It’s well known that Shia LaBeouf has gone to dangerous lengths for his roles. And that really became apparent in his work on David Ayer’s 2014 film Fury, where the actor played a member of a tank crew in World War II alongside Brad Pitt, Logan Lerman, Michael Peña, Jon Bernthal and Scott Eastwood. When Eastwood recently reflected on being on the set of the film, he recalled a “volatile” moment between him and LaBeouf that got out of hand and even involved Pitt.
Scott Eastwood recently shared that while he was on the set of Fury, his character had a moment on set where he was supposed to spit on the tank the main crew of actors lived on in the film. However, the beat led to an uncomfortable on-set moment between him and Shia LaBeouf. In Eastwood’s words:
I[LaBeouf] got mad at me and it turned into a volatile moment that Brad Pitt ultimately got in the middle of. … I never think your process as an actor should ever hinder how people are treated on set. It should always enhance the production, not take away and put people in a situation where it’s a shitty work environment or you’re rude or people have to be in an uncomfortable situation.
Scott Eastwood had a smaller role in Fury, whereas the main crew playing the soldiers who live in the tank had four months of preparation together. Said prep involved David Ayer sending them to a boot camp run by Navy Seals. It was there that the group spent extended periods in the tank together (in which some were fighting each other). Eastwood made some points to Insider about on-set environments:
You got to put things in perspective. This is make-believe, it’s fun, and at times it’s serious and you’re doing emotional work and you give people space to do that in, but everything has to have its parameters.
Brad Pitt previously told the story of Scott Eastwood and Shia LaBeouf’s on-set moment. While promoting the movie and speaking to GQ, the Oscar winner explained what happened:
I’m in the turret, Shia is at the other turret, and Scott is on the back, spitting juice. And I’m starting to get pissed off, I’m starting to get hot, because this is our home, he’s disrespecting our home, you know? So I said, in the scene with the cameras rolling, ‘You’re going to clean that shit up.’ Shia clocks it, and you have to understand, we’ve been through severe boot camp already, we’ve been through a lot in this tank. Shia saw it and felt the same – he’s disrespecting our home. So Shia had the same reaction I did, and started having some words… Then I had to get in after the cameras were rolling, and explain it to Scotty.
It sounds like Scott Eastwood was entering a particular intense set, where the main stars were really immersed in their characters and bonds as a “tank family.” Pitt continued with these words:
The funny thing is, when we got home at the end of the day and read the script, it said Scotty’s character is ‘chewing tobacco and spitting it on the back of the tank’. He was just doing as instructed in the script! So we were the knobs in the end.
The “volatile” moment the actor had to break up was the result of a misunderstanding and perhaps some blurred lines between reality and the scenes that needed to be shot for Fury. Along with this incident on set, Shia LaBeouf had a dentist pull his actual tooth and the actor additionally used a knife to cut his face to make the character look more “real.”
In the past couple years, actor has been charged with petty theft and battery after a physical altercation in Los Angeles. He is additionally being sued by his ex FKA Twigs, who is charging him on sexual assault, battery, emotional distress, also noting that he once bragged about killing stray dogs to get into a dark place for a character.
The latest on Shia LaBeouf is he’s reportedly expecting his first child with actress Mia Goth and reportedly could star in his next movie, After Exile, with Robert DeNiro. Scott Eastwood’s most recent film is a romantic comedy called I Want You Back alongside Jenny Slate, Charlie Day, Gina Rodriguez and Manny Jacinto, which is available to stream with an Amazon Prime subscription.