New Details. Shia LaBeouf on the cover. I would LOVE to interview Shia. Because he hasn’t figured out the canned answer yet. He will open his mouth and give you the amazingness. This may be his best one yet. You will likely read excerpts over the next few days. I encourage you to ignore them and just go for the real thing. Shia is a MESS. He came from a mess. He is still a mess. The article makes no attempt to camouflage that. HE makes no attempt to camouflage that. Most actors his age are over-managed and over-protected. With Shia... they can try, but he’ll just do his own thing anyway.

What is it then? What is he?

The simplest answer is that he’s trying to figure it out. In Hollywood? Oh son, good luck. We’ve seen some of those consequences already. Remember when he f-cked up his hand in that accident? The legal resolution to that was that it was the other driver’s fault. Shia admits though that he was indeed drinking that night. See? A mess.

I’m of two minds when it comes to Shia. On the one hand, it’s undeniable he had a sh-tty upbringing. And his experience is not unlike the kids we see at Covenant House Vancouver. They get a terrible start in life. They spend the rest of it reeling. On the other hand, Shia isn’t spending his 20s in low income housing, having to sell his body to pay for drugs without enough beds in detox to beat the addiction. At some point, a part of me wants to say “get over it”. (Especially when he tries to front like his out of control anger drinking was actually him going “method” for an upcoming role.) It’s not that money solves EVERY problem. But opportunities can help with a lot of them. Opportunities yield hope. There is no question that our CHV kids could use some more hope when dealing with the bleak.

Whatever your thoughts on Shia though, what is undeniable, especially as it relates to this blog, is that right now, he is Good for Gossip. When he talks, he is Great for Gossip. And how?

Well, he just admitted to what I’ve been telling you for a long time. Gloating ahead! That he and Megan Fox used to booty call on the regular.

“Look, you’re on the set for six months, with someone who’s rooting to be attracted to you, and you’re rooting to be attracted to them. I never understood the separation of work and life in that situation. But the time I spent with Megan was our own thing, and I think you can see the chemistry onscreen.”

So what about Brian Austin Green:

“I don’t know, man. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know . . .”—repeating the phrase exactly 12 times in various intonations, as if trying to get it just right. Finally, he says, “It was what it was.”

Amazing, right? He goes on to talk about his date with Hilary Duff (WTF?) and on cheating on Adrian Grenier with Isabel Lucas and about how he feels about Carey Mulligan. He also reveals that he could have been in The Social Network, 127 Hours, and the Bourne movie. Instead, right now, since he has “more money than I could spend in 25 lifetimes”, he’s looking for the good work. Which...

Transformers 3?

Well, after that, after that commitment is fulfilled, it’ll be The Wettest County in the World, a film that was recently acquired by the Weinsteins after a clip was screened in Cannes that had everyone talking.

As for the George Clooney reference – Shia will never be like that; he will never be safe, he will never be slick. Or smart, some would say. Certainly not right now. Harrison Ford agrees. There’s a pretty funny quote from him the piece too. Shia on himself via Clooney? Below.

“I would like to be George Clooney– diplomatic. I just don’t have the wherewithal yet or the inner serenity. My bullsh-t meter is tuned very sensitive. The minute it starts kicking up, I get back to truth, and sometimes that involves, you know, ‘I don’t want to take a picture.’ And if that’s the case, am I an asshole for being honest? Or am I an asshole for being dishonest, smiling in your picture and I f-cking hate being there? Which one is worse? These are the questions I ask myself that George Clooney doesn’t ask.”

Click here for the full article. It’s a really good read.