Shia Labeouf talks about Rehab Stint

Shia Labeouf talks about his latest projects and his stint at rehab. Shia attended the Tribeca Film Festival where his movie as producer with director Alma Har’el and his experience at the rehab while he attended a Q&A.

Shia has had some troubled times lately. His struggle with being a celebrity ended with his declaration of quitting the public life. Ever since then, he has somewhat gotten away from his fame from the Transformers movies. It had resulted into radio silence from the going-ons of his life.

Until most recently, Shia decided to appear on the Tribeca Film Festival to support the film he has produced with director Alma Har’el titled “True Love”. Shia attended a Q&A on Thursday where he took personal, professional and movie-related questions.

About the movie, Shia said that he watched Bombay Beach which was directed by Alma and loved the depth of her work. He then wrote her a fan letter and they decided to meet up. She told him that she was working on a music video for Sigur Ros and Shia agreed to work on it with her.

He admired Alma’s style of direction. She discussed a project with him and Shia liked the idea so much that he slid a check under her door that financed the whole project. True Love is an experimental drama that merges fiction and documentary, with vignettes set in Alaska, Hawaii and New York.

Alma spent two and a half years developing these narratives with her cast of non-actors, often using their own life experiences onscreen. When asked how much role Shia had played in making the movie, he confessed that all the work was done by Alma.

The casting, directing, the format were all to her credit and he had just financed it. She shared the clips and pieces with him throughout the process. He said that in documentaries, people often fake for the camera and documentarians try the up the wall approach yet never find convincing enough material.

Alma is like an ‘elephant in the room’ presence. She lets the people know that she’s there and the best examples of self definition and objectification are found then. Her work is based on more of psychological nature that is not clinical but therapeutical. A person is faced with his/her problems and then there own process is faced by them in that aspect.

Shia also opened about his time at rehab. He said that there therapy sessions included an exercise in which a group of four to three people will talk to each other pretending to be each other’s family. He said that it really helped with coming to terms with the problems we faced. He said that it was like method acting.

Something that he rarely got to do on movie sets because of their magnitude and population and demands. He has been out of rehab for nine months now but it helped Shia define what he wanted in life.

Sources: PageSix , Variety