In an essay, the movie’s filmmaker, Josh Penn Soskin, detailed LaBeouf’s unstable behavior during production.
ByJaelani Turner-Williams
July 16, 2026
Shia LaBeouf’s emotions got the best of him while filming upcoming drama, The Rooster Prince, according to the movie’s director.
Josh Penn Soskin, the writer-director of upcoming drama The Rooster Prince, published a first-person essay in Variety on Thursday (July 16), detailing LaBeouf’s behavior during production of his debut feature.
“Shia LaBeouf was exploding on set,” Soskin began, explaining that the actor was portraying a psychiatrist who suffered bipolar disorder. The film is based on Soskin’s brother, David, who died from suicide in 2018 after undergoing brain tumor surgery.
“He was in deep pain. In fact, he was in even more pain than all the pain he was causing. This was the kind of pain I had seen in my late brother David’s eyes,” Soskin continued.
Production on The Rooster Prince began in November 2025. According to Soskin, LaBeouf, who has post-traumatic stress disorder, immersed himself in the role by memorizing David’s books and rarely sleeping to the point that it felt like David was “speaking” to him.
Soskin described the working with the movie’s crew as simultaneously “ecstatic and painful” and compared the project to “an Ayahuasca trip.”
As LaBeouf screamed in a parking lot scene, Soskin “lost a clear sense of what was movie and non-movie.”
“Those in the blast radius were rightfully scared and hurt. Shia had vanished,” Soskin recalled. “The producers were palpably nervous. I was about six inches from a panic attack.”
At one point during production, LaBeouf sent Soskin a self-tape at 3 a.m. in which he improvised the line, “All I ask from you is that you treat me with maximum empathy.”
“It was as if Shia had embedded a piece of code into the rehearsal tape and was speaking to me, not the prison psychiatrist. Maximum empathy. Now I knew what to say,” the director wrote.
LaBeouf’s behavior in recent years has resulted in legal fallout. He has filed a claim against his ex-girlfriend, artist FKA Twigs, alleging that she chose to “invalidate the confidentiality provisions” of their 2025 settlement.
That year, the former couple dismissed a lawsuit alleging that FKA Twigs was a victim of domestic violence at the hands of LaBeouf.
In addition to his legal battle with FKA Twigs, LaBeouf pleaded guilty in June to three counts of simple battery involving a physical altercation during Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The actor received a six-month suspended sentence, two years of probation, and mandatory alcohol treatment.
