Shia LaBeouf said he reconciled with longtime co-star Jon Voight after years of estrangement over political differences, describing the move as part of a recovery program and an effort to make amends.
LaBeouf, 39, appears in Megadoc, a documentary chronicling the making of Francis Ford Coppola’s 2024 film Megalopolis, and discussed the reconciliation during interviews about the project. "I was in the midst of doing my ninth step in this program I'm in, and I had to go make amends to Voight because Voight's politics and mine are very different. I love him very much," LaBeouf said, according to Entertainment Weekly.
The two actors previously worked together in Holes (2003) and Transformers (2007). LaBeouf recalled Voight taking him under his wing early in his career, introducing him to acting techniques and repertory performances. The relationship deteriorated after the 2016 presidential election, LaBeouf said, when Voight publicly supported Donald Trump and LaBeouf mounted public protests against the former president.
LaBeouf described a heated phone confrontation in which he threatened to physically confront Voight and then stopped speaking to him for years. Voight, a veteran actor and longtime conservative, endorsed Trump in both of his presidential campaigns and was named earlier this year as one of several "special ambassadors" to Hollywood in an initiative announced by Trump to revitalize the film and television industry.
By contrast, LaBeouf drew national attention in 2017 for launching an anti-Trump art project, "He Will Not Divide Us," which invited the public to chant a protest slogan outside a museum on the day of Trump's inauguration. The installation, first sited in Queens, New York, was later moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, after safety concerns and was vandalized there.
LaBeouf said the decision to reach back out to Voight came as part of the steps he is taking in his recovery work. "He was like my mentor from a young age," LaBeouf said in Megadoc. "He was like the first real actor I ever met, and he's the first one who put me on to [Dustin] Hoffman’s repertoire."
Megadoc presents a behind-the-scenes look at Coppola's efforts to make and release Megalopolis, which struggled at the box office in 2024. Several cast and crew members, including LaBeouf, appear in the documentary to discuss the production, its ambitions and its fallout.
Representatives for Voight did not immediately comment on LaBeouf's remarks. The exchange underscores a broader tension in the entertainment industry between political views and professional relationships, and it highlights how performers on opposite sides of the political spectrum sometimes seek reconciliation through personal or recovery-based programs.
Megadoc's release has renewed attention on Megalopolis and its participants, as well as on the personal histories and dynamics among its cast. LaBeouf's discussion of making amends with Voight adds a human dimension to the documentary's account of a contentious and polarizing production.
LaBeouf's comments in Megadoc were reported amid wider media coverage of Megalopolis and Coppola's continued public defense of the film. The reconciliation between LaBeouf and Voight follows years of public divergences in politics and public activism, and serves as a focal point in the documentary's exploration of the personal costs and collaborations involved in large-scale filmmaking.