Megan Fox caused quite a stir last year when she declined to reprise her role as Mikaela Banes in this summer's Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Now star Shia LaBeouf has revealed exactly what went down.
In an interview with Hero Complex, LaBeouf explained that Fox no longer wanted to deal with director Michael Bay's sometimes abrasive on-set style and his adolescent approach to filming women (the actress famously compared Bay to Hitler at one point). LaBeouf said:
"Megan developed this Spice Girl strength, this woman-empowerment [stuff] that made her feel awkward about her involvement with Michael, who some people think is a very lascivious filmmaker, the way he films women. Mike films women in a way that appeals to a 16-year-old sexuality. It's summer. It's Michael's style. And I think [Fox] never got comfortable with it. This is a girl who was taken from complete obscurity and placed in a sex-driven role in front of the whole world and told she was the sexiest woman in America. And she had a hard time accepting it. When Mike would ask her to do specific things, there was no time for fluffy talk. We're on the run. And the one thing Mike lacks is tact. There's no time for [LaBeouf assumes a gentle voice] 'I would like you to just arch your back 70 degrees.'"
LaBeouf added that Fox's replacement, Victoria's Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, was much more accepting of Bay's antics when she took the role of new love interest Carly:
"Rosie comes with this Victoria's Secret background, and she's comfortable with it, so she can get down with Mike's way of working and it makes the whole set vibe very different."
As for the relationship between LaBeouf's character, Sam Witwicky, and his new girlfriend, the actor said, "It's a different female energy than he experienced with Mikaela, who was a very cold biker chick. This woman's more of a maternal, loving type. Sam wants a domestic, eggs-in-the-morning kind of a thing."
We'll see if Huntington-Whitely erases memories of Fox when Transformers: Dark of the Moon arrives on June 29.
Do you think Fox was right to leave the franchise? What do you make of Bay's treatment of women in his films? Is it suitable for this material, or does he need to grow up a little? LINK
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