Name: Jon Bernthal Reflects on Interviewing Shia Labeouf
Uploaded: 2022-12-28T18:14:13.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Jon Bernthal Reflects on Interviewing Shia Labeouf' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-12-28. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Jon Bernthal Reflects on Interviewing Shia Labeouf' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-12-28. Transcript available.

- The Joe Rogan Experience.
- What kind of blowback?
- Oh man, you know, like, so much.
You know, I think that, you know,
look, I had Shia LaBeouf on, you know,
after these allegations came out of him
and, you know, being physically and emotionally abusive
to his girlfriend at the time.
And, you know, what was crazy was,
I never wanted to have any actors on.
That was kind of like my rule.
Just because, and not because,
there's just so many podcasts where actors
are talking to actors and they're talking about,
and I'm actually interested in that shit,
but like, you know, like, nobody needs to hear me
talk about that.
But Shia, at the time, you know, he was a guy that,
you know, when we did Fury together, you know,
that was such a wild experience and, you know, he, you know,
he was this guy who came in, he like pulled his tooth out
because he thought his character shouldn't have a tooth.
You know, he like cut his face, you know, he didn't shower for eight months.
And at first, when I met him, I was like, this guy's just fucking, he's just
loud.
You know, he's just, he's, he's, he's, he's wearing his process on his sleeve,
showing everybody how hard he's working.
But what I found, you know, after the eight months of working with him was
somebody who,
and I, you know, and this is, it's just my own, and he, he is every bit,
this thing is every bit as vital to him as it was with me.
I found a real partner.
I found a real kindred spirit.
I found that he was so fucking cute.
He was, he was willing to risk it all for, for, for, for, for this, for the
work.
And I, I, I walked away with like an enormous amount of respect for him and
love for him.
I also saw a guy who grew up as a child star, um, a guy who was, um, felt like
he needed to
bleed out for his art, felt that he needed to live wildly out on the street and
in real
life in order to sort of maintain that danger in his work.
And, uh, I'm coming from a guy, you know, me at this point where I did all that
when I,
I didn't have the umbrella of being, you know, a big movie star and I didn't, I
didn't have
that.
But now I'm a guy who's absolutely a committed husband and father.
That, that is my life.
Like that, like my life is my family.
And, and, and what I found is the, the, the, well, the things that I can tap
into and my
emotional sort of accessibility of being a dedicated father and, and, and, and
husband is so much
greater than when I was sort of this wild animal.
And, uh, and, uh, I care about people way more than I care about myself.
My ego is dead in that, in that sense.
So I really wanted to be there for him.
And, and, and the first thing I remember seeing him and seeing this like raw
nerve and this
unbelievable talent, I, I, I, I would say, I think he's the best actor I've
ever worked
with.
And I really wanted to protect him.
And I think more than anything else, I really wanted to show him what a real
friend was like.
I just remember like saying that to myself, I want to show you what a real
friend is like.
I feel like you've never really had a real friend and my friends, the guys that
I grew up
with, um, they've been my best friends my whole life.
They, they, you know, they, you know, couldn't do anything without them.
I just like, I value that so much.
Right.
And so we had him on the podcast, um, real early on and before this stuff came
out and
it was right at a time when he had gotten in trouble down in, um, in, in, in
Georgia and
he went to rehab and he wrote this movie sort of about his own life called
Honey Boy that
got nominated for an Oscar.
And, and he wrote it and he, he started, he played his dad.
It was a very, it was a movie about his life.
And I kind of had him on sort of celebrating, you know, where he was at because
for a long
time he had taken a lot of shit from this industry and, uh, here he was sort of
on top of the
world.
And I remember at the time, you know, my, my agents at the time were calling me
being
like, you think, you think I could just get a phone call with Shia?
Like maybe we could like bring him, you know, just, he was like, you know, and
then
these, these, uh, these charts, you know, this, this woman said he did these
things to
him and he was just, he was just done, you know, canceled.
