What happened with Alec Baldwin and Shia LaBeouf? 2013 feud explored as Transformers star recalls beef with former co-star

In 2013, Transformers star Shia LaBeouf and Hollywood veteran Alec Baldwin were briefly announced as co-stars in the Broadway revival of Orphans.

What had initially been a much scrutinized theater collaboration very rapidly escalated into a public fallout, with LaBeouf exiting the production. Years later, the actor shared his reflections on that fallout and the personal troubles that might have led to his feud with Baldwin.

According to Baldwin’s 2014 statement to Vulture, LaBeouf marched up to him in front of the entire cast and crew and said his preparation and dialogue delivery were not up to the mark. He also accused Baldwin of not keeping up with the fast pace.

"He said, 'You’re slowing me down, and you don’t know your lines - and if you don’t say your lines, I’m just going to keep saying my lines'. We all sat, frozen." Baldwin revealed.

Alec Baldwin said he felt that things had become unmanageable and offered to step away from the project, but eventually, LaBeouf was the one who was let go from the production.

In the days that followed, Shia LaBeouf posted a series of cryptic social media messages and shared private email exchanges with Baldwin and director Daniel Sullivan. In the text exchanges, LaBeouf seemed to call into question Alec Baldwin’s work ethic and readiness for the part.

Responding to the publicly disclosed private emails, Baldwin said:

"Regarding of what people feel about the events that happened, you expect communications to be private, because everyone wants this process to be as collegial as possible." Alec Baldwin remarked.

More about Alec Baldwin and Shia LaBeouf's beef as the Transformers star opens up in a recent interview

Known for his extreme and immersive approach to acting, LaBeouf would later acknowledge in interviews that his own state of mind was not completely stable at the time.

Over the years, he has talked about the park he was living in, steroids he had been taking, and how he was generally in a bad emotional place during rehearsals. He also told Interview Magazine that he had secretly stalked Alec Baldwin and had even followed him home for a month in a bid to get some sort of closure.

"I was trying to take my mind off the play, but I couldn’t do it,” LaBeouf said. “So I would follow him from rehearsal to his home. I needed to have closure." He said.

Shia LaBeouf, now 38, recently spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about his past feud with Alec Baldwin. According to him, he was originally supposed to be playing his role alongside Al Pacino.

But once Al Pacino backed down, Baldwin stepped in, and the pair's dynamic changed dramatically, which had a negative effect on LaBeouf. The actor stated that the sudden change made him feel insecure in his acting.

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"By the time Baldwin got there, it was almost unfair, All this hard prep that I’d done for two years, and my desperate need to show him all my prep, or that he would accept me somehow. I was so insecure." He remarked.

Yet, things seem to have healed in some respects. LaBeouf revealed that he went on to take an acting class taught by Baldwin at NYU and that they are on good terms now.

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