After some rocky years which included various performance art pieces, Shia LaBeouf has experienced a renaissance of sorts thanks to his performances in Nymphomaniac, American Honey and Borg/McEnroe. Instead of continuing to latch onto similar roles, LaBeouf has decided to go in another direction: a biopic of himself.
LaBeouf is reportedly gearing up to play his own father in a film titled Honey Boy, a quasi-biopic centred on LaBeouf’s relationship with his former clown and heroin-addict father. Lucas Hedges, a breakout star in recent supporting roles in Manchester By The Sea and Lady Bird, has been cast to play LaBeouf. The film will be directed by Alma Har’el (Bombay Beach).
LaBeouf making a film about himself perhaps shouldn’t be that surprising, as one of his performance art projects was a massive marathon of all his films at New York’s Angelika Theater, while a camera was trained on his face the entire time for viewers watching via a stream to gladly consume.
He’s also had various other art projects that haven’t gone quite as well as #ALLMYMOVIES did, plus he’s also spoken out against various co-workers in the industry and has developed a reputation for being hard to work with, especially on the set of the David Ayer film, Fury.
However, that doesn’t mean Honey Boy can’t turn out to be an interesting project. LaBeouf has co-written the screenplay, which landed on the Black List, and was described as “a child actor and his law-breaking, alcohol-abusing father attempt to mend their contentious relationship over the course of a decade”.
LaBeouf has once again decided to collaborate with another up-and-coming director in Har’el that will likely look to challenge him, and it seems likely that the film will either turn out to be a transcendent experience that will revitalise his career, or a completely self-centred mess. We’ll have to wait and see.
#Peace.Love.HoneyBoy
