I throw major side eye at Shia LaBeouf’s hair. He’s sported a rat-tail extension since March. I know it’s an extension because Shia’s hair was buzzed last December. The top part grew out quickly, but the rat tail is a deliberate cosmetic enhancement. Then he shaved the sides of his head and showed up to the Tribeca premiere of Love True (as executive producer). The rat tail looks fuller than it did last month. He’s been tweaking it in the salon. He also has a new eyebrow piercing (on the left side). This is a lot of effort for a guy who wants to appear effortless.

During an an interview with Hollywood Reporter, Shia says he was excited to “cheer from the sidelines” and not appear in this film. But he isn’t retired from acting no matter what he says. Shia won’t ever be able to stay away; his IMDb profile reveals some upcoming projects. For this movie, he was content to observe. He also told HR about his “Al Pacino acting,” which doesn’t make much sense. Here are some other excerpts from HR and Variety. Shia gets philosophical about celebrity and the movie star:

On maintaining his artistic integrity: “The craft of acting for film is terribly exclusive and comes with the baggage of celebrity, which robs you of your individuality and separates you. As a celebrity/star I am not an individual — I am a spectacular representation of a living human being, the opposite of an individual. The enemy of the individual, in myself as well as in others. The celebrity/star is the object of identification, with the shallow seeming life that has to compensate for the fragmented productive specializations which are actually lived. The requirements to being a star/celebrity are namely, you must become an enslaved body. Just flesh — a commodity, and renounce all autonomous qualities in order to identify with the general law of obedience to the course of things. The star is a byproduct of the machine age, a relic of modernist ideals. It’s outmoded.”

Is he still “retired” from acting? “I turned to performance art, as I couldn’t find another container/platform/discipline for individual expression, self-presentation. I couldn’t contact the audience. Performance art tightens the space of relations and allows me to work in real time, as opposed to only synthetic time. It liberated me from the old constraints of genre and taxonomic systems (drama, thriller, comedy, mystery). It liberates me and allows me to work in broad complexities.”

Does he really want to direct? “I’m a performer.”

Rehab & method acting: “I just got out of rehab nine months ago, and in rehab you do this kind of operatic therapy, where you go in and sit with your small little group, three or four people, and you work through your sh*t. Somebody will play your father, somebody will play your mother, and there’s literally like an action/cut thing and you go all the way there. For me, it’s like method acting.”

[From Variety]

Shia believes movie stars are “a relic of modernist ideals.” This is his roundabout way of saying he’s more evolved, more postmodern than a simple celebrity. He’s exhausting. I can’t believe he’s comparing being a movie star to being “enslaved.” And the “I am a spectacular representation of a living human being” part is just ridiculous. Hopefully he took his rehab seriously, but he fronts like he method acted his way through it.

Back to the rat tail. Shia’s been working various incarnations of this ‘do. He’s often papped outside the gym with a jug of water, always wearing his Fury boots and black skinny jeans. He never carries a gym bag, so I assume he doesn’t change clothes to work out. He probably doesn’t wash those pants very frequently either. So gross.

Photos courtesy of Getty, Fame/Flynet & WENN