Lionsgate films
- The new documentary “Megadoc” captures Shia LaBeouf’s tense interactions with Francis Ford Coppola while making “Megalopolis.”
- LaBeouf recalls Coppola telling him he’s the “biggest pain in my fucking ass of anyone I’ve ever worked with.”
- Documentary director Mike Figgis was so taken by LaBeouf he wants to make a movie with him.
Mike Figgis will never forget meeting Shia LaBeouf for the first time.
Figgis was on the set of Francis Ford Coppola’s epic “Megalopolis” to shoot a behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of the film and was trying to make inroads with the cast during a lunch break when he noticed LaBeouf was notably absent.
“Shia went off to the back of this gymnasium we were in and he was just by himself doing some kind of tai chi-like movements,” Figgis recalled while speaking to Business Insider from his home in Italy. “So I had my iPhone and I said, ‘Do you mind if I film you?’ And he said, ‘No, no, go ahead.’ Over the first couple of days, he was the first person I made any kind of relationship with at all.”
LaBeouf would become one of the main characters in Figgis’ documentary, “Megadoc,” largely thanks to the passionate interactions he had with Coppola during shooting — ones that, at times, left the legendary director utterly frustrated.
Utopia
Figgis, however, didn’t find the actor frustrating at all. LaBeouf took a shine to him after learning that Figgis directed the acclaimed 1995 Nicolas Cage drama “Leaving Las Vegas.” Plus, Figgis and LaBeouf were staying at the same hotel in Atlanta during the production of Coppola’s self-financed passion project.
About that project: Though “Megalopolis” was known from the start as an ambitious movie starring Adam Driver as an architect in an alternate version of 21st century New York City (LaBeouf plays his jealous cousin), the film quickly became known more for the drama that went on behind the scenes.
Figgis was there with his camera as a fly on the wall for the entire saga, which included production designer Beth Mickle being fired and Coppola working the phones in the middle of production to refute a trade story calling the set “absolute madness.” (Accusations of Coppola sexually harassing extras, which he has denied, are not addressed in the doc; Coppola has previously said that his actions were not inappropriate).
But the most memorable moments of “Megadoc” are the heated exchanges between LaBeouf and Coppola on set.
American Zoetrope
Before production began, Figgis said he asked Coppola’s late wife, Eleanor Coppola, who co-directed the acclaimed behind-the-scenes documentary on Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now,” “Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse,” for advice.
“She said, ‘Be prepared, he’ll change his mind all the time,'” Figgis recalled. “So Shia is living by himself in this hotel, he’s working long days, and he knows the story that Francis fired Harvey Keitel and replaced him on ‘Apocalypse.’ Shia told me, ‘I feel that my job security is very fragile.'”
But that didn’t stop LaBeouf from speaking his mind to Coppola on several occasions.
“Megadoc” shows the actor peppering the Oscar-winning director with questions about his character’s motivation or even being as bold as to suggest scene changes. This often leads to verbal sparring between him and Coppola. Sometimes, the director walks off in a huff, or, on one occasion, the two have an argument in Coppola’s trailer.
When Figgis connects with LaBeouf afterward in the doc, the actor says on camera that Coppola told him he’s the “biggest pain in my fucking ass of anyone I’ve ever worked with.”
Figgis admitted it was all great fodder for “Megadoc,” even if it may have been a bit performative for his camera. Still, he noted that this kind of “creative dialogue” is not uncommon on movie sets, and recalled a tense moment between him and Cage during the making of “Leaving Las Vegas” as an example.
United Artists
“One time, he got really pissed off with me because I made a joke that he did kind of a Nic Cage take. It was idiosyncratic Cage. He did the Cage thing,” Figgis recalled. “And I just laughed, and I told him it was really good, now let’s do another one. As we were about to roll, I said, ‘Okay, good luck with the improv, everyone,’ and he just stopped the take, and he said, ‘What do you mean, you didn’t like my take?’ And I was like, ‘No, I was just joking.’ And he said, ‘I’ll give you ordinary, then.’ So we had that one moment. It was the only time.”
Reps for LaBeouf, Coppola, and Cage did not respond to requests for comment.
Despite everything he witnessed on the set of “Megalopolis,” Figgis said he’d love to work with LaBeouf. In fact, he’s actively trying to get a low-budget psychological thriller off the ground with him as the lead.
“It’s a really cool thriller that takes place in one night in middle America,” Figgis said. “Shia has read it and he wants to do it.”
But what draws him in to work with an unpredictable actor like LaBeouf?
“Shia is just a very interesting character,” Figgis said. “He’s unique.”
“Megadoc” is in theaters now.
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The post The most dramatic thing about ‘Megalopolis’ isn’t the movie — it’s Shia LaBeouf fighting with Francis Ford Coppola in a behind-the-scenes doc appeared first on Business Insider.
