{"id":667880,"date":"2025-05-08T16:50:29","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T13:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/shia-labeouf-and-david-mamet-just-might-save-each-other\/"},"modified":"2025-05-08T16:50:29","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T13:50:29","slug":"shia-labeouf-and-david-mamet-just-might-save-each-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/shia-labeouf-and-david-mamet-just-might-save-each-other\/","title":{"rendered":"Shia LaBeouf and David Mamet Just Might Save Each Other"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tOn May 9, David Mamet\u2018s first directorial effort in over 20 years, Henry Johnson<\/em>, will be available for streaming on HenryJohnsonMovie.com<\/a>. The film is a straightforward adaptation of Mamet\u2019s own play, mounted at a black box theater in Venice in 2023 \u2014 garnering plenty of acclaim for both the writer and star Shia LeBeouf.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe timing could not be better for LaBeouf, 38, a highly gifted, scandal-prone actor who currently finds his nose pressed against the Hollywood glass amid fallout from a number of controversies. Not the least of them is a pending lawsuit from former girlfriend FKA Twigs accusing him of sexual assault and emotional distress. LaBeouf has conceded to harmful behavior but denies the specific allegations and the matter is set to proceed to trial in September of this year.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Henry Johnson<\/em>, he plays Gene, a fast-talking and hyper-intelligent prisoner under whose spell the title character \u2014 a white-collar dupe played by Evan Jonigkeit, husband of Mamet\u2019s actress daughter Zosia \u2014 helplessly falls.<\/p>\n

\n\tLaBeouf \u2014 who since 2022 has raised a daughter with actress girlfriend Mia Goth, currently filming Christopher Nolan\u2019s The Odyssey<\/em> \u2014 is again drawing raves for his performance in the film version, with The Hollywood Reporter<\/em> noting in its review that the \u201chint of madness and lurking danger that adrenalize so many of the actor\u2019s best performances\u201d makes him a perfect fit for the role.<\/p>\n

\n\tMamet, 77, is certainly no stranger to controversy himself. The celebrated writer-director, whose Glengarry Glen Ross<\/em> is currently in its fourth incarnation on Broadway (this one starring Bob Odenkirk, Kieran Culkin and Bill Burr), has made few friends and more than a few enemies in Hollywood as he has repeatedly professed allegiance to Donald Trump and all that he stands for.<\/p>\n

\n\tTwo Hollywood outcasts joining forces for \u2014 to the surprise of many \u2014\u00a0some of the best work of their careers? To learn how it all came together, THR<\/em> sat for lunch with both men at the Smoke House Restaurant in Burbank (Shia ordered clam chowder and a shrimp cocktail, David the chopped sirloin) for a conversation as mesmerizing as anything Gene could subject Henry Johnson to inside a cramped jail cell.<\/p>\n

\n\tShia, we\u2019ve been in the same room only once before. Remember your 2014 art installation on Beverly Boulevard? Anyone could walk into a room and sit across a table from you. Alone. There was a paper bag over your head, with holes cut out for the eyes. I was one of the first ones there.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tDAVID MAMET<\/strong> What did you do when you got in the room?<\/p>\n

\n\tI couldn\u2019t believe it was happ<\/a>ening. It all felt very surreal. And I wasn\u2019t sure it was Shia, either. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> Because of the bag.<\/p>\n

\n\tRight. So I just had some awkward conversation with him and tried to engage him, but he wasn\u2019t talking. And then that was it. I was escorted out.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> Dave, I\u2019ve read American Buffalo<\/em>-era interviews where you were not a big fan of performance art.<\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> That was even prior to that. In the \u201960s, I was working and living in New York, and all this stuff was happening down on the Bowery, on St. Mark\u2019s Place. I didn\u2019t get it.<\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> Yeah, no, I understand. I went through my own process and wound up in a similar spot.<\/p>\n

\n\tI heard that art piece went off the rails because people were harassing and molesting you.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> But we planned for all that. People are going to take things to an extreme. You give people enough rope, that\u2019s how it goes. It went haywire twice, but somebody would step in. Somebody was trying to whip my legs, and there was nudity and things like that. I just don\u2019t know the intrinsic value of such a thing.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat was one in a series<\/a> of performance art pieces you had done.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> Man, I\u2019ve been searching for a long time. I\u2019m really like a pure actor. When I was young, I didn\u2019t think that I required much help to do what I do. I was completely narcissistic and fearful and had a lack of trust. I\u2019ve been under the tutelage of a lot of dudes who tried to mentor me, but I just didn\u2019t trust them, or didn\u2019t like what they made or whatever. It could be as simple as somebody\u2019s hairstyle \u2014 it really gets down to petty stuff like that. If you\u2019re going to give somebody the keys and let them drive your life, which is what it feels like when you\u2019re in this kind of relationship, you want to trust them.<\/p>\n

