Billboard Women in Music 2025
The documentary by Leo Lewis O’Neil “Slauson Rec” recounts the rise and the fall of a free theater school Shia Labeouf started at the Slauson Recreation Center in Los Angeles in 2018. O’Neil spoke for the first time to Vanity Fair on the project, which was gathered for 800 hours of sequences of sequences and people including laboratory scenes.
Labeouf announced the theater collective to the public on Twitter in a video article in September 2018: “You do not need to be an actor; You never have to think about being an actor. However, you must have a story that you are ready to share. All I ask you is that you show up for an hour and stay for an hour. If you don’t like, if you make shows, I’m going to be there on Saturday. Up.
O’Neil presented himself in the first class of Labeouf with a video camera and told Vanity Fair that the actor asked if he was going to film everything that had taken place in Slauson. O’Neil has done exactly this in the coming years until the school was dissolved in November 2020 in the middle of the cocovated pandemic. Per Vanity Fair: “O’Neil has captured several instances of Labeouf initiating physical altercations, several of which made the final cup of his film.”
An incident included in the final version of the documentary shows that Labeouf would have been physical with an interim student named Zeke. Images show Queououf “hammering his fist on a unfolding table” and screaming on Zeke: “I do not give myself what you tell me … You have it better than I never had it. What is the problem of attitude?
By Vanity Fair: “(Labeouf) is moving away, then turns again – and this time, he pushes Zeke to a wall, tightly wrapping his arms around Zeke before whispering threatening his truck, knocks the gas, and the cachets let go away. It reveals stripes and bruises all over the body.
Labeouf was continued by singer Fka Twigs for a sexual battery, assault and emotional distress a month after the school’s dissolution. Given the images of his documentary, O’Neil said he had sent a trailer to Labeouf for the project that was looking for his signature. The director told Vanity Fair that Labeouf had given all his blessing so that the film was made without any editorialization in his name; Thus, scenes of alleged physical violence remain in the final cup.
“It is essentially like,” you do what you need to do “,” said O’Neil. “It shows a lot that he is ready to bring this out into the world and not try to stop it. He had all the reasons and the possibility of arresting him.… He is one of the most vulnerable artists I have ever seen. ”
Labeouf made the following statement to Vanity Fair: “I gave Leo this camera and I encouraged him to share his vision and his personal experience without editing. I am aware of the doc and fully support the release of the film. Although my teaching methods are not conventional for some, I am proud of the incredible achievements that these children have reached.
When he was asked if he considered that Labeouf’s leadership on the acting collective was abusive, O’Neil replied: “I am not disagreeing with this word. I do not want to deny the fact that it was, but I think that because this word is a word so trigger – people appear on this word so quickly. But yes, it’s screwed up.
According to O’Neil, Labeouf has received a screening link to display the full documentary.
