Catapulting Shia LeBeouf to Hollywood stardom, the 2007 Transformers gave birth to a new era of titanic robots clashing on the screen. Amidst a whirlwind of high-octane action films, the Michael Bay-directed movie stood out for its groundbreaking visual effects, becoming the fifth-highest-grossing movie of the year. However, behind this modern masterpiece lie some stories of Bay’s extreme directorial style. Some of which put the then-20-year-old actor, Shia LaBeouf’s life in real danger.
It’s true that during the 2007 Transformers, technological innovations like CGI replaced most of the stunt work. However, despite it all, Bay’s practical approach to direction did lead to some dangerous encounters for LaBeouf behind the scenes.
When Michael Bay had Shia LaBeouf chased with real attack dogs
It was definitely not easy for LaBeouf to get acquainted with Bay’s extreme directorial style. Especially when on the very first day of his shoot, his director had him chased with real untrained attack dogs. The first scene filmed by the Constantine actor was the one where his character Sam Witwicky is attacked by guard dogs. Explaining his initial thoughts about the scene, Shia LaBeouf once told GQ,
“The first day I came to set, the first thing I was asked to do was run away from a pitbull/mastiff/Doberman combo, that was supposed to run at me, towards the camera, and then run into this dog trainer’s arms.”
However, LaBeouf was in for a surprise. To be fair, a dangerous surprise. After the shot, one particular attack dog just kept chasing the 20-year-old actor who then realized that none of them were actually trained.
He said, “There’s no way he’s going to make me run around with dogs that aren’t trained. But, surprise surprise, these dogs have never done a f******* movie before. They were attack dogs from a retired police academy, and so they were trained to attack people.
So literally I just ran around set, and I remember all the crew—this is my first shot, first take—all the crew was throwing chairs at the dog, trying to distract these dogs who were on my tail and relentless and not going to stop.”
Furthermore, he added that after finally saving himself from the dog, he looked over Michael Bay who just couldn’t stop giggling. Claiming that no other director he has ever worked with would have giggled after seeing the star of his movie being mauled to death, LaBeouf summed it up as, “Welcome to Michael Bay’s set. Release the hounds!”
And the interesting part is that this wasn’t the only time LaBeouf found himself in danger on the Transformers set.
When Michael Bay dangled Shia LaBeouf off a building
During the later part of the movie, a fight scene where Megatron corners LaBeouf’s character on a tall building terrorized the actor. In the scene, Sam is seen clinging to a statue to save himself from Megatron. And if looked at closely, the panic and fear on his face were actually quite real. Standing on top of a building without a safety net surely terrorized him. Remembering it all, LaBeouf joked,
“They can build Optimus Prime, they can blow up the Pentagon, but they can’t find a way to keep Shia off the ledge.”
Moreover, he further added, “I gotta tell you, it’s scary going out there because you literally have no safety net, and you just have these silly wires hanging on your hip. And mind you, I would never do this myself, ever. Okay? What I could [do] is I could fall and scrape off the side and you’d have to pull me up. That could happen. I’m not gonna die, obviously, but I could scrape.”
No doubt LaBeouf’s expressions in that particular scene were quite ‘realistic.’ However, having immense gratitude and love for Michael Bay and his work, LaBeouf fought through all the challenges like a real hero – successfully delivering the iconic Transformers to the audiences.
Source: GQ
