Shia LaBeouf (UPI)
Shia LaBeouf abruptly exited his Broadway debut, “Orphans,” following apparent disagreements with his hot-tempered co-star Alec Baldwin that made them “incompatible.”
Producers announced that LaBeouf parted ways with the show after just a week of rehearsals due to “creative differences,” even though the play’s scheduled to begin previews March 19.
But last night LaBeouf, 26, posted e-mail exchanges on Twitter revealing divisions between him and bombastic Baldwin.
In a message titled “Creative Differences” LaBeouf posted an e-mail to him from director Dan Sullivan, which reads, “I’m too old for disagreeable situations. You’re one hell of a great actor. Alec is who he is. You are who you are. You two are incompatible. I should have known it. This one will haunt me. You tried to warn me. You said you were a different breed. I didn’t get it.”
LaBoeuf also displays an e-mail to Baldwin that talks about acting like a real man, adding, “A man can tell you he was wrong . . . He can apologize, even if sometimes its just to put an end to the bickering. Alec, I’m sorry for my part of a disagreeable situation.” (Hat tip to Gawker who noticed that LaBoeuf lifted the passage verbatim from Tom Chiarella’s piece “What Is a Man?” from Esquire’s 2009 “How to Be a Man” issue.)
An e-mail from Baldwin in response reads, “I don’t have an unkind word to say about you. You have my word.”
But sources close to the show tell The Post’s Michael Riedel that LaBeouf “was fired because he wasn’t good in the role,” and the actor is blaming it on his differences with Baldwin.
But Monday, LaBeouf wrote on Twitter, “Put my hand thru the door at rehearsals. then apologized to our playwright — this was his response.” He posted an e-mail from playwright Lyle Kessler, which read, “What you’re doing is beautiful.”
LaBeouf posted a final screenshot of an e-mail exchange with his second ex-co-star, Tom Sturridge.
In the message, Sturridge writes to LaBeouf, “I don’t understand what has happened here” and compliments the “Transformers” star for “[lifting] the play to a place higher than maybe it ever deserved to be.”
On a happier note, this morning the actor posted yet another screenshot of an e-mail from “Orphans” fight director Rick Sordelet. Sordelet, who also lectures at Yale University, praises LaBeouf and tells him that the head of the Yale School of Drama’s acting department “would love to talk to you about the MFA program.”
“Orphans” is an intense play about two orphaned brothers who survive on petty thievery and cans of tuna. When they kidnap a rich gangster (Baldwin), he morphs into their father figure.
As if Baldwin didn’t have enough problems, his week started off with him facing hate-crimes accusations over a racially charged run-in with a Post photographer.
LaBeouf’s rep declined to comment last night.
[View the story “Shia LaBeouf’s Twitter feed on ‘Orphans’ situation” on Storify]