On the set of Fury, Shia’s antics involved self-mutilation, according to Logan Lerman (one of his co-stars). Lerman told GQ Magazine that Shia cut his own face with a knife to make his war wounds look fully authentic. He stated:
“We were in make-up and they were putting cuts on Shia and I said, “Yeah, yeah. It looks good.” And Shia was like, “No, it doesn’t look real.” Shia walks out of the hallway and says, “Hey man, wanna see something fun? Check this out…” and he takes out a knife and cuts his face. And for the whole movie he kept opening these cuts on his face. That’s all real.”
(visible scars on his face can be seen here)
These extreme endeavors performed by Shia are associated with method acting. In this way, he could better understand how his Fury character would have felt living in the trenches and essentially become the role. However, he tells Interview Magazine that “method acting” is what led him to a jail cell for indecent behavior at Cabaret and is what got him fired from the Broadway play Orphans in early 2014. He admitted that he was merely method acting in an effort to nail down his character in the play. However, his acting practices didn't go over so well with his co-stars. "Alec [Baldwin] and I butted heads hard," he said. " My whole goal was to intimidate the fuck out of Baldwin. That was the role. And it wasn't going to be fake. I wanted him to be scared so I went about doing that for three weeks of rehearsal…At the time, I was out of my mind."
Shia has been gaining headline momentum for his own extreme method preparations for assorted roles; his strange tactics have earned him raised eyebrows and industry criticism, and at some point, brought fear to the crew and to his co-stars. Has LaBeouf spiraling out into that crazy actorly orbit, where Hollywood stars lose their touch with reality to become their characters? And is there a line drawn between “insane method acting” and “unacceptably insane method acting”? For Shia, it might seem that is entire life is a performance art piece and that his apparently pungent dedication to his craft can be seen as true method acting. However, the way he delves into his characters physically and emotionally may have become too extreme for his co-stars, his crew, and possibly himself. Indeed, there are a number of actors who have successfully utilized method acting and gained praises from audiences for their on-screen talents—but when does “method acting” go too far/become too extreme? Maybe there is no such thing as extremity in “method acting,” maybe this is just how “the method” works.
Hi Peggy,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post on Shia LaBeouf's strange antics. In answer to your question, I think LaBeouf has gone too far because it seems like he uses his "method acting" stunts as excuses for shameless self-promotion. For example, when LaBeouf was accused of plagiarizing comic book writer Daniel Clowes when making his film, HowardCantour.com, he used the negative publicity as a sort of public art experimentation. As you might remember, LaBeouf tweeted apologies to Daniel Clowes, but the apologies themselves were plagiarized from other famous sources. He later walked the red carpet with a brown paper bag over his head that read "I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE". The most striking publicity move of all was his #IAMSORRY exhibit, in which he invited people into an enclosed museum room with the proposition that patrons were allowed to do whatever they wished to the actor. These seemingly crazy acting "exercises", "stunts", or "experiments" were heavily reported on by news outlets, and brought LaBeouf more attention than ever. If Shia LaBeouf was actually sorry that he had plagiarized another artist's work, I feel like he would make much less of a "method acting" show out of his apology. Instead, he used his persona as a method actor to capitalize on his unprofessional misstep.