-
Shia LaBeouf recalled his “contentious” dynamic with Alec Baldwin while rehearsing the 2013 Broadway play Orphans
-
The actor admitted that Baldwin, who replaced Al Pacino in the show, had to deal with LaBeouf’s “fractured little weak ego” at the time
-
Since then they have “both been able to send each other love and make it right,” said LaBeouf
Shia LaBeouf is reflecting on his past feud with Alec Baldwin — and taking his share of the blame.
In a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, the Henry Johnson actor, 38, recalled dropping out of the 2013 Broadway play Orphans amid tensions with Baldwin, 67.
As LaBeouf remembers it, he had been initially rehearsing with Al Pacino — who dropped out before LaBeouf did, replaced by Baldwin — and “had built the whole thing based on my relationship with Pacino. And that’s gone. So I was kind of heartbroken.”
“By the time Baldwin got there, it was almost unfair,” LaBeouf told THR. “So he’s dealing with both my fractured little weak ego, right? All this hard prep that I’d done for two years, and my desperate need to show him all my prep, or that he would accept me somehow. I was so insecure.”
“Well, that got contentious in the room. Then he got competitive. That’s just what our relationship turned into,” he continued.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human-interest stories.
Steve Granitz/WireImage; Stefano Guidi/Getty
Shia LaBeouf in Beverly Hills, California, on Nov. 3, 2019; Alec Baldwin in Turin, Italy, on Nov. 25, 2024
Baldwin previously opened up about his issues with LaBeouf on set, many of which were chronicled in emails LaBeouf leaked on social media.
As Baldwin told Vulture in a 2014 essay of himself and LaBeouf, “There was friction between us from the beginning.”
“One day he attacked me in front of everyone. He said, ‘You’re slowing me down, and you don’t know your lines. And if you don’t say your lines, I’m just going to keep saying my lines,’ ” Baldwin claimed. “I asked the company to break.”
“And I took the stage manager, with [director Daniel] Sullivan, to another room, and I said one of us is going to go. I said, ‘I’ll tell you what, I’ll go.’ I said, ‘Don’t fire the kid, I’ll quit.’ They said no, no, no, no, and they fired him,” he added. “And I think he was shocked.”
As LaBeouf recalled of himself and Baldwin in his interview with THR, “I’d be off book, he’d be on book, and he didn’t want me to look at him be off book. That makes it hard to play these scenes out or block this thing even.”
“And no fault against him, he had two weeks to come in because Pacino [dropped out],” he continued. “When he came in, I’m living in the park and I’m on steroids and I’m not in a good way.”
LeBeouf said he started taking an acting class Baldwin was teaching at New York University, and they’re “good” now, as they’ve both “gone through a lot.”
Mike Marsland/WireImage
Shia LaBeouf in Cannes, France, on May 16, 2024
The PEOPLE App is now available in the Apple App Store! Download it now for the most binge-worthy celeb content, exclusive video clips, astrology updates and more.
“We’ve both been able to send each other love and make it right before all the madness happened on both sides,” the Holes actor said. “We made it right. He’s a good guy. He’s just like me.”
A rep for Baldwin had no comment when reached by PEOPLE.
Read the original article on People
