ever As Broke As I Was.

I Am A Season Ticket Holder To Dodger Games. I Go To Every Dodger Game I Can Go To. Every Single One.

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