Washington [US]: Controversial American actor Shia LaBeouf was recently seen in a reverential frame of mind during the first public screening of Abel Ferrara’s ‘Padre Pio’ at the Venice Film Festival.
According to Variety, LaBeouf has been embroiled in controversy after being accused of abuse and sexual battery in a bombshell lawsuit filed by his former partner FKA Twigs. During his rare public appearance at the Venice Film Festival, the actor obliged fans with selfies and participated in a Q&A after. ‘Padre Pio’ is a film about a monk in a Capuchin monastery in post-WWI Italy.
“I feel super blessed to have worked on this movie; this movie kind of saved my life. But I didn’t enter the process as a God guy, definitely not a Catholic. And this movie just found me at a time when I was very willing and open to the process,” LaBeouf said during the Q&A, reported Variety.
The actor said that he studied mass, the central act of worship of the Roman Catholic Church, for the film and the more he sat in mass the less it felt like an actor’s job and more like a gift. He also gave a shoutout to the robed members of the clergy who attended the premiere.
“They’re in the room now and they’re in my pocket always and they carried me all the time,” LaBeouf said, referring to the clergymen.
When a member of the audience asked what he was going to do next, LaBeouf interpreted the question literally and said that he would go back to his hotel, to his five-month-old daughter. “Next is probably go home and try to be a better husband, a better father and focus on my family,” he said.
Earlier this week it was announced that LaBeouf is joining Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis’, which also stars Adam Driver, Forest Whitaker, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jon Voight and Laurence Fishburne, as per Variety.
