Shia LaBeouf Wanted to ‘Make Amends’ with Megalopolis Costar Jon Voight After Their Near-Fistfight Over Politics

Shia LaBeouf and Jon Voight had to find common ground before costarring in Megalopolis, a new documentary reveals. 

Megadoc (in theaters Friday, Sept. 19), from director Mike Figgis, includes interviews with LaBeouf, 39, Voight, 86, and more about Francis Ford Coppola’s 2024 fantasy epic. The documentary covers the behind-the-scenes drama on the legendary filmmaker’s self-financed passion project, including the revelation that two of its stars had prior tension to clear up. 

“I had basically f—ed my whole life up,” says LaBeouf in Megadoc, recalling the beginning of Megalopolis’ production in 2022 (not long after the actor’s ex-girlfriend FKA twigs filed a 2020 lawsuit, since dropped, accusing him of sexual, physical and emotional abuse).

“So I was in the midst of doing this ninth step in this program I’m in, and I had to go make amends to Voight,” continues LaBeouf, who calls the Coming Home Oscar winner’s right-leaning politics “very different” from his own. “I love him very much, he was like my mentor from a young age,” he adds of Voight, who starred with LaBeouf in 2003’s Holes and 2007’s Transformers. 

That relationship apparently hit a roadblock in the past, the Honey Boy writer-star tells Figgis in Megadoc. He and Voight “had a big fight on the phone, where I told him I was going to come to his house and we’re going to fistfight. And I hung up the phone and didn’t talk to him for years.” 

As LaBeouf remembers it, Voight was instrumental in getting him cast in Megalopolis after the two had made up. “He says, ‘I hope you’ll come with us,’ ” says the actor. “And I’m thinking, ‘I love you, but you’re delusional.’ I was beyond persona non grata, I was nuclear.”

Megadoc intercuts LaBeouf’s interview with footage of the theater games that Coppola, 86, had his cast do in rehearsals as bonding exercises; in one scene, LaBeouf can be seen (in character as Clodio Pulcher) saying to Voight (as Hamilton Crassus III), “I love you very much.” 

The Godfather filmmaker took a workshop-like approach to Megalopolis, encouraging actors to improvise within a loose script, as Figgis’ documentary shows. Adam Driver led the writer-director’s historically inspired epic alongside LaBeouf, Voight, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Giancarlo Esposito, Laurence Fishburne, Jason Schwartzman, Talia Shire and more. 

Later in Megadoc, Coppola comments on working with many of his actors, including LaBeouf. “He drove me nuts but his performance is great,” he says.

LaBeouf, however, recalls a blowout fight he had with Coppola at one point during Megalopolis’ production. The Apocalypse Now director, LaBeouf recalls, called him “the biggest pain in my f—— ass of any actor I’ve ever worked with.”

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Following premieres at the Venice and Telluride Film Festivals in August, Megadoc is in theaters Sept. 19.