In this article: In Shia's toy box

MOVIES

The next Tom Hanks?

"Transformers" producer Steven Spielberg thinks Shia LaBeouf has what it takes.

By Jeffrey Ressner

Taking a lunch break at an outdoor café filled with the beautiful people of Santa Monica, Calif., Shia LaBeouf hardly looks like Hollywood's hottest property. Considering his bedhead coif, loosey-goosey demeanor and that M.C. Escher tattoo on his torso, the 21-year-old actor could more easily pass for one of the raggedy skateboarders whizzing by.

But there'll be no gnarly shredding for LaBeouf, or any other sports. "Surfing, golf -- I've had to put them all aside," he says between bites of a quesadilla. Instead, he has been working. This year alone, the former Disney ragamuffin appeared in April's box-office champ "Disturbia," voiced the lead in the penguin toon "Surf's Up" and stars in this week's $150 million robot action movie, "Transformers." As if that's not enough, he was just cast in the new Indiana Jones sequel. Skateboarding can wait.

LaBeouf hasn't even found time to furnish his Burbank, Calif., bachelor pad. "My lifestyle now is so gypsy," he says. "I love working. Acting isn't an intellectual exercise. You can't just go home and think about it. The more you do it, the better you get."

His name is part Hebrew, part French; it's pronounced SHY-ah la-BUFF. Minutes after meeting him, it's clear that pronunciation trick is only half-accurate. He's funny, extremely foulmouthed, wildly frenetic and definitely not shy. But now that he is exercising every day on fitness machines and treadmills for his movie roles, he has become exceptionally buff. Ironically, the same name that got him taunted as a child (the schoolyard "Chia Pet" jokes were merciless) today helps him stand out.

Raised in the artsy Echo Park area of Los Angeles, LaBeouf is the only son of a doting Jewish mom and a vagabond Cajun father who suffered from drug addiction after serving in Vietnam. "Shia got his sense of humor from us both: country from his father and Catskills from me," says his mother, Shayna, a free-spirited jewelry designer.

He was just 13 when the Disney Channel cast him in its kiddie comedy series "Even Stevens," leading to a Daytime Emmy award and, even more important, his big-screen breakthrough in the studio's 2003 picture, "Holes." Yet the packaging of LaBeouf felt at odds with his hippie family life, and he chafed under constraints of the company's image marketing machine. "That All-American Disney role model, I'm not that," the actor says. "I'm still trying to figure out my own [stuff], so there's no way I can be the guy other people look to for answers."

As fate would have it, the "Holes" role attracted a pair of showbiz veterans who literally changed LaBeouf's life. One was Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight ("Coming Home"), who took the boy with an "angelic face and Raphael hair" under his wing. "He's an elusive character in many ways," Voight says, "with a vivid, enthusiastic imagination and a poet's sensibility."

The other vet was Steven Spielberg, who saw "Holes" with his children and became transfixed by LaBeouf's genial persona, reminding him of a young Tom Hanks. "Until a few months ago, we never had a man-to-man talk or a man-to-boy talk, or even an icon-to-loser talk," says LaBeouf of his latest director. The two mensches bonded over classic movies. "It's not like we're best friends now, but I do get to call him Steven."

After "Indiana Jones," LaBeouf says he'll probably do a little film. "I'll look for some small character in a low-budget movie," he predicts. "After this, you can't get any bigger."

And then he takes off for the gym, to do just that.

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In Shia's childhood toy box

"Transformers" star Shia LaBeouf's favorite childhood toys included Happy Meal giveaways, anything based on Yogi Bear and, of course, the shape-changing robots featured in his current movie.

"Yogi had a really lame toy line," says LaBeouf, who recalls owning a "talking" plush doll. Much better were Transformers such as Bumblebee and Starscream, inhabiting a fantasy universe he calls "the Star Wars of my generation."

But his current toy joy is Xbox 360. "It's the best," he raves about sports games "Madden NFL" and "MLB 07: The Show." He also revels in slamming the whammy bar on "Guitar Hero." "It's always lots of fun," he says, croaking off-key lyrics to a Wolfmother song. "Hey, there's a reason why I'm an actor, nota singer."