Shia LaBeouf: Snapshot
- Name
- Shia LaBeouf
- Birth Date
- June 11, 1986
- Birth Place
- Los Angeles, Calif.
LaBeouf's risky choices paid off when director Steven Spielberg saw him play a boy sentenced to boot camp in 2003's Holes. Comparing LaBeouf to a young Tom Hanks, Spielberg cast him in the summer blockbuster Transformers and the highly anticipated Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull with Harrison Ford and Cate Blanchett.
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Shia LaBeouf: Five Fun Facts
- While trying to break into acting, Shia LaBeouf asked a fellow actor for advice. "He said, 'In order for you to be an actor, you've got to be a model first.' I said, 'Dude, I'm not a model, all right? I look like Garry Shandling. That's not going to work,'" LaBeouf told the Boston Globe in 2003.
- Shia LaBeouf's full name is a combination of Yiddish and French Cajun, which translates as "Thank God for beef."
- Shia LaBeouf's ''flirtatious hippie'' father hit on his son's Holes costar Sigourney Weaver during filming on-set. "That's the most embarrassed you'll ever be as a human," LaBeouf told PEOPLE in 2003.
- Shia LaBeouf said the set of Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle was more play than work. "When I wasn't laughing hysterically, I was learning how to pickpocket from Cameron Diaz," LaBeouf told USA Today. (Diaz learned the skill for Gangs of New York.)
- Shia LaBeouf's father, Jeffrey, a one-time rodeo clown who opened for the Doobie Brothers, lived in a tepee on a $10,000 plot of land Shia bought near the Mojave Desert in 2003.
Shia LaBeouf: Biography 
- 2000
Disney's New Kid
After making his debut in the TV feature Breakfast with Einstein (1998), LaBeouf nabs his breakout role in the award-winning Disney series Even Stevens (left). After three seasons as the goofball younger brother Louis, LaBeouf earns an Emmy for Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series. The series ends in June 2003. "I was scared out of my mind because I had been living on this set, creating and being free with the same people for three years," he tells Entertainment Weekly in 2003.
- 2003
Digging 'Holes'
LaBeouf, 16, makes his feature debut in Holes, playing a boy sentenced to boot camp. "Everyone just thought I was a big goofball. Holes changed that. When your movie makes almost $ 70 million, it's a different ball game," LaBeouf tells EW. Costar Jon Voight (right), who gave him nightly acting assignments, says of the young star: "He has a God-given gift for truth and authenticity."
'Greenlight' Showcases Shia
LaBeouf is featured in the Matt Damon and Ben Affleck (left) reality show, Project Greenlight, which documents the making of The Battle of Shaker Heights. In the film, LaBeouf stars as a love-struck outsider who reenacts war games. "Unlike his other stuff, this movie features a kid on his own, a kid with real dramatic moments," Chris Moore, executive producer of the reality show and movie, tells EW. "It's awesome for Shia because he gets to show that side of it."
Photo Credits
Top Left: Cindy Yamanaka/Orange Country Register
BIOGRAPHY (top to bottom): Everett Collection; Everett Collection; Chris Pizello/Wireimage
