Why Oliver Stone once told Shia LaBeouf to “go fuck” himself
They do say never meet your heroes, but that’s precisely what Shia LaBeouf did when he worked with Oliver Stone on the 2010 drama Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, the sequel to the 1987 original, which also starred Michael Douglas, Josh Brolin and Carey Mulligan.
Taking place 23 years after the original, LaBeouf was on hand to offer his services to the legendary director Stone, who he had once perceived as one of his filmmaking heroes. It was around that time that LaBeouf had become something of a star, so it was only right that he’d started to work with such acclaimed names in the movie industry.
“You not only [get] entertainment, but you also get outrageous information,” LaBeouf once told MTV of Stone’s work. “There’s an education process. How many directors do you know have college courses based on them in film schools? It says something about him.”
However, even despite LaBeouf’s admiration for Stone, there came a time when the two figures clashed on the set of Wall Street. The issue arose because LaBeouf felt that Stone hadn’t edited his script properly, and when he brought up a particular line he thought needed changing, Stone didn’t react all too well.
“We’re in the Adirondacks, and Josh Brolin and I are shooting this bike scene,” LaBeouf once told Vulture. “And at one point, I say to Josh a line — ‘You should look at yourself in the mirror first and see yourself. It might scare you.’ It’s sort of repetitive. Why don’t we just cut one of those?”
He added, “Why don’t I say, ‘Look at yourself. It might scare you.’ This is Oliver verbatim. He looks at me and goes, ‘I like Mirror. I wrote Scarface. Go fuck yourself.’” Evidently, the legendary director felt that LaBeouf was in no position to question his script and shot his suggestion down out of hand.
The result was that LaBeouf’s opinion of Stone shifted, and a new sense of contempt replaced his former respect. “Oliver was a manipulator,” the actor told Interview. “He would play up my blue-collar nature. I think he felt that I was an imbecile and talked down to me the whole time, so that I looked up to him like a scholar. My respect for him far surpassed his work.”
Sadly, this was a case of LaBeouf overstepping the mark when working with a director who’d established himself as one of the greatest filmmakers of the last three decades. Unfortunately, the experience left a bitter taste in the actor’s mouth, and his relationship with Stone never recovered.
