The press machine for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is still railroading its way through the media, but for once it doesn’t involve Megan Fox babbling incessantly about her sexuality.  Shia LaBeouf is in the latest issue of “Parade” magazine and he gives a surprisingly candid interview to Dotson Rader, who describes LaBeouf as “foul-mouthed, resentful, funny, prickly, quick-witted, and charming—a package of contradictions.”  The interview covers LaBeouf’s dirt-poor childhood, how he originally got into acting for the money, his insecurities and the fickle nature of fame.

On the accident last summer which injured his hand:

“Last July, I got in a car accident, and my truck flipped three times and landed on my hand,” he explains, raising his injured hand to show me. “It was smashed so bad, it didn’t even look like a hand. See the knuckle of my middle finger, the phalanx?” He rubs the knuckle. “There’s no bone left in there currently. And to fix this other finger, they took bone out of my hip. They’ll take out more bone to fix another finger.”

On performing as a clown with his street-vendor father:

“It was a hustle. We’d walk around the neighborhood in full clown regalia,” he recalls. “My embarrassment factor didn’t exist. I had fun, because I knew that in the middle of a performance my parents couldn’t fight. So, for sure, every day, there had to be some peaceful time for us, or we weren’t going to make it through the week financially.

“I’m still doing the same hustle now,” he continues. “The only change is that, instead of my dad selling hot dogs from the cart, it’s Steven Spielberg selling the hot dogs.”

On where he gets his sense of humour:

“My humor came from seeing my parents have sex, smoke weed, my mom being naked—just weird hippie stuff, twisted R-rated humor,” he says. “I’d get up there in my OshKosh B’Gosh outfit and my bowl haircut. I was a little kid with a Lenny Bruce mouth. That was the act. But there’s no money in stand-up comedy, so I went into acting.”

On his recent breakup, his alcoholism, and moving forward:

“Maybe it was career pressure,” he answers. “Maybe I chose work. Every man has those feelings of escape and survival. I know you shouldn’t be that way. I’m trying to understand it and find the answers. I don’t have them now. Like other 23-year-old guys, I’m normal and I’m fallible.”

“Why did the love of my life and I break up?” he asks, puzzled. “Man, I have no idea. What was that all about? I have no answers to anything. None. Why am I an alcoholic? I haven’t a damn clue! What is life about? I don’t know.”

“What I do know is, I screw up, and I know that I’m working on myself to be a better person,” he says. “So I have no apologies. The best I can do is learn from my mistakes and move forward. And that’s what I’m trying to do.”

Shia LaBeouf in the new issue of Parade: