LaBeouf was born in Los Angeles, California, the only child of Shayna (née Saide), a dancer and ballerina turned visual artist and clothing/jewelry designer, and Jeffrey Craig LaBeouf, a Vietnam War veteran who "drifted" from job to job, working as a mime at a circus and as a rodeo clown. Shia LaBeouf's New York-born mother is Jewish and his father is a Cajun (once described by LaBeouf as a "Ragin' Cajun"). LaBeouf was raised in the Jewish religion and had a Bar Mitzvah. The name Shia is Hebrew for "gift from God", and the surname LaBeouf is a variation of "le boeuf", the French term for "the ox" or "the beef". LaBeouf has said that he comes from "five generations of performers" and was "acting when [he] came out of the womb."LaBeouf's maternal grandfather, who shared his first name, was a comedian who worked in the Borscht Belt of the Catskill Mountains, and his paternal grandmother was a Beatnik poet and lesbian who associated with Allen Ginsberg. LaBeouf has described his parents as "hippies", his father as "tough as nails and a different breed of man", and his upbringing as similar to a "hippy lifestyle", stating that his parents were "pretty weird people, but they loved me and I loved them." LaBeouf's father used to grow cannabis, and the two smoked marijuana together when LaBeouf was ten. LaBeouf has also said that his father was "on drugs" during his childhood, being addicted to heroin and placed in drug rehabilitation for heroin addiction, while LaBeouf's mother was "trying to hold down the fort." His parents eventually divorced, and he had what he has described as a "good childhood", growing up poor with his mother (who worked selling fabrics and brooches) in Echo Park, Los Angeles, California.
LaBeouf attended a predominantly Latino and African-American school.
Theatrically, LaBeouf attended 32nd Street Visual and Performing Arts Magnet school in Los Angeles (LAUSD) and Alexander Hamilton High School, although he received most of his education from tutors.Following high-school, LaBeouf was accepted to Yale University but declined, later remarking that he is "getting the kind of education you don't get at school," although he would like to attend college.
LaBeouf has said that he initially became an actor because his family was broke, not because he wanted to pursue an acting career. He became well known among young audiences after playing Louis Stevens in the Disney Channel weekly program Even Stevens, a role for which he was cast three months after being signed by his agent. LaBeouf also appeared in the Disney Channel hit Tru Confessions, where he played a mentally challenged kid with a sister who made a documentary about his disability. His father, at the time just released from rehab, served as his on-set parent and the two bonded. LaBeouf was awarded a Daytime Emmy Award for the role of Louis and has said that he "grew up on that show" and that his childhood was "kind of lost," although his being cast in the show was the "best thing" that has happened to him. During this time period, LaBeouf also appeared in sketch shows on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. In 2003, he appeared in another Disney production, Holes, as Stanley "Caveman" Yelnats IV, opposite Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight and Tim Blake Nelson. While filming Holes, Voight gave LaBeouf a book on acting, and this made LaBeouf realize acting could be more than a job. The film was a moderate box office success. Steven Spielberg was also a fan of LaBeouf in Holes, saying he reminded him of a young Tom Hanks.
That same year, he was heavily featured in the HBO documentary show Project Greenlight, which chronicled the making of the independent film The Battle of Shaker Heights. He also appeared in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle as Max Petroni, an orphan whom the Angels end up protecting. Off-screen, LaBeouf co-wrote and directed Let's Love Hate, a short drama and winner of the Children's Jury Award in 2004 and the Children's Audience Award in 2005. He had a small role in I, Robot (2004) and appeared in the action-horror film Constantine (2005), opposite Keanu Reeves and Rachel Weisz, and in the Disney film The Greatest Game Ever Played, playing Francis Ouimet, a real-life golf player from a poor family who won the 1913 U.S. Open Championship. In 2006, LaBeouf co-starred in the ensemble film drama Bobby, which called for him to do his first nude scene when he strips naked while on an LSD trip. He also played a young Dito Montiel in A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, in the younger version of the same role as Robert Downey, Jr. in a semi-autobiographical account of Montiel's upbringing in 1980s Astoria. LaBeouf has said that he is not the "All-American Disney role model" and chose to appear in some of his film roles in order to "curse as much as possible" and "age [himself] publicly" after his Disney roles, specifying that Disney is "great and all" and a "nurturing place" but "dehabilitating for an actor", being "one constant string of same". He has also said that he enjoyed being a child actor and hated school. In 2007, LaBeouf starred in Disturbia, a thriller released on April 13. He played a teenager under house arrest who suspects that his neighbor, played by David Morse, is a serial killer. The film was a hit and LaBeouf received positive reviews for the role, with the Buffalo News stating that LaBeouf "has grown into an appealing, bright young actor who is able to simultaneously pull off [the character's] anger, remorse and intelligence", Kurt Loder of MTV writing that LaBeouf "gets his star ticket decisively punched", and the San Francisco Chronicle noting that LaBeouf is "fast becoming the best young actor in Hollywood". In comparing the film with Rear Window, The New York Daily News described LaBeouf's appeal as "more John Cusack than Jimmy Stewart". Also in 2007, LaBeouf provided a voice role as Cody Maverick in the animated film Surf's Up and played teenager Sam Witwicky, who becomes involved in the Autobot-Decepticon war on Earth, in Michael Bay's Transformers, released on July 3. LaBeouf has said that he is a fan of The Transformers television series and the 1986 The Transformers: The Movie, and executive producer Steven Spielberg cast him in the role having been impressed by his performance in Holes. Disturbia was the most important film to LaBeouf of his three 2007 films, because it was a "character-driven" role.
LaBeouf hosted Saturday Night Live on April 14, 2007 and May 10, 2008. He was named 2007's "star of tomorrow" by the ShoWest convention of the National Association of Theater Owners, and in February 2008 he was awarded the BAFTA Orange Rising Star Award, which was voted for by the British general public. Impressed by his performance in Transformers, in April 2007 Spielberg cast LaBeouf in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which began filming that June for a May 22, 2008 release date. LaBeouf has stated that he would subsequently like to appear in a smaller-scale role. His next film is Eagle Eye, a thriller directed by D. J. Caruso scheduled for an October 2008 release. He has also signed on for two Transformers sequels. Shia is currently dating actress Carey Mulligan. They met on the set of Wall Street 2 : Money Never Sleeps.
