Scott Eastwood is looking back at his tense altercation with Shia LaBeouf on the set of their film Fury in 2013.
“There was sort of an incident that happened,” Eastwood, 40, said during his Monday, August 3, appearance on Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast. “I’ve talked about it. Brad Pitt sort of broke up a little, a tense moment.”
Eastwood recalled that LaBeouf, 40, was “very method” as an actor and “pulled out one of his teeth” before they started shooting the movie, which followed members of an American tank crew fighting in Nazi Germany during World War II in April 1945. (Eastwood played Sergeant Miles, while LaBeouf played tank gunner Boyd “Bible” Swan.)
“He pulled out his tooth, but then he cut himself,” the Longest Ride star continued. “And I remember thinking, ‘OK, this guy’s crazy. I’m just going to keep clear from this guy.’ I don’t play this game. You go and do that, but there’s plenty of ways to do a performance in a movie and be professional also, right?”
Eastwood recalled that LaBeouf took issue with him “spitting tobacco on the tank,” which was written in the script.
“And then finally, I just said, ‘Enough’s enough.’ I said, ‘Hey, f*** you.’ I said, ‘Stop pulling your s***.’ I said, ‘I’m going to whoop your ass,’” he continued. “And then, you know, he got … And then everyone broke it up.”
Pitt, 62, portrayed tank commander Don “Wardaddy” Collier in the war movie, which was directed by David Ayer and also starred Logan Lerman, Michael Peña and Jon Bernthal.
Eastwood previously recalled Pitt breaking up his “volatile” on-set moment with LaBeouf during a 2022 interview with Insider.
“I never think your process as an actor should ever hinder how people are treated on set,” he said at the time. “It should always enhance the production, not take away and put people in a situation where it’s a s***ty work environment, or you’re rude, or people have to be in an uncomfortable situation.”
Eastwood continued, “You got to put things in perspective. This is make-believe, it’s fun, and at times it’s serious and you’re doing emotional work and you give people space to do that in, but everything has to have its parameters.”
LaBeouf, who has mostly acted in independent films following various controversies and legal issues, was once known for extreme instances of method acting. On the set of his 2012 film Lawless, he heavily drank moonshine and got into an altercation with Tom Hardy, while he dropped acid to prepare for a scene in 2013’s The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman.
LaBeouf later opened up about his process during a 2016 interview with Variety, revealing that he no longer considered himself a method actor.
“The word is getting embarrassing,” he told the outlet. “You don’t hear about female method actors. The whole thing has turned into weird, false masculinity s***.”
