Shia LeBeouf on #ALLMYMOVIES: ‘I Can’t Articulate How Big This Was’
Last week, actor-performance artist Shia LaBeouf broke the Internet with #ALLMYMOVIES, an installation piece in which the unpredictable celebrity took a seat in Manhattan’s Angelika Film Center and watched all 27 of his movies in reverse chronological order. On Monday, three days after the credits rolled on the last movie in the program — the actor sat for an in-depth NewHive interview with collaborators Luke Turner and Nastja Säde Rönkkö.
LaBeouf seemed euphoric about the experience. “I can’t articulate how big this was,” the actor said. “I don’t even know yet. All I know is I feel the weight of it. I’m walking through the streets and I’m smiling, like a cartoon character … I felt extraordinary support.” He went on to say that the love he felt from #ALLMYMOVIES has helped him get over the shame of giving his real name when he orders coffee.
LaBeouf also took the opportunity to clarify what he’s looking for from the art world, which has become his preferred outlet for expression over the last year two years. “I feel distance in the movie game, because I don’t do it the same way they do it … and then you feel exiled from life, because you’re some celebrity character or a fuck-up, and then you get in part of this art crowd and you’re like, ‘Oh, this is where all the people who feel like outsiders go.'”
But LaBeouf’s revitalized sense of self was most evident when discussing The Even Stevens Movie, a Disney Channel project he made back in 2003 when he was still a teenager. “It’s all of our childhood,” LaBeouf explained. “It’s mine and it’s yours. It wasn’t just me smiling like that. If you look at the freeze frames, everyone is smiling like wow, I remember Beans. I remember that stupid-ass song. We were all looking at our yearbook together and we’re all in the yearbook … These are strangers, people I never met before. You don’t leave a museum friends with people. One guy was telling me he had just moved to New York three months prior and didn’t know nobody … he said he had 13 new friends [when he left]. The goal walking in is to highlight the connectivity of the networks.”
Last week’s marathon screening, which Rolling Stone hailed as “a work of genius,” quickly became the hottest ticket in New York, as people lined up for hours for a chance of watching one (or more) of LaBeouf’s films in the same room as the star. For those who couldn’t make their way down to the theater, NewHive hosted a livestream of LaBeouf’s face as he laughed, cried and slept his way through the event.