Shia LaBeouf: I Reconciled with Jon Voight During the Filming of Megalopolis
According to CinemaDrame News Agency, Shia LaBeouf says he set aside his differences with Jon Voight and reconciled with him while working on Megalopolis, directed by *Francis Ford Coppola. In the documentary Megadoc, which chronicles the making of Coppola’s $120 million project, LaBeouf reveals that after a “big argument” he had not spoken to Voight for several years until they made peace during the film’s production.
LaBeouf explained that their conflict stemmed from “very different political beliefs”: “The first draft [of the script] I read was about five years ago. [Coppola] held a table read. And from that session until filming, I wrecked my entire life. I started the nine-step [alcohol recovery] program, and I had to make amends with Voight because our political views were so different. I love him very much.”
Voight and LaBeouf first worked together in 2003 on Holes and reunited in 2007 for Transformers.
LaBeouf added about Voight: “From a young age he was like a mentor to me. He was the first real actor I ever met, and the first one to introduce me to [Dustin] Hoffman’s acting style… He’d sit with me in a room and watch all those films back-to-back, and that made me fall in love with this craft and this art, because before that I was just a broke kid trying to make money.”
In recent years, Voight has been a vocal supporter of Donald Trump and Israel, and was appointed a special White House envoy in Hollywood by the U.S. President alongside Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone.
LaBeouf continued: “We had a huge phone argument where I said I’d come to his house and punch him, then I hung up. I didn’t speak to him for years.”
Coppola, in an earlier interview with Rolling Stone, explained why he cast “canceled” actors in Megalopolis: “I didn’t want it to seem like a woke Hollywood product preaching to audiences. Among the cast were people who at some point had been canceled. Some were ultra-conservative, others were deeply progressive. But we all worked together on one film. I thought that was interesting.”
Coppola praised LaBeouf: “Shia played with ease. I’d never worked with him before, but he deliberately created some tension between himself and the director. He reminded me of Dennis Hopper, who behaved similarly. You’d tell him, ‘Just go do whatever you want,’ and he’d come back with something brilliant.”
Variety reported that Megadoc also explores tensions between LaBeouf and Coppola. In one instance, LaBeouf repeatedly questioned a narrative inconsistency, prompting Coppola to walk off set. The filmmaker later sent LaBeouf a lengthy email apologizing.
Megadoc will premiere on September 19.