\n\tHow was David\u2019s hairstyle \u2014 or his directing style in general<\/a>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> The ultimate, and I\u2019m not just saying that because he\u2019s right there. It\u2019s precise and it\u2019s also hands off enough to let you play jazz within the thing. So it\u2019s not Oliver Stone where I\u2019m going through each punctuation [making 2010\u2019s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps<\/em>]. And please, this is not a slight on that man. I have deep love for him. But it\u2019s a different thing. <\/p>\n

\n\tYou seem like birds of a feather in that you\u2019re both pretty rebellious. It makes sense to me that you would eventually find each other. So how did you find each other?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> I wrote him a fan letter. I\u2019ve been chasing him for 10 years. Sometimes he\u2019s making something and there\u2019s a spot for me. And then we\u2019re in conversation and the thing goes another way. Like this JFK thing [Assassination<\/em>, about how Chicago mobster Sam Giancana arranged the assassination of John F. Kennedy], is the most recent example. I was prepping to play Lee Harvey Oswald. Viggo Mortensen signed on. We were ready to go.<\/p>\n

\n\tThen I get a heartfelt call from Dave, and I never heard him sound like that. It was like heartbreak. Somebody took his kid from him. I don\u2019t know really what happened, but I know that they pushed him out. It\u2019s like, man, how do I make this dude I love feel better? <\/p>\n

\n\tWhat happened to the JFK project, David?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> They decided that instead of making the movie, they wanted to sue each other. So they started suing each other. Everybody was in it. Courtney Love was in it. John Travolta. Al Pacino.<\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> It was a sick cast. It would\u2019ve been crazy.<\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> Louis C.K. was going to play Jack Ruby.<\/p>\n

\n\tShia, you mentioned writing a fan letter to David. What did you say in the fan letter?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> See, I had met Pacino. Pacino and I were going to do a play on Broadway called Orphans<\/em>. And I\u2019m scared. I\u2019m just Transformers<\/em> boy, who was raised by Spielberg through the Disney thing. I got all my fears: \u201cYou ain\u2019t earned it.\u201d And you hang out with Gary Oldman [on the set of 2012\u2019s Lawless<\/em> and 2016\u2019s Man Down<\/em>]. And you\u2019re hanging out with John Hurt [on the set of 2008\u2019s New York, I Love You<\/em> and Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull<\/em>]. And Hurt is telling you all about Oscar Wilde. And you\u2019re like, \u2018I don\u2019t fuck with Oscar Wilde.\u2019 You feel like you\u2019re not a part of it. I\u2019ve had that feeling for a long time. It\u2019s this deep sense that I\u2019m not enough, or whatever.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd Dave\u2019s books helped me with that. Like True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor<\/em>. I knew that book because John Hurt had told me that the Stanislavsky thing was bullshit. We were doing Indiana Jones<\/em>. Ray Winstone was there. I\u2019m scared. I\u2019m just lucky to be around these people \u2014\u00a0still a CW kid. And they put me onto that book. It made me feel like acting is actually an accessible thing. I don\u2019t have to have some magical power. Basically, if I work hard, I can have it. That\u2019s what the book said to me. People say I\u2019m a method actor. I\u2019m not at all. I\u2019m a grinder. That book is my only acting teacher.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo while I was prepping with Pacino, he\u2019d say he became what he is on American Buffalo<\/em>. So I had written Dave a letter at some point and put a stupid script in with it. This is back when I was trying to be a screenwriter \u2014 and all the hoopla that went on with the plagiarism and all this stuff. I\u2019m looking for heroes. I didn\u2019t get a response back. But then I hear from him a year later, for this TV show about Chicago he was developing.<\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> Oh yeah.<\/p>\n

