Actor Shia LaBeouf spoke out about the dark moments he experienced before converting to Catholicism.
LaBeouf shared his story with Bishop Robert Barron of the Word on Fire Catholic Ministries on Thursday during a conversation about his role in the upcoming film “Padre Pio.”
The actor explained he needed to go to a seminary to do research for the role and met a man named Brother Jude.
“He says well if you’re going to play P.O. you need to read the gospel,” LaBeouf said.
According to LaBeouf, he was reading the gospels during a dark time in his life.
“I had a gun on the table. I was outta here,” he said.
LaBeouf added, “I didn’t want to be alive anymore when all of this happened. Shame like I had never experienced before — the kind of shame that you forget how to breathe. You don’t know where to go. You can’t go outside to get like, a taco… But I was also in this deep desire to hold on.”
Watch the conversation below (around 00:23:00):
He went on to tell Barron that it “stops being this prep of a movie and starts being something that feels beyond all that.”
Opening up about his ego, LaBeouf suggested that God used it “to draw me to Him.”
“Drawing me away from worldly desires. It was all happening simultaneously. But there would have been no impetus for me to get in my car, drive up here if I didn’t think, ‘Oh, I’m gonna save my career,” he said.
Additionally, LaBeouf said he “started hearing experiences of other depraved people who had found their way in this, and it made me feel like I had permission.”
The conversation comes the same week that director Olivia Wilde claimed she fired LaBeouf from the film “Don’t Worry Darling.”
“I say this as someone who is such an admirer of his work. His process was not conducive to the ethos that I demand in my productions. He has a process that, in some ways, seems to require a combative energy, and I don’t personally believe that is conducive to the best performances,” Wilde said.
She added, “I believe that creating a safe, trusting environment is the best way to get people to do their best work. Ultimately, my responsibility is to the production and to the cast to protect them. That was my job.”
However, LaBeouf said that was not the case, as Variety reported.
According to emails sent to the outlet, LaBeouf claimed he “quit the film due to lack of rehearsal time” in August 2020.