Sometimes you hear a budget was 100 million but the film looks like 50. Not Michael Bay. That’s why Transformers is going to be so good. With the huge budget that was spent and the advances it CGI, I think the film is going to shock everyone. I’m seriously looking forward to Transformers like I was my first blow job.

So by now I’m sure you’re wondering what I got out of Shia today. On the running time and the amount of action he said:

It's going to be long. He's going to give you a lot. You've got 20 set pieces. You like at Spider-Man and it had five big action sequences — five set pieces. We have 20, and you've got to get storyline in, you've got to get the narrative in — so a lot of explanation. You can’t just have robots fighting for no reason. You've got to explain it. The movies going to run, I think, about two and a half.

You excited yet?

And then I asked him why all of Michael Bay’s movies look like all the money was spent on screen and I got an extremely honest response:

Because he’s not putting all the actors in huge trailers, and we’re not staying in four class resorts and craft service isn’t shrimp cocktail. It’s a movie set and all the money is going into the film. You feel it on set. You know none of us got paid millions of dollars to be in that movie. That’s one of the lowest paying jobs I’ve been in, in my career. And that’s the way it goes. You do that movie not because of the paycheck, I know that everybody thinks “oh you’re in Transformers because of the paycheck.” And I’m sure eventually it will lead to a paycheck – when you have a Japanese following and a following you never had – but the initial being in the movie was never a paycheck. None of us got paid above $70,000 dollars. We were all there to blow shit up. 

Honesty. A nice surprise. But since he was there to promote Disturbia I’m going to let you get the other Transformers stuff from the interview below. We also discussed Hugo Weaving getting cast as Megatron and his reaction to that. It’s a great interview.

But as I said he was there to promote Disturbia, so… here is the synopsis (from the studio):

After his father’s accidental death, Kale (Shia LaBeouf) remains withdrawn and troubled. When he lashes out at a well-intentioned but insensitive teacher, he finds himself under a court-ordered house arrest. His mother continues to cope, working extra shifts to support herself and her son, as she tries in vain to understand the changes in his personality.

The walls of his house begin to close in on Kale as he takes chances to extend the boundaries ‑ both physical and emotional – of his confinement. His interests turn outside the windows of his suburban home toward those of his neighbors, including a mutual attraction to the new girl next door (Sarah Roemer).  Together, they begin to suspect that another neighbor is a serial killer.  Are their suspicions merely the product of Kale's cabin fever and vivid imagination?  Or have they unwittingly stumbled across a crime that could cost them their lives?

As I said when I posted the Disturbia images a little while ago, I was shocked at how much I enjoyed the movie. I’ve just come to expect mediocrity from all these high school thrillers so when you get one that’s good you’re not prepared. While the story and filmmaking are solid, the reason the film works is Shia. Let’s face it - the kid can act.

The below interview is definitely worth your time and if you’d rather listen to it – click here. It’s an MP3 and it’s easily put on a portable device. And if you want to see some footage before you read the interview – click here to watch the trailer.

Disturbia gets released on Friday, April 13^th  

Slight spoilers are discussed about the movie Disturbia. You are warned.

One of the surprising things about this is that there actually are some acting scenes in this. Was a lot of that your deciding to make these character moments or was a lot of it there already?

Well D.J. Caruso and Salton Sea is up on my Ten List. I'd never made a movie for this audience. I knew Spielberg's involvement was going to have something to do with it, and then I think it really became something different when David Morse came on board. Who's one of the best character actors we have in America. And Carrie-Anne Moss — you see her in Mommy mode — you know it's going to be something jarring and people aren't ready for that — they know her as Trinity and as a powerful woman, and you see her in rehearsals, and she's nursing her baby, and you hug her, and she seems like a mom. I knew that was going to be cool for the audience, and we cast a really talented actress. So you knew it wasn't going to be the normal teen thriller, and I wouldn't sign on to a normal teen thriller. They don't interest me — they become very one-notey, and it's a trap. You can trap yourself. And it's always like — you know, the arms getting hacked off with the saw or — they never give the audience time to breathe or be able to emote for themselves and find that the — the scariest thing about these thrillers has always been — at least for me and when you look back — things like Rear Window or Straw Dogs. Movies that were really terrifying. Or Psycho. It was the fact that he left enough room for your imagination to completely mind-fuck you and that was the scariest thing was — there's somebody that you know that you had those thoughts about . . . it's all being regurgitated as you're watching. So you knew that that was always the plan.

How did you guys get so intense that David Morse broke some of his fingers?

We were fighting. It's staged and you're trying to be as safe as possible — but it's all real, it's a real set, it's a real seven-foot guy, and I'm really 20 and we're really gonna fight. Or this movie's not gonna work. There's so much on the line, and you've been working for two months at this point, put so much in, that when you get there, you've got all this adrenaline, and meanwhile David Morse has not been talking to me, period, said a word to me for two months. All this shit is — you know — you want to fight.

That scene was one of the most effective in the whole movie, the fight scene.

D.J.'s all in to that type of stuff and he was fuelling it the whole time.

So given that you’ve been critical of teen movies in the past, were you confident of this before you got here or was it something you brought to it?

Something about having Spielberg on your project makes you confident from the outset. And he's made a few movies. You felt confident because you felt like DJ was confident, plus it was really informal — everybody was informed — from everyone, the actors, the craft service guy, and everyone had opinions, all the opinions were talked about, plus the play-offs were going on, Clippers were in the play-offs, and Dodgers were in the play-offs, so all my teams were in. That felt good, like — oh man, life is all right right now. Like some kismet's happening with the stars — the stars are aligning, both my teams are in the playoffs, this has to be a good movie. It was a cool set. It was the most enjoyable set I've ever been on, everybody was friends and it was like a big family.