\n\tShia, if I recall, you dropped out of Orphans<\/em>. Something about not getting along with co-star Alec Baldwin? <\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> By the time Baldwin got there, it was almost unfair. So he\u2019s dealing with both my fractured little weak ego, right? All this hard prep that I\u2019d done for two years, and my desperate need to show him all my prep, or that he would accept me somehow. I was so insecure. Well, that got contentious in the room. Then he got competitive. That\u2019s just what our relationship turned into.<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019d be off book, he\u2019d be on book, and he didn\u2019t want me to look at him be off book. That makes it hard to play these scenes out or block this thing even. And no fault against him, he had two weeks to come in because Pacino [dropped out]. I had built the whole thing based on my relationship with Pacino. And that\u2019s gone. So I was kind of heartbroken. When he came in, I\u2019m living in the park and I\u2019m on steroids and I\u2019m not in a good way.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou were living in a park?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> Yeah. I was sleeping in Central Park. They keep horses there at this little fire basin. And there\u2019s a whole lot of room around there where you can just chill. You got to move every three or four hours and the guy comes around, but you can spend most of your time there. <\/p>\n

\n\tAnd then you\u2019d show up for rehearsal, having slept in Central Park?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> For most of the prep.<\/p>\n

\n\tWow.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> Right. And then Alec started teaching at NYU \u2014\u00a0a class on acting while I was doing these rehearsals with him. And I was like, \u201cHow? You\u2019re still not off book!\u201d So then I started taking his class. It got insane. But me and him are good because he\u2019s gone through a lot. I\u2019ve gone through a lot. We\u2019ve both been able to send each other love and make it right before all the madness happened on both sides. We made it right. He\u2019s a good guy. He\u2019s just like me. Fear will make you move different. I found it came from having absolutely no spiritual life.<\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> That\u2019ll do it.<\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> It made me a piece of shit. Not a nice guy.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd last we talked, you\u2019d found Catholicism and you\u2019d lived in the monastery. How\u2019s that going?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> It changes the way you work, for sure. Me and Alec would never have these problems now. But I was in an island. Then I hear Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet get up and he says something like, \u201cI want to be great.\u201d I so know the feeling. On him, it\u2019s cute. On me, it wasn\u2019t cute. You know what I\u2019m saying?<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>

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\t\t\t\t\tShia LaBeouf and Evan Jonigkeit in David Mamet\u2019s <\/em>Henry Johnson<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPam Susemiehl<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tLet\u2019s get into Henry Johnson<\/em>. David, I read one glowing review that guessed it was an older script that you had resurrected. When did you write Henry Johnson<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> I wrote it at the end of COVID. My friend Marja-Lewis Ryan, who has directed a couple of plays of mine, said, \u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d \u201cI\u2019m sitting at home. I\u2019m licking my wounds. I\u2019ll never fucking work again. Nobody wants to do my plays, blah, blah, blah.\u201d She said, \u201cWell, let\u2019s do something. Don\u2019t you have anything?\u201d So I sent her this play. And she said, \u201cOK, we\u2019re going to do it. We\u2019ll put it together. We\u2019ll do it over at the Electric Lodge in Venice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> And I called Dave around then, because I\u2019m still heartbroken over losing Lee Harvey Oswald. I said, \u201cWhere are you going?\u201d Because everybody was falling off the project. And then Evan called me and talked me into it, because I didn\u2019t think I could do it.<\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> My son-in-law, Evan Jonigkeit.<\/p>\n

\n\tWas it always a given that Evan would play Henry Johnson? <\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> I wrote it for him.<\/p>\n

\n\tYour wife Rebecca Pidgeon starred on stage in Oleanna<\/em>, and in several of your films. Why do you like working with immedia<\/a>te family?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> I knew Jim Gandolfini. We were going to do a project together called The Lake<\/em>. It was a Chicago cop story. We were sitting having lunch. It was like a week before he died. He said, \u201cThe thing about a movie is by the time you figure out how to make the movie, it\u2019s over. You\u2019re done shooting it. But when you got a TV show, you got the second family and you\u2019re figuring it out.\u201d So I\u2019ve always worked with the same people \u2014 because why not?<\/p>\n

