After playing Padre Pio, actor Shia LaBeouf is confirmed and wants to become a deacon

“We are delighted to announce that our dear friend Shia LaBeouf has fully entered the Church.” It was on an Instagram post from the Franciscan Capuchins of California that the announcement of the actor’s confirmation, on December 31, was made.

Growing up with a Jewish mother and a Pentecostal father, Shia LaBeouf was baptized as a child but also had his bar mitzvah. In 2014, after playing a pious soldier in David Ayer’s film Fury, the actor already claimed to have “found God”. “I became a Christian. Not in a false, hypocritical way, but in a very real way. To play my part, I could have just read the prayers that were on the page. But they became real prayers for me.” , he told Interview Magazine.

In 2020, the actor was, however, in the media following a complaint filed by the singer FKA, his ex-girlfriend, who accused him of physical, sexual and psychological violence. Following these revelations, Australian artist Sia also accused him, in a series of tweets, of being a “pathological liar” who manipulated and “emotionally hurt” her.

It was in 2022, during the filming of the feature film Padre Pio by Abel Ferrara, that Shia LaBeouf’s life seemed to take a turning point.

To get into the role and closely touch the sensitivity of this Italian Capuchin priest, the actor lived in the Old Mission Santa Inés monastery in Solvang, California, immersed in the monks. It was there, among them, that he would have been converted, even before the film was completed.

A year later, the actor asked to receive the sacrament of confirmation. Shia LaBeouf has not publicly expressed his confirmation or his spiritual or cinematic projects. Only his Capuchin godfather, Alexander Rodriguez, told the Catholic New Agency that the actor confided to him his wishes to become a deacon.