I wish I could say that I think Shia LaBeouf is a monster. I don’t. I think he’s a screwed up guy with addiction issues, and those addiction issues led to many not-great moments over the past few years. Throughout it all, there’s something strangely compelling about Shia, something watchable, mercurial, unknowable. Which is probably why he still has a career, despite years of violent, stupid and dickish antics. Shia covers the new issue of Variety to promote his latest film, American Honey, and this interview is a trip. Literally, I felt like I got a contact high from this piece. Shia talks openly about his struggles, but what’s weird is that at no point does he apologize or ask for forgiveness for his antics. He even acknowledges that he’s coming from a place of enormous privilege, and that if he was anything other than a white dude, he would have no career. You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:

His relationship with alcohol: “That sh-t almost f–ked up my life. I had people tell me it was going to. People I respected — dudes I wanted to work with — just looked me in the eyes and said, ‘Life’s too short for this sh-t.’ I’m still earning my way back. I’m happy working.”

He hasn’t had a drink in a year, he attends AA meetings: “You don’t touch it. Alcohol or any of that sh-t will send you haywire. I can’t f–k with none of it. I’ve got to keep my head low… I got a Napoleonic complex. I start drinking and I feel smaller than I am, and I get louder than I should. It’s just not for me, dude.”

He got 12 tattoos during ‘American Honey’, two of Missy Elliott. “I don’t love Missy Elliott like I wanna get two Missy Elliott tattoos. But you’re in a tattoo parlor, and” — he shrugs — “peer pressure.”

He’s not in it for the Oscars: “Nah, dude, not me. The Oscars are about politics. I gotta earn my way back. It’s not about who is the best. I’m not that guy for a long time — for a long, long time. I’m good with that, though. Sometimes that sh-t is a curse.”

If he was a woman… “It’s a double standard, for sure. Women require grace for longevity. I don’t think men require grace. You can be Mickey Rourke.”

He hates the word ‘Method’: “The word is getting embarrassing. You don’t hear about female method actors. The whole thing has turned into weird, false masculinity sh-t.”

He auditioned for Scott Eastwood’s role in Suicide Squad: “The character was different initially. Then Will [Smith] came in, and the script changed a bit. That character and Tom [Hardy’s] character [later played by Joel Kinnaman] got written down to build Will up. I don’t think Warner Bros. wanted me. I went in to meet, and they were like, ‘Nah, you’re crazy. You’re a good actor, but not this one.’ It was a big investment for them.”

He would love to work with Michael Bay again. “Mike is an artist. People don’t realize how dope that dude is. He’s got to get a little ballsier with his moves — he’s trying to toe the line and be James Cameron, but James Camerons are dying. I don’t know what he’s chasing, but that version of director is dead. If Mike is to sustain, he’s got to get f–king weird.”

Working with Steven Spielberg: “I grew up with this idea, if you got to Spielberg, that’s where it is. I’m not talking about fame, and I’m not talking about money. You get there, and you realize you’re not meeting the Spielberg you dream of. You’re meeting a different Spielberg, who is in a different stage in his career. He’s less a director than he is a f–king company. Spielberg’s sets are very different. Everything has been so meticulously planned. You got to get this line out in 37 seconds. You do that for five years, you start to feel like not knowing what you’re doing for a living…I don’t like the movies that I made with Spielberg. The only movie that I liked that we made together was ‘Transformers’ one.”

Texture: “Part of it was posturing. I never knew how to drink. I never liked to drink, but I knew you had to drink. It was a weird post-modern fascination with the f–k-ups. When I met Robert Downey Jr., I was like, ‘Man, you got all this f–king texture. How do I do this? How do I build texture?’”

[From Variety]

There are about a million other good/interesting quotes from the piece, but you should really just read the whole thing. The thing is, as I said up top, Shia is not really sorry. He doesn’t say he’s sorry. He’s not going on an apology tour. He’s not Justin Bieber. Shia believes all of the drama and antics and drinking have helped him shake off his stardom to a certain extent, and now he’s a different person with a different kind of fame. And he’s not sorry. And he won’t be working with Spielberg again any time soon. He probably will work with Bay again though?

Photos courtesy of Variety.