\n\tShia, what\u2019s it like to speak David Mamet\u2019s dialogue?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> It\u2019s a fucking relief. It\u2019s being able to say, \u201cI can\u2019t fuck this up.\u201d I haven\u2019t gone to school, college, nothing like that. I\u2019ve just read scripts since I\u2019m eight years old. He\u2019s the best. I\u2019m not some intellectual. I\u2019m just a guy who likes acting. I\u2019m a performance whore. And there\u2019s no one better for the actor. You don\u2019t have to work so much. The reason you get all these actors inserting the \u201cums\u201d and the \u201cahs\u201d is because the writing sucks.<\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> You got to say the words. And sometimes it\u2019s hard to say the words.<\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> They try to box him in by calling it \u201cMamet-esque speak\u201d or whatever. But there is another thing in film \u2014\u00a0this New York-esque mumblecore bullshit. And it\u2019s everywhere. And so then you read a Mamet play and there\u2019s none of it. You have to unlearn a lot of things.<\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> I do one take. The more takes you do, the more it takes. You have to look at the footage until you don\u2019t know what the fuck you\u2019re looking at. Most directors don\u2019t talk. They say, \u201cLet\u2019s do it again.\u201d The question is why? So if you don\u2019t know why, the actor is just thinking, \u201cFuck, I better do something different. He didn\u2019t like that other thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> When I worked with Adam Driver, we\u2019re on the Megalopolis<\/em> set. Coppola is filming and Adam will do a take and then he\u2019ll go back and watch playback on the monitor. That\u2019s his way. But what that is is a lack of trust. I used to be that guy, too.<\/p>\n

\n\tYour performance in Megalopolis<\/em> was really out there. What was Coppola\u2019s direction for that character?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> Coppola thinks he\u2019s Dave. He really believes he\u2019s this theater director guy. He\u2019s not. But he believes he is. He thinks he\u2019s the actor\u2019s guy \u2014 but he\u2019s not. That\u2019s not to say he\u2019s not incredible, it\u2019s just not what his incredible is. It\u2019s not helpful to the actor to get overt notes.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe gave you a lot of direction?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> He was very specific, but his specificity wasn\u2019t on the page. So I can\u2019t share your dream. With Coppola, a lot needs to be talked about. Maybe it\u2019s just the movie that I worked on him with, but it felt like we had to mine his mind to figure out what the fuck we were even talking about. It wasn\u2019t normal language. It was this archaic rhythm that he was chasing. So it became a lot of questions on my end, which required answers, which frustrated our relationship. I became a nuisance.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd when you finally saw the finished product, was it what you thought you were making?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> It\u2019s further than what I thought he was chasing. It is way wackier than I thought. It\u2019s wacky as fuck. I never thought we were going for wacky. I thought my character was wacky and I served that for the film. But I didn\u2019t think the whole movie was wacky. There were scenes where I remember watching Driver and thinking like, \u201cWhoa, that\u2019s wild. Now we\u2019re playing the same person?\u201d Aubrey Plaza was playing it almost like she was winking at the crowd, like she was in on this joke. That wasn\u2019t my bag.<\/p>\n

\n\tI remember early on being very scared about what Coppola had given me because it didn\u2019t make sense to me and I didn\u2019t feel comfortable. And I had done one rehearsal and he gave me a look \u2014 and I never asked him another question about the character. But he was getting questions from Driver that would exhaust him. Driver needed answers, too. So by the time he was available to me, the energy was different. And I had to be respectful about all that. You want to be respectful, but you want to be good.<\/p>\n

\n\tDavid, you\u2019ve never been a big fan of critics. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> Well, no. I met a couple critics in my life who were very, very helpful to me. But basically other than that, I stopped reading them decades ago.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo when you mounted Henry Johnson<\/em> in Venice, did you invite critics?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> Dave said no. There was a whole internal thing for a week and a half with me and Evan. It was strictly no critics, which for me, my ego wasn\u2019t going to have that. I had worked too hard. I just wasn\u2019t going to have it.<\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> Because we were selling every ticket that we could. <\/p>\n

\n\tWas there maybe a bit of fear there, that they wouldn\u2019t like the piece? <\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> No, I just fucking hate them. The old saying is, \u201cWhat\u2019s the only requirement to be a drama critic? It\u2019s insufficient talent to write about sports.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> I ninja\u2019d behind Dave\u2019s back and invited the writer from the LA Times<\/em>. I said, \u201cHey, I know Dave doesn\u2019t want you there, but wear a wig and come anyway. I\u2019ll put a ticket at the front.\u201d So he came and he saw it and he liked it.<\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> I just didn\u2019t want to pay him the compliment of buying him a ticket.<\/p>\n

\n\tLet me ask a bit about the content of the play. David, you said you wrote it during the pandemic. What was on your mind? <\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> A lot of theaters become political and social. So the plays are social commentary, political commentary. Deaf people are people, too. Black people are people, too. Gay people are people, too. But real art is quite the contrary. It\u2019s saying, \u201cI\u2019m going to write about something that puzzles the hell out of me.\u201d The question from the beginning is this guy Henry Johnson, who\u2019s a little bit of a codependent and the fool, he always thinks he\u2019s doing the right thing. But what he\u2019s doing is two things: He\u2019s always injuring someone and he\u2019s always being taken advantage of. So I wanted to follow that to its end result.<\/p>\n

