Timing is everything. Details magazine landed an interview with "Transformers" star Shia LaBeouf shortly before he was arrested for flipping his truck while driving under the influence earlier this week.
Here's a taste of the profile, which will be featured in the magazine's September issue:
On drinking and brushes with the law:
"I don't ever remember getting arrested sober. I was always arrested drunk," he says. "It's when I'm drinking that I don't have the wherewithal to be able to realize the position of my life. There's too much at stake for me to throw it away. I enjoy what I'm able to give my family. I enjoy the people that I'm able to wake up and work with. And I don't want to throw away what I've worked so hard for 12 years to achieve, based on an argument that takes place in 20 minutes."...."It's not something that is conducive to being a role model--no iconic actors that I know of have problems like that. And I don't know how to do it like a gentleman. I don't know how to have one drink."
On his atypical childhood:
LaBeouf says his father, a Vietnam vet named Jeffrey LaBeouf, had a heroin problem. And that in addition to being a commedia dell'arte--trained mime, he was a weed dealer who grew his crop on the sides of freeways. And that he's credited with bringing the sinsemilla seed to Hawaii, giving a continent of thankful stoners the Thai stick. The lore cascades out of LaBeouf in unsolicited torrents--and free of taboos. "It's just my family was raised differently," he says. "It was never 'Drugs!' It was never like that for my family, which helped me because I never had a curiosity, it was never closed off. It was always out in the open and it was always explained to me. I'm so grateful for that. It's why I never tried anything beyond marijuana or drinking. I mean, I know that I personally can't do any of it. And so I don't."
On his sex life and closing the deal:
LaBeouf deems his female situation "extraordinary," though he refuses to discuss recent rumors tying him to Rihanna and the model Lauren Hastings. "I'm enjoying myself," he says. "But I'm not great with women, dude. I'm not a closer. I can chat all night long, but I'm not the guy who goes, 'Okay, back to my room.' I've never been that way--it's not my presence, I just can't do it. But it's not been a priority of mine for a while. That aspect of my life is always going to be there. This"--his self-described "meteoric rise"--"is not always going to be here."