How much of the dialogue were you able to improvise and make it your own?

A lot of it.

It sounded very real. Was some of that from your own experience from when you were a teenager?

Yeah. I never went through these situations. I went through a similar situation with my mom being attacked, or something like that, but I never went through what he went through, never been under house arrest or anything like that, but been in the judicial system, dealt with that whole thing. You know the lingo — Carl's a good writer and he would always leave enough on the page for you to be informed enough to be able to go off. If you don't have a good enough place to start, if you don't have a foundation, there's no way you can start varying and changing things because you get lost. There's a scene where I'm on the balcony and professing my love. Literally, the way that the lines were written were like key notes — sits on the roof, reads books — there's nothing in between, just pinpointed keynotes, like with dots going down… but it was keynotes, and then it was — you know — find it for yourself. How would you do it? So that was fun — the fact that there was that freedom, and that they allowed it and that they would work with me, because that's not something you do in one or two takes. You do 6 or 7 of them, 8 or 9 of them, try to find the cadence, and know the mannerisms — when is the — you know body language is important, especially in scenes like that and with teenagers, it's more than 65 per cent nonverbal — it's even more than that, more than that especially with teenagers. Because they don't know how to express it. Normal people don't know how to express themselves; especially at that age, especially in that situation, so a lot of it was like — how do we block this? When do I get off the door? When am I making my case? When am I lying? When am I — all of it and you've got to find the movement to that.

Did you ever chat with David Morse after you finished the film?

Yeah. We spoke during the last two weeks of filming when everything had kind of settled down. And when we came back to do additional shooting, we had a conversation and were friends then.

Was he a different person?

Completely.

Is that the kind of acting you like, where he keeps in character?

Do I like it? It's a different form. I don't stick like that, I like to enjoy the ride.

How are you prepared for your life changing come July?

I lead a pretty modest life. I drive a Nissan, I live in a two-bedroom, I go to Dodger games. My life is pretty normal outside of this. I'm sure it's going to change and I'll deal with it when it comes. I'm not nervous about it though. I'm pretty grounded. My life is pretty stable.

If you were under house arrest in a house like that, would you go stir crazy?

When I was 18 or 19, I'd be masturbating a lot. I would. I'd be doing that. I'd be reading. I'd be watching a lot of movies. I'm a film junkie.

You wouldn’t be quite ass crazy as your character was…

I'd be just as crazy. I don't know if I'd be violently crazy or demonstrative or destructive towards my family structure or anything like that, plus I live by myself so there wouldn't be the guilt — like I'm inflicting this on you in your home.

You’re a film junkie. Do you like any voyeur movies from the past?

Yeah Rear Window. I love Rear Window. I like The Burbs also. But it's funny. People compare us to Rear Window — it's like comparing The Cincinnati Kid to The Hustler. Just two different movies. Similar story lines, similar plot lines, similar elements, but it's not the same movie by any means. It's just two different movies. But everyone's a voyeur in this room if you read People Magazine or US Weekly or if you have a MySpace or a Facebook, you're a voyeur. You watch reality shows. You're a voyeur. It's just human nature.

It’s amazing to me that since we started talking to you you’ve had a very clear idea of where you wanted your career to go. Now it’s been a few years, how do you feel

Abou sticking to that path and how has it been going?

It's successful thus far. Sure, I may have to change something up I'm sure. It's all about change. It's all about diversity. If people won't get bored with you, then you're okay, you're safe. But even if you fail, like putting your neck out and you do something really crazy and it doesn't quite work, just the fact that you put yourself out there it’s the Johnny Depp thing. You watch some of his movies and not all of them work, but the fact that he put his neck out and that he had the balls enough to have the courage to try something new, is enough. So excavating this is tough because you always want to make the best movie possible, but you also want to do different things, and sometimes you've already made a movie similar that was good or not good, and there's a similar movie that comes around that's too similar, even though it's a good film with good actors involved, you can't do it because it's way too similar. Like there's a Kerouac movie that they're making now and I think Gyllenhall's in it and the director of Motorcyle Diaries, and they hit me up and asked me to play Alan Ginsberg. Now for me and my family and my lineage, my grandmother was a poet, a beatnik lesbian poet, in the Fifties and this was right up my alley — this is something that's just not big for my family but big in terms of artistic — to play Ginsberg would be incredible, to go get lost in that. You read his biography and he's very similar to the character in Bobby. He wore the glasses, he had the haircut, it's just too similar. It would be an amazing role, but I can't do it because it's just too similar. Sometimes it's tough. Sometimes you almost wish you didn't do a movie so you could do a different movie, although I loved Bobby and everything that's in that movie, but Ginsberg would have been really wild.

Do you think teens are getting more isolated nowadays with the texting and he emailing instead of actually talking?

Sure. The initial idea for cell phones was — oh, this is going to be something that we’ll create so that humans can talk to each other more. Really, you're not talking to anyone. Now it's to the level where they just have the cyborg earpiece. No conversation is that important, seriously. That's just ridiculous. I hate that fucking thing . . .

You said you’d read. Your character – one ting you never see him doing s reading. H’s going nuts but never thinks of reading.

That's signing up with the populist. I don't think it's popular to read. You're in the 99^th percentile if you read more than a book a month. I have to read, it's my job. It's my occupation. I won't know if Kale would read, and especially not books. If he was reading, he'd be on the internet or do his cellphone. That's where the world is now. You can get e-books, nobody's walking around with novels anymore. Or they're downloading on their iPod or they're listening to it.

Did you get hurt on this film because those fights were…

I have a scar on my ribs. From those fight scenes.

Chicks like scars…

I guess.

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