Shia LaBeouf
My family, my parents are hippies.
I'm very picky and I'm in a situation where it's a big crossover.
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.
I turned down twelve films last year... Huge money films, but I had no respect for the writer or the work.
I trained more than anybody ever in a golf film ever made - my swing is pretty hot.
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.
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.
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.
I don't have to live this lavish lifestyle.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I understand why marriages break up over golf. I can't even talk about my own handicap because it's too upsetting.
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.Collection: Mind
You can prepare all you want, but if you never roll the dice you'll never be successful.Collection: Successful
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.Collection: Christian
I love doing stuff that I haven't done before. That's the goal: To keep reinventing myself.Collection: 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.Collection: Islands
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.Collection: Spiritual
It's good filmmaking when you don't have to say anything and you can still tell the story.Collection: Say Anything
Copying isn’t particularly creative work. Being inspired by someone else’s idea to produce something new and different IS creative work.Collection: Ideas
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.Collection: Thinking
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.Collection: Joy
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.Collection: Hands
I would like to be George Clooney - diplomatic. I just don't have the wherewithal yet or the inner serenity.Collection: Serenity
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.Collection: Children
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.Collection: Fun
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.Collection: Fun
You have to be a master to teach.Collection: Masters
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.Collection: Kings
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.Collection: Character
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.Collection: Simple
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.Collection: Commitment
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.Collection: People
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.Collection: Determination
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.Collection: Who I Am
There's beauty in people who reinvent themselves. Actors live a thousand lives, as do hackers ... the personality can play around forever.Collection: Play
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.Collection: Parent
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.Collection: Fun
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.Collection: Growing Up
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.Collection: Emotional
My humor came from seeing my parents have sex, smoke weed, my mom being naked - just weird hippie stuff, twisted R-rated humor.Collection: Mom
Animation has completely changed and I've always been a big fan.Collection: Fans
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.Collection: Going To Work
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.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Caring