Lady Bird's Lucas Hedges cast opposite Shia LaBeouf in the role of a lifetime: Shia LaBeouf

By William Hughes | March 17, 2018 | 3:58am

Aux Features Film

In what might be the most recursive project of a career that went through the looking glass about five weird webcam streaming projects ago, Shia LaBeouf is set to star opposite a successful young actor playing one of his favorite roles: successful young actor Shia LaBeouf. Specifically, Lucas Hedges—who gave powerful turns in both Lady Bird and 2016's Manchester By The Sea—has been tapped to play a character based on LaBeouf in the upcoming film project Honey Boy. LaBeouf, meanwhile, will be playing his own frequently criminal, alcohol-addicted father, in what sounds like yet another of the actor’s frequent blurrings of the line between art and a very public series of overshare-heavy therapy sessions.

LaBeouf is on what looks to be one of his periodic upswings at the moment; the actor drew praise for his work in last year’s tennis drama Borg McEnroe, and recently gave a heavy dose of mea culpa in an Esquire profile for his various public missteps. Honey Boy, meanwhile, is being directed by his occasional collaborator, Alma Har’el, and is being described as “the story of a child star attempting to mend his relationship with his law-breaking, alcohol-abusing father over the course of a decade.” No word yet on whether Hedges will be asked to provide his own paper bag.