Update: In a rebuttal to yesterday’s Variety profile in which Olivia Wilde said she fired Shia LaBeouf from her upcoming thriller Don’t Worry Darling, the actor provided the site with screen grabs of texts he sent to her in August 2020 that shows he quit the movie because of “lack of rehearsal time.” While Wilde had claimed that she let him go (and eventually replaced him with Harry Styles) because his “combative” energy was “not conducive to the ethos that I demand in my productions,” the texts indicate he told her he was backing out of the project before production had even started, therefore before anyone would have witnessed his process.
LaBeouf forwarded Variety an email he sent to Wilde after reading her recent quotes. It read, in part, “I am a little confused about the narrative that I was fired…. You and I both know the reasons for my exit. I quit your film because your actors & I couldn’t find time to rehearse. I have included as a reminder the screenshots of our text exchange on that day.” He also passed on to Variety a video that Wilde allegedly sent to him on August 19, 2020, two days after he quit, in which she implored him to return. “I feel like I’m not ready to give up on this yet, and I too am heartbroken and I want to figure this out,” she says in the video, and goes on to say that “I think this might be a bit of a wake-up call for Miss Flo [co-star Florence Pugh], and I want to know if you’re open to giving this a shot with me, with us.” This strikes a different tone than the one she originally took with Variety, in which she said that she fired LaBeouf because her “priority was making [Pugh, who would play LaBeouf’s character’s wife] feel safe and making her feel supported.”
Wilde’s profile came out as LaBeouf is facing a lawsuit by former girlfriend FKA Twigs, claiming physical and emotional abuse during their relationship. In his recent letter to Wilde, he wrote, “My failings with Twigs are fundamental and real, but they are not the narrative that has been presented. There is a time and a place to deal with such things, and I am trying to navigate a nuanced situation with respect for her and the truth, hence my silence. But this situation with your film and my ‘firing’ will never have a court date with which to deal with the facts. If lies are repeated enough in the public they become truth. And so, it makes it that much harder for me to crawl out of the hole I have dug with my behaviors, to be able to provide for my family…. So I am humbly asking, as a person with an eye toward making things right, that you correct the narrative as best you can.”
Meanwhile, LaBeouf recently appeared today in a YouTube interview with Roman Catholic Bishop Robert Barron in which he said he had converted to Catholicism after his experience making the upcoming Abel Ferrara biopic, Padre Pio, about the Italian priest and saint. To prepare for the role, the actor moved into a monastery with Franciscan Capuchin friars. “When I walked into this, my life was on fire,” LaBeouf told the Bishop. ”I was walking down a hill. It wasn’t like I willingly came in here on a white horse singing show tunes. I came in here on fire, and I didn’t want to be an actor anymore. And my life was a complete mess, and I had hurt a lot of people. I felt deep shame, guilt…. I really had a journey here and I was on my way out.”
GQ‘s original coverage of the story from August 25th follows:
Olivia Wilde’s second feature film, the psychological thriller Don’t Worry Darling, has one of the most impressive casts of 2022, including proven A-listers (Florence Pugh, Chris Pine), a music superstar in his first lead role (Harry Styles), and a supporting cast filled out by great comic performers (Nick Kroll, Kate Berlant) and acclaimed dramatic actors (Gemma Chan, KiKi Layne). But you won’t be seeing one of her original picks for the cast, Shia LaBeouf: Shortly after production began on the twisty, 1950s-set drama, she fired him and replaced him with Styles. And she’s finally explaining why.
LaBeouf and Pugh were set to play a married couple that unravels after he takes a new job with a mysterious, sinister employer, but his confrontational style proved too much. In a Variety profile, Wilde said, “I say this as someone who is such an admirer of his work. His process was not conducive to the ethos that I demand in my productions. He has a process that, in some ways, seems to require a combative energy, and I don’t personally believe that is conducive to the best performances. I believe that creating a safe, trusting environment is the best way to get people to do their best work. Ultimately, my responsibility is to the production and to the cast to protect them. That was my job.”
Only a few months after he left Don’t Worry Darling (which opens Sept. 23), LaBeouf was sued by ex-girlfriend and one-time co-star FKA Twigs, who told Elle about his disturbing pattern of abuse. Twigs, who dated LaBeouf for nine months from 2018 to 2019, said that he strangled her, intimidated her, and brought a gun into their bedroom against her wishes. The lawsuit also includes abuse claims by another one of his former girlfriends, stylist Karolyn Pho. In December of 2020, shortly after the lawsuit was filed, LaBoeuf provided the New York Times with a statement that said, “I’m not in any position to tell anyone how my behavior made them feel. I have no excuses for my alcoholism or aggression, only rationalizations. I have been abusive to myself and everyone around me for years. I have a history of hurting the people closest to me. I’m ashamed of that history and am sorry to those I hurt. There is nothing else I can really say.” He later added that “many of these allegations are not true,” but that he wanted the women to have “the opportunity to air their statements publicly and accept accountability for those things I have done.” The lawsuit against LaBeouf is going to trial in April 2023, per Rolling Stone.
“I find myself just really wishing him health and evolution because I believe in restorative justice. But for our film, what we really needed was an energy that was incredibly supportive,” Wilde told Variety, alluding to tense scenes between Pugh’s character and her male co-lead. “Particularly with a movie like this, I knew that I was going to be asking Florence to be in very vulnerable situations, and my priority was making her feel safe and making her feel supported.”
Since Twigs came forward, LaBeouf’s acting output has dropped off precipitously. He has not appeared in a film released in 2021 or 2022, though he does have a starring role in the upcoming Abel Ferrara feature Padre Pio, and is slated to act opposite Robert DeNiro in the crime drama After Exile. Though LaBeouf has earned praise for some of his vulnerable performances, he’s also consistently been in headlines (and legal trouble) for his violent and erratic behavior.
While early buzz for Don’t Worry Darling has been good, Wilde has had to spend a lot of her press time addressing gossip that swirled around the production. A Page Six story from late July suggested that Pugh was uncomfortable with Wilde and Styles getting together during shooting, before the former had ended her relationship with Jason Sudeikis. The piece also noted that Wilde and Styles were very public with their affections on set. In an August Rolling Stone interview, Styles addressed the portion of fans who have reacted negatively to his relationship. “It’s obviously a difficult feeling to feel like being close to me means you’re at the ransom of a corner of Twitter or something,” he said.
In her Variety interview, Wilde spoke about how she and Styles take pains not to comment on the relationship publicly. “I’m not going to say anything about it because I’ve never seen a relationship benefit from being dragged into the public arena,” she said. “We both go out of our way to protect our relationship; I think it’s out of experience, but also just out of deep love.”