Support for LAist comes from
Made of L.A.
Stay Connected

Share This

This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.

This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.

Arts and Entertainment

Watch as Shia LaBeouf Steals a Soccer Player’s Speech and Storms Offstage

shia_berlin.jpg
Shia LaBeouf at a press conference at the Berlin Film Festival Feb. 9 (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)
Support your source for local news!
The local news you read here every day is crafted for you, but right now, we need your help to keep it going. In these uncertain times, your support is even more important. Today, put a dollar value on the trustworthy reporting you rely on all year long. We can't hold those in power accountable and uplift voices from the community without your partnership. Thank you.


We shouldn’t really be surprised at this point—Shia LaBeouf apparently lifted from a soccer player’s speech from 1995 while at the Berlin Film Festival before walking offstage.LaBeouf was at a press conference today promoting Nyphomaniac, the sex-fueled film from director Lars von Trier that is currently making the rounds at film festivals, according to The Hollywood Reporter. When asked about doing a film with so many sex scenes, he responded: “When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea.”

It’s sort of poetic, if a non sequitur. It’s also taken word for word from French soccer player Eric Cantona, when he was banned from soccer after kicking the fan of an opposing team, as Buzzfeed points out. The footage of Cantona saying that seagull line ends Ken Loach’s film Looking for Eric.

Support for LAist comes from

Nymphomaniac’s Christian Slater, who was on the panel along with co-stars like Uma Thurman and Stellan Skarsgard, had the best awkward follow-up: “Obviously, the script is packed with a lot of sardines ... one sardine after another.”

If that wasn't enough, LaBeouf showed up later at the movie's premiere with a bag over his head that read "I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE." Oy vey.


(Photo by Clemens Bilan/Getty Images)
This whole thing of course follows LaBeouf’s notorious plagiarization of the story Justin M. Damiano, by comic book writer Daniel Clowes, for LaBeouf's short film HowardCantour.com, which led to skywriting an apology, his "retiring" from public life and plagiarizing other celebrities’ famous apologies.

Either someone along the way told Shia he could turn things around by making his plagiarisms seem like the work of some mad genius, or he really is that hapless.

Most Read