Shia LaBeouf

Shia LaBeouf decided, during his preteen years, to launch himself as an actor, and stories abound concerning how far he carried his own drive to establish himself. According to People Weekly magazine, LaBeouf auditioned for Even Stevens (2000), the Disney Channel series that delivered him into the spotlight, and subsequently told each of the youngsters who were waiting to audition that he had the part &#8212 thus eliminating the competition. Such determination, coupled with raw ability and charisma, doubtless helped propel LaBeouf straight to the head of Hollywood's young stars.Born on June 11, 1986, in Los Angeles, LaBeouf grew up in the neighborhood of Echo Park, and was raised in a decidedly colorful family of mixed ethnicity. His Cajun father, Jeffrey LaBeouf, was a Vietnam vet who held a series of odd jobs as a circus clown, a sno-cone salesman, and a stand-up comic. Shia's Jewish mother, Shayna, worked as a clothier and jewelry craftswoman. Upset about his mother's financial struggles after his parents split, Shia observed another boy of about the same age (a cast member of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman) whose financial returns from Quinn gave him a posh lifestyle. LaBeouf suddenly understood the financial benefits of before-the-camera work, and &#8212 though he had no formal dramatic training &#8212 foresaw himself breaking into acting via comedy. He used a phone book to find an agent, then honed a stand-up comedy act over the course of two years, that found him (at age 12) delivering "blue" routines to adult audiences at a Pasadena comedy club, The Ice House. By his own admission, LaBeouf was booted out of every school he attended (for his notoriously profane mouth and for other reasons), but he more than compensated for this with his professional drive. By 2000, he auditioned for the Even Stevens series on Disney, and landed the part.That sitcom concerned the relationship between Louis Stevens (LaBeouf), a silly and goofy teen, and his older sister, Ren (Christy Carlson Romano). The program quickly found an audience on Disney and lasted for several seasons; its popularity spawned a small-screen feature, The Even Stevens Movie, in 2003. The time span of 2002 to 2003 was a busy one for LaBeouf &#8212 arguably his breakthrough period. In addition to The Even Stevens Movie, the actor signed on to participate in season two of the controversial Project Greenlight, the Damon and Affleck-created national contest for aspiring indie filmmakers, with its attached HBO reality series of the same name. Thus, at-home viewers had the opportunity to watch LaBeouf, Elden Hensen, Kathleen Quinlan, Amy Smart, and other actors endure the tumultuous production of Efram Potelle and Kyle Rankin's quirky comedy drama The Battle of Shaker Heights, months prior to that film's release. When the finished film debuted in August of 2003, it did so to generally terrible reviews, but a number of journalists (Roger Ebert among them) singled out LaBeouf's lead performance as something special amid a decidedly flawed film.That same year, LaBeouf starred in the Andrew Davis-directed Disney fantasy Holes, as a youngster sent to an oddball Texas detention center and forced to dig a series of 5-foot-deep pits in the desert sun for mysterious reasons; it scored with the public and press and became one of the sleeper hits of 2003. And indeed, its success doubtless spurred LaBeouf on to even greater heights, his dramatic ability honed even more sharply by his interaction with co-star Jon Voight (Coming Home), whom LaBeouf would later list as a key professional influence. In late 2004, LaBeouf signed on for the lead in another Disney film, The Greatest Game Ever Played (2005) &#8212 a biopic of golfer Francis Ouimet directed by Bill Paxton; the film itself divided critics rather sharply but provided an outstanding showcase for LaBeouf's talents. The next several years found LaBeouf signing on for several of the most sought-after A-list roles in Hollywood &#8212 from director Francis Lawrence's apocalyptic fantasy Constantine (2005), as a demon-slayer fighting ~ Rovi