\n\tPeople are saying it\u2019s a very timely film. Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> They like it. That\u2019s all timely means, right? They say, \u201cHey, geez \u2014 I\u2019m alive now. This film\u2019s alive now. I guess it must be timely.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSo there\u2019s nothing in the air about people having the wool pulled over their eyes and being easily duped or conned<\/strong>?<\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> Well, it\u2019s always in the air, right? Somebody said the Bible isn\u2019t about what happened. The Bible is about what always happens. That\u2019s why we\u2019re still reading the Bible.<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019ve seen Shia\u2019s character compared to these toxic-masculine guru guys online. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> I don\u2019t understand what toxic masculinity means. I mean, I know the words, but I don\u2019t know what it means. I think it means I don\u2019t like men. It means it\u2019s a good idea not to like men.<\/p>\n

\n\tShia, what\u2019s your take on your character? Is Gene a master manipulator or something less sinister?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> I don\u2019t want to be in prison. I don\u2019t have to work hard to understand that. Who would want to be in prison for 30 fucking years? If there was a way out, I would try to chase that. I don\u2019t need to do big research to think that way. And I didn\u2019t really want to play him like tough guy, because all my baggage came in with me already. I knew as soon as the play would start, there was all this myth already about how I\u2019m a dog-killing, monstrous piece of shit<\/a>. And so how can I paint with that? Well, I don\u2019t have to play into it or use it very much or do much grimacing at all. I just have to get these lines down, learn this rhythm. How does a story like this even come to your desk? You shouldn\u2019t be talking to us, right? We\u2019re not supposed to be here. This is for The Hollywood Reporter<\/em>, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> Well, at least from what I\u2019ve experienced lately, is you guys aren\u2019t allowed to come write about me, right?<\/p>\n

\n\tWhy not?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> Because we\u2019re on some kind of lists. For instance, I was going to do Jimmy Kimmel, right? To promote this project. And so Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s show is owned by ABC. And ABC said, \u201cNo, you can\u2019t interview Shia.\u201d So Jimmy had to call me and say, \u201cHey, you can\u2019t come on the show.\u201d So I imagine The<\/em> Hollywood Reporter<\/em> is quite corporate that way as well. If you have a story you\u2019re interested in, you have to go get permission, don\u2019t you?<\/p>\n

\n\tWe\u2019re a news<\/a> outlet. We get more leeway. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> Well, I imagine any kind of corporate media would have a problem with you interviewing me. For sure. It\u2019s crazy. Is it that just you\u2019ve been over there for a long time?<\/p>\n

\n\tI don\u2019t know, really. I wanted to interview you, so I\u2019m interviewing you.<\/strong> Let me ask you this: You\u2019ve said a few times today that you\u2019re a narcissist. Do you really think that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> To get into this field, there\u2019s a certain level of ego \u2014 a certain ego sickness that gets you into acting. And now I\u2019m trying to figure out what the healthy version of that looks like.<\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> Yeah, but what\u2019s wrong with that?<\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> It just is what it is.<\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> I was talking to a doctor one day about surgery, a good doctor friend of mine. He says, \u201cWhat\u2019s the most important thing that motivates a surgeon?\u201d I said, \u201cTrying to save lives?\u201d \u201cNo.\u201d \u201cTrying to perfect his skill?\u201d He said, \u201cNo. The most important thing that motivates a surgeon is they like cutting people open.\u201d So that\u2019s what I feel. They like cutting people open and we like getting up in front of people and torturing ourselves.<\/p>\n

\n\tShia, are you still in touch with Mel Gibson?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> Yeah. Very close. Big respect, big love. He\u2019s always been very lovely to me. He held my hand when I was really shitting on myself. Dude really stepped up for me in big ways. Him, Sean Penn, James Brolin \u2014 these guys got me to sobriety. They got around me and kept me alive. Sean also showed up and motivated me to do this as a play. I was scared as fuck when this thing started. He was there week one. Sam Rockwell came. There was a bunch of guys that I looked up to that just started popping up. I had never, ever felt that kind of love \u2014 not like that.<\/p>\n