And, and, um, and I'll say, man, when, when I heard those, I decided when I
heard that,
that he had done those things, you know, for me, there really is a red line
with people
that I need to look at with myself and through all the shit that I've seen, all
the shit that
I've done, man, I, I just, I, I can't be down with you.
If you put your hands on a woman, if you put your hands on a woman or a child,
dude,
I just like, you know, I can't, man, I can't, I can't, I can't get over that.
I can't.
And I heard this, you know, about my friend and, you know, I was really brokenhearted
about it.
And time went by, I mean, like two years and.
You know, I know how much, you know, acting is not only important to him, but
like sort
of necessary for his survival.
And I would reach out on text, you know, checking on him and, and, and that,
but we hadn't made
contact.
And then I heard that he was having a baby.
Um, and, uh, he's married and, um, I reached out to him and, um, I said, Hey
man, maybe it's
time for you and me to have another talk and I made a decision with my team and
with him.
We're, I needed, again, you go back to the intentionality and, and I, I really
looked at
this, this role that you have of being a friend and, and being a friend is not
about turning
your back on somebody when they're, when they do something that you find
fucking deplorable
or when you find disgusting, your job as a friend is to make sure they don't do
it again.
And your job now as this guy's being a father is to, to, to step in there and
say, Hey man,
where are you at?
Like, what are you doing?
What, what kind of work are you doing?
Where are you?
Like, that's what being a friend is.
And everybody in my life is like worst idea in the world.
You cannot do that.
You cannot do that.
And then, you know, he came on man and, and, and we spoke and, uh, you know, I,
I was weird
because I, I found so many of the same themes and so many of the same, the, the,
the heart
of what I found in that LWAP community I found in, in Shia, the level of disgust,
the level
of work, the level of commitment, the level of shame, the level of, uh, time
spent this
fluency with, with, with his victim.
And I wasn't, I had no interest in exonerating him or saying, or, or saving him
in any way.
I wanted to check on him and I want to see how he was doing.
And I, I felt that that was an honest thing.
And, you know, just the fact that I had him on, I got, you know, an enormous
amount of,
of backlash, you know, an enormous amount of, uh, for the, for really the first
time kind
of as like a public person, just like kind of hatred.
Um, and the fact that I had given somebody who could have, you know, who, who
may have
done these things that this woman says, you know, that, that really hurt people.
And I felt fucking terrible about that, man.
Like, I, like, did you wish you hadn't done it?
No, uh, no, because after talking to him and then going around and talking to
women,
who had been victims himself, talking to, you know, this one, one woman
specifically who we were
going to have on, but her, she had health issues and couldn't, but you know,
what, what, what I've
found is so many people have reached out who said like, I was in that place.
Like I, I, like I was in that place where he was, I was in that place where I
was, whether I was
abusive or not abusive, I was getting there.
And, and the drugs and the alcohol were getting the better of me.
And I mean, really what you, you know, he's, he was two years sober at the time
that I had
him on.
And, um, and I, I, I thought really what it was, was like a real meditation and
shame,
you know?
And I thought that, you know, what this woman said to me was, you know, with
all, there's
so many places and platforms for women to go to their shelters, there's places
to go to, to talk
about the abuse, to, to, to, to be there, to help people after the fact, but
who is talking to these
fucked up young men who are committing the abuse, who is talking to them and
saying, dude, don't do
that.
Like I've been there.
There is another way.
This is not the answer.
Stop, go get help, change your behavior, work, put in the work.
I just, you know, I, I, I, I ultimately felt, you know, that, that, that what
he said could
have a real positive effect.
And I, I, I believe looking back on it now again, man, it's like, you know,
what are you
going to do?
You, you can weigh the, the, the, the comments of people who've told you, you
know, you're
the worst guy on earth for doing it, or you can weigh the comments of the
people say, Hey
man, I, that thing saved my life or, you know what I mean?
I can't look at it that way.
I look at the intentionality behind what the show was and what, why, why I, why
I decided
to have him on and then why I decided to air it and I stand by it.