Shia LaBeouf is an American actor, performance artist, and filmmaker. He played Louis Stevens in the Disney Channel series Even Stevens, a role for which he received a Young Artist Award nomination in 2001 and won a Daytime Emmy Award in 2003. He made his film debut in The Christmas Path. In 2004, he made his directorial debut with the short film Let's Love Hate and later directed a short film titled Maniac, starring American rappers Cage and Kid Cudi. In 2007, LaBeouf starred in the commercially successful films Disturbia and Surf's Up. The same year he was cast in Michael Bay's science fiction film Transformers as Sam Witwicky, the main protagonist of the series. Transformers was a box office success and one of the highest-grossing films of 2007. LaBeouf later appeared in its sequels Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Transformers: Dark of the Moon, both also box office successes.

In 2003, he won an Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Comedy Sitcom for his portrayal as Louis in the Disney series Even Stevens. The Transformers series, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and The Company You Keep are among his many films.