Collecting the award of Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, Timothée Chalamet was candid about his ambitions. ‘The truth is, I’m really in the pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that. But I want to be one of the greats,’ he admitted on stage. ‘I’m inspired by the greats here tonight.’

His honesty caused a stir online. He had just played a once in a lifetime role of Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown – a performance he said was five and a half years in the making. Yet it was called everything from ‘strangely smug’ to ‘pompous and self-aggrandising’ on social media. Chalamet was right – it is usually modesty rather than ambition that prevails in acceptance speeches.

Of course, there were plenty of Chalamet stans fighting his corner too. Viola Davis, for one, said, ‘It was a speech about excellence. It wasn’t about celebrity; it wasn’t about ego. I completely understood it, and it was beautiful.’ Others called it ‘inspiring’ and said he is ‘a future GOAT [greatest of all time]’. Whichever side you land on, it certainly started a conversation.

A few months later, however, it seems to have rubbed Shia LaBeouf up the wrong way. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter last week, LaBeouf said, ‘I hear Timothée Chalamet get up and he says something like, “I want to be great”. I so know the feeling. On him, it’s cute. On me, it wasn’t cute. You know what I’m saying?’.

LaBeouf, who started his acting career on Disney Channel’s Evan Stevens, has taken on some challenging roles in his time. He has starred in Indiana Jones, Transformers and Disturbia, amongst other critically acclaimed films, and has never been shy about his pursuit of greatness either.

‘Man, I’ve been searching for a long time,’ he continued. ‘I’m really like a pure actor. When I was young, I didn’t think that I required much help to do what I do. I was completely narcissistic and fearful and had a lack of trust. I’ve been under the tutelage of a lot of dudes who tried to mentor me, but I just didn’t trust them, or didn’t like what they made or whatever.’

The actor was then asked directly if he still views himself as a narcissist and said, ‘To get into this field, there’s a certain level of ego – a certain ego sickness that gets you into acting. And now I’m trying to figure out what the healthy version of that looks like.’

LaBeouf’s most recent project, Megalopolis, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, was met with a mixed and undoubtedly disappointing response from critics. After premiering at Cannes last May, it was released in September and was a commercial failure, grossing $14.3 million against a budget of $120-136 million. This year, he fronts Henry Johnson, based on David Mamet’s play of the same name. It follows the life of a quiet man arrested without explanation who finds himself thrust into a surreal legal nightmare. He also plays the lead in Salvable, a British Boxing crime drama directed by Bjorn Franklin and Johnny Marchetta.

LaBeouf is evidently drawn to complex, hard-hitting roles – ones he hopes will earn him a place amongst the greatest actors in Hollywood. However, he is perhaps further from accomplishing that goal than he realises. In 2021, LaBeouf’s reputation was thrown into question when his ex-girlfriend, the musician FKA Twigs, whose real name is Tahliah Debrett Barnett, filed a lawsuit accusing him of sexual battery, assault and infliction of emotional distress. Then followed allegations from another ex-girlfriend, the stylist Karolyn Pho, who alleged in an interview with The Times that LaBeouf drunkenly pinned her to a bed a head-butted her enough that she bled. ‘So much goes into breaking down a man or woman to make them OK with a certain kind of treatment,’ she said.

When presented with the details of the claims made against him, LaBeouf wrote that ‘many of these allegations are not true’. However, he added that he owed the women ‘the opportunity to air their statements publicly and accept accountability for those things I have done’. LaBeouf then stated he was a ‘sober member of a 12-step program’ and in therapy. ‘I am not cured of my PTSD and alcoholism,’ he wrote, ‘but I am committed to doing what I need to do to recover, and I will forever be sorry to the people that I may have harmed along the way.’

This was not the first time LaBeouf has been accused of turbulent behaviour, either. In 2015, strangers recorded him arguing with his girlfriend at the time, the actress Mia Goth, where he was seen telling her, ‘This is the kind of thing that makes a person abusive.’ After the men recording him gave him a ride, he said, ‘If I’d have stayed there, I would’ve killed her.’

In Barnett’s lawsuit she wrote, ‘What I went through with Shia was the worst thing I’ve ever been through in the whole of my life. I don’t think people would ever think that it would happen to me. But I think that’s the thing. It can happen to anybody.’ Their trial was rescheduled in October last year and is expected to begin in September.

Perhaps LaBeouf fails to realise how allegations of this nature might affect the work he is offered or the support it is shown, let alone his chances at becoming one of ‘the greats’. Unlike Chalamet, whose career is going from strength to strength and who has earned both critical acclaim and popularity off the back of his project choices, LaBeouf occupies an entirely different space. This is not necessarily a result of his skill in front of the camera, but rather his alleged behaviour behind it.

Those who don’t align the two, in our books anyway, don’t stand a chance of joining the top ranks – nor do they deserve to.