Shia LaBeouf has never been an actor who shies away from difficult roles (post-Transformers at least) and his latest venture might be his most difficult yet, as he’s set to play his own “alcohol abusing, law breaking” father in a biopic loosely based upon his life.
Lucas Hedges, who recently starred in both Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri and Lady Bird, will play the younger Shia in the family drama, which is being billed as a story of a child star attempting to mend his difficult relationship with his dad over the course of a decade.
If it sounds familiar, it’s because it is. Shia recently talked about his relationships with his parents in a revealing interview with Esquire, explaining: “My dad handed me a lot, and his legacy was an emotional one. And it wasn’t scarring. He handed me texture. My dad blessed me that way.”
The name of the film is as personal as the story, which Shia wrote while in rehab — Honey Boy was Shia’s childhood nickname, coined by his father. The project’s set to be directed by Alma Har’el, who won the top documentary prize at Tribeca Film Festival for her 2011 film Bombay Beach.
Not many of us have interesting enough lives to write and produce and star in a biopic all at the age of 31, but then again none of us are Shia LaBeouf.