Can you talk a little about the casting of Shia LaBeouf?
“It's very scary when you're trying to hinge a whole movie on a kid. I had seen him in…I had only seen one of his movies, Constantine and I thought, ‘He's interesting, but he looks so old.’ And someone said, Ian Bryce, one of my producers, said, ‘You should look at this kid, Shia.’ And I'm like, ‘Okay.’ And he was coming in, I saw some of his other movies and I really liked him. And then I talked to Steven, I said, ‘I'm seeing Shia,’ and he goes, ‘Oh yeah, he's great. I love Shia.’
He came in for the audition and he nailed it. I liked his improv skill. I liked how he was very able to take direction and mold. He was kind of, I didn't [want to] say a geek. What I like about Shia is when – I think every guy's been in that circumstance by the pond or the lake, where the stud comes up to you and gives you sh*t. And instead of doing [nothing], he comes right back with wit and humor. Every guy likes him right then and there, I think. Do you guys think so? I don't think there's a kid today that could have done a better job.
He's a pain in the ass to work with, let me tell you. Let me tell you a funny story. I always like to put my actors in real circumstances, and we had him, there was a 17 story building downtown with a statue and my producer said, ‘How do you want to shoot that?’ He goes, ’We're going to do a blue screen, right?’ I said, ‘Nah, f**k, we're going to put him up there.’ We put him on wires and we rigged it very safe, but there was only four inches to stand on. Shia is like, ‘Yeah, I think I can do it. I'm going to go up there. I'm going to go up there.’ So we're ready to go and he goes, and mind you I would never go out there on my own, I would never do this, but he goes, ‘Oh man, I can't get up there. I can't get up there.’ I said, ‘Dude, you're going to embarrass yourself in front of the whole crew. You get paid way more than those kids on Fear Factor. Get the f**k up there.’ So he did it and it was really scary, but he was on cloud nine when he did it.”
Were Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson chosen for being eye candy?
“I actually met with Josh for one of my Platinum Dunes movies and I really liked him. Got a sense of him in the room there, that was like four months prior, and this thing came up and it was a very efficient budget. I honestly didn't…I had no money for stars so I had to be very creative in picking people that I thought were going to break. And after meeting him I really liked him, so I wanted to work with him.”
How did you arrive at the tone of the film?
“I think it was just my gut. I knew it’s Transformers. You can't take it too seriously, but you wanted to give that sense of realism. That's why the military involvement was very important, that we make it very real and credible. Like those guys in the AWACS, those are all the real guys. I told them, ‘This is what's going down on the ground. What would you say?’ And literally within two minutes they were, ‘Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.’ I just photographed what they said.”
John Turturro said that he based a lot of his character on you. Did you discuss that?
“No, I was scared to work with John Turturro. I was like, ‘Oh, John...’ He came out a little quirky. When he had that hat - that was the first day I worked with him – at the dam. I said, ‘I don't know about this. I don’t know.’ I don’t know, I grew to really like working with John. I don't know if he based it on me, but I do think criminals are hot by the way. No, I'm kidding. I don’t know if he based it on me. He said that, but you should see his Scorsese imitation. It's one of the best I've ever seen.”
Some of this movie plays like almost a recruiting vehicle for the military. Can you talk about all the military elements in the film that you said grounded the film more in reality?
“Here's the thing. You've got to have more than the external alien invasion. To make it credible, you have to have the military. I just don't like when you see like an Independence Day and they don't get military support. You've got like a few jeeps and you've got this, and everything is kind of mismatched. It’s all digital planes and it’s like it's just not credible. So you need that reality so you can ground this little kids story.
I had a good relationship with them on Armageddon and Pearl Harbor and so I somehow convinced them. This is the largest cooperation since Black Hawk and Pearl for them. And Linesfield Stroup, who is the liaison at the Pentagon, he's like, ‘Well, ya know, if aliens do land, I mean the US military should be involved.’ And I'm like, ‘That's appropriate.’ But I am always good at weaseling stuff that's never been shot, like the F22 and all that stuff. I think they like me because I really respect the military. I respect the soldiers. The people, the men and women who really will sacrifice themselves, those guys around Josh and Tyrese, they are all the real guys. They are all Special OPS, SEALs, and it's fascinating. I'm just enamored by people who will really go to combat. It's just a wild thing.
If you look at the theme, ‘No sacrifice, No victory.’ I think that's how they see it. They just want to be treated credibly. They want it to be shown in a real light. If you are fighting Scorponok, how would they do an air strike? So we literally show you how it happens.”
Page 3: Michael Bay on Robots and Test Audiences