\n\tDo you feel like this part could be a sort of gateway to rehabilitation for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> I hope so. I hope my whole life is about that. I hope my whole life is squaring things, getting it right. It\u2019s what I want to do with the rest of my life. And there\u2019s a lot of things to get right. I\u2019m blessed that I still have this craft and I\u2019m still allowed to do it at a high level with the highest. It feels like a fucking miracle. It\u2019s all part of the same thing \u2014\u00a0God\u2019s everything or nothing. I believe that. Me and Dave have big God talks. I\u2019ve been to temple with him. He\u2019s been to church with me. Been deep dives for both of us.<\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> You can\u2019t trust your mind. The mind is the serpent in the garden. The mind is evil and it has to be controlled. How do you control it? We try to do good. We do evil. So I\u2019m getting a cup of tea in the morning and there\u2019s the Torah sitting over there. And I say, \u201cYou know, I really should read the Torah.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s an unusual thing you\u2019re doing with the film\u2019s release. David, it\u2019s funny you should mention Louis C.K. earlier. He was the first person I thought of when I heard you\u2019re putting it online at HenryJohnsonMovie.com<\/a>. Louis used to put his specials up there, five bucks a pop.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> He\u2019s a big, big reason this happened. I asked him, \u201cWhat\u2019s the secret?\u201d He said there\u2019s no secret. He said, \u201cI\u2019m going to call my guy for all my online stuff. He\u2019ll talk you through it.\u201d And so between that and Evan, who can figure out anything, we said, \u201cOK. Duh.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe industry died, right? It just aged out, just like radio drama aged out because of new technology<\/a>. The film industry has aged out because of the internet. The industry so aged out that they\u2019re making Snow White<\/em> for $250 million and nobody came to see it. Because the decisions are being made by an industry that\u2019s too rich to fail. Just like the Biden administration, they got to keep doing this stuff. Although it\u2019s absurd and it\u2019s making us bankrupt.<\/p>\n

\n\tI was having the best time in my life and I was doing the best theater happening in the English-speaking world in 1975 in a garage in Chicago. So now we\u2019re trying to do the same thing. You might make money and you might not, but you\u2019re living your life. You aren\u2019t asking permission of 8,500 cocksuckers named Jason in the Valley over here.<\/p>\n

\n\tDavid, you got a lot of heat for supporting Trump before he got re-elected. How are you feeling about how his second term is going?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tMAMET<\/strong> Well, I love him. He\u2019s great. I\u2019m getting on for 80. And I got so sick of my country dying. And so Trump \u2014 but it\u2019s not Trump. It\u2019s 53 percent of the American population who said, \u201cYou know what? We\u2019re the middle class. We\u2019re tired of dying. We would like our country back.\u201d So is this guy going to make a bunch of mistakes? Of course he is. Grant was a magnificent general who won the Civil War for the North. He gets into office and all the people who got underneath him were crooks. So it was the most crooked administration until Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m glad the country\u2019s back. And so what we\u2019re doing is we\u2019re fighting each other, our fellow Americans, about what is the meaning of the Constitution. You\u2019re supposed to fight about the meaning of the Constitution. You\u2019re supposed to say, \u201cWhat\u2019s the law? Who gets to do what to whom?\u201d Rather than fighting about are gay people better than trans people, are white people better than Black people. Fighting about political differences is what actually unites us. Because when everybody thinks the same way, you have a dictatorship, which is what we came pretty fucking close to. <\/p>\n

\n\tShia, I\u2019ll leave the final thought to you. You\u2019ve done some award-worthy work here, though we all know the challenges of that happening. But let\u2019s say it did. What would a a nomination mean to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLABEOUF<\/strong> I wouldn\u2019t need that. I\u2019m just like a little kid on a magic carpet ride. Dave is my hero. So that\u2019s how you can end it. It\u2019s like wish-fulfillment and I don\u2019t deserve it. And it\u2019s super cool. Yeah. Wow.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On May 9, David Mamet\u2018s first directorial effort in over 20 years, Henry Johnson, will be available for streaming on HenryJohnsonMovie.com. The film is a straightforward adaptation of Mamet\u2019s own play, mounted at a black box theater in Venice in 2023 \u2014 garnering plenty of acclaim for both the writer and star Shia LeBeouf. The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":667881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/HJBTS-H-2025.jpg?w=1296&h=730&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[77724,156201,30482],"class_list":["post-667880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-david-mamet","tag-henry-johnson","tag-shia-labeouf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}