Shia LaBeouf‘s father had just one note for his son’s emotionally raw new movie that loosely follows their complicated relationship — and it wasn’t about any of the “heavy stuff.”
On Tuesday, the actor — who plays his father rather than himself in the semi-autobiographical film — opened up about the making of the movie while appearing onThe Ellen DeGeneres Show, revealing the piece of directorial advice his father gave him.
“Yeah, not about any of the heavy stuff,” LaBeouf told hostEllen DeGeneresof the pointers his dad shared with him. “My dad was very particular about this relationship that he had with a chicken named Henrietta LaFowl, who was the world’s first daredevil chicken.”
“This was my dad’s act it was like his opus,” the actor said, sharing that his fatherworked as a clown when LaBeouf was a child. “And my dad used to put this chicken on his head and do cartwheels, and the chicken would run from his head to his butt from his head to his butt.”
Shia LaBeouf and Ellen DeGeneres.Michael Rozman/Warner Bros.
The film marks LaBeouf’s screenwriting debut, which the 33-year-old said he started writing while in a court-ordered rehab facility he called “head camp” after his2017 arrest.Prior to the making ofHoney Boy, the actor said he hadn’t seen his father in seven years and that the movie was in some ways a “love letter” to him.
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“I basically had him set up a web camera and then watched him watch the whole movie,” LaBeouf said. “And he didn’t say much, but I know he felt like I saw him. Like, I really saw him and got him. And [he] was very teary eye-ed and it’s a love letter, so it felt that way.”
Michael Rozman/Warner Bros.
On Sunday night, LaBeouf was honored with an award for the film’s script at the Hollywood Film Awards in Los Angeles, where hethanked the police officerwhoarrested himfor public drunkenness, crediting the arrest for “changing [his] life.”
Honey Boyopens in theaters on Friday, Nov. 8.
source: people.com
