Shia LaBeouf Recalls Getting Fired After Alec Baldwin Feud While Living in a Park

Shia LaBeouf is opening up about the tension between him and Alec Baldwin that led to his exit from the 2013 Broadway play Orphans. In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter published on Thursday, May 8, LaBeouf said the working relationship got 'contentious' and 'competitive.'

At the time, LaBeouf had prepared the role alongside Al Pacino, who later dropped out. Baldwin then joined the cast, which changed the dynamic completely.

“By the time Baldwin got there, it was almost unfair,” said LaBeouf. “So he’s dealing with both my fractured little weak ego, right? 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. Well, that got contentious in the room. Then he got competitive.”

Shia LaBeouf revealed that losing Pacino from the play had deeply affected him and added to the emotional strain he was already experiencing. He shared that he was going through a difficult period in his personal life at the time and said he had built the whole performance around his relationship with Pacino, so he felt heartbroken when that was no longer part of the project.

“When [Baldwin] came in, I'm living in the park and I’m on steroids and I’m not in a good way,” LaBeouf added. He also said that Baldwin had only two weeks to prepare for the role, which added to the challenges.

“I’d be off book, he’d be on book, and he didn’t want me to look at him being off book. That makes it hard to play these scenes out or block this thing even. And no fault against him.”

Alec Baldwin had previously addressed the conflict in a 2014 essay for Vulture, stating that there was friction between him and LaBeouf from the beginning. He recalled an incident where LaBeouf confronted him in front of the entire team, accusing him of slowing things down and not knowing his lines.

According to Baldwin, LaBeouf told him that if he didn’t say his lines, he would just continue with his own. Baldwin said he then asked for a break and took the stage manager and director Daniel Sullivan aside, telling them that one of them had to go.

He offered to leave the production himself, asking them not to fire LaBeouf. However, Baldwin said they ultimately chose to fire LaBeouf, and he believed the actor was shocked by the decision.

Despite the fallout, LaBeouf shared that he and Baldwin had since reconciled. He said they were on good terms now, as both had been through a lot. LaBeouf stated that they had managed to send each other love and make things right before all the chaos unfolded on both sides.

He described Baldwin as a good person, saying they were similar in many ways. According to LaBeouf, fear can cause people to behave differently, and he believed much of it stemmed from having no spiritual foundation at the time.

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