Hollywood actor Shia LaBeouf isn't afraid to tell the world about his recent conversion to Christianity, saying that it has literally saved him.
In a recent interview with Interview Magazine, the 28-year-old actor declares that he found God during the filming of the new World War II action film, Fury. In the movie, LaBeouf plays Boyd "Bible" Swan, a Christian character who isn't afraid to speak the Word. LaBeouf took that character to heart, along with guidance from fellow Fury actor Brad Pitt and writer David Ayers.
"I could have just said the prayers that were on the page," the actor said. "But it was a real thing that really saved me. And you can't identify unless you're really going through it. It's a full-blown exchange of heart, a surrender of control."
While LaBeouf admits that Pitt doesn't identify as a Christian, he was raised that way. "Brad comes from a hyper-religious, very deeply Christian, Bible Belt life, and he rejected it and moved toward an unnamed spirituality. He looked at religion like the people's opium, almost like a Marxist view on religion."
But it was the combination of Pitt's experience and Ayer's Christian beliefs that opened LaBeouf's eyes. "But these two diametrically opposed positions both lead to the same spot, and I really looked up to both men," he continued. "It was nice to have conversations with Brad about the family he came from and what he was using to get through the day."
Although Shia LaBeouf hasn't enjoyed a blockbuster starring role since 2011's Transformers: Dark of the Moon, his recent appearances in the news have been less-than-flattering.
In September, he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct after an alcohol-induced incident in June got him arrested. He sought alcohol treatment soon afterwards, but he claims it was his conversion to Christianity that really saved him.
"I've been going through an existential crisis," the actor admits. "If you look at my behavior, it's been motivated by a certain discourse. Metamodernism has influenced a lot of my action in the public in this last year and a half-the idea of diametrically opposed ideas happening all at once: the irony and the sincerity, birth and death, the immediacy and the obsolescence."
Despite LaBeouf's interview being laced with profanity, his new-found awakening to Christianity is something that he feels very passionate about. "I became a Christian man, and not in a f***ing bull***t way - in a very real way."
