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Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, author and filmmaker David Mamet knows a thing or three about actors and how to write for and to them. Don’t believe us? Check out director Brian DePalma’s 1987 masterpiece The Untouchables for which Mamet provided all of those crackling and full-of-life lines of dialogue (“They Pull A Knife, You Pull A Gun. He Sends One Of Yours To The Hospital, You Send One Of His To The Morgue.”) which film nerds the world over are still quoting nearly forty years later. Not to be left out in the cold, too, is his stark and vivid wordage in 1992’s Glengarry Glen Ross ( “You’re Such A Hero, You’re So Rich, How Come You’re Coming Down Here To Waste Your Time With A Bunch Of Bums?”) which is rightly celebrated by those who know and love good dialogue. He’s the envy of lesser-lights in the world of writing (such as this tin-eared scribe) and a highwater mark for what our little fraternity of letters, commas and full-stops know is possible to create and achieve with our own works; he’s a hero. So when this Chicago, Illinois native speaks on anything, we listen and we listen hard.
From our The Peanut Butter Falcon aficionados over at The Hollywood Reporter comes the news today that industry legend David Mamet is letting everyone know in no uncertain terms that Honey Boy actor Shia LaBeouf is the real deal when it comes to acting, and not just a simpering pretty boy or tabloid headline which some folks might fancy him to be.
During a recent interview with famed raconteur Bill Maher, David Mamet went all-in on his praise and defense of LaBeouf: “I’m saying that as an actor, I’ve never worked with a greater actor in my life. I’ve worked with everybody, and as a human being, he’s just a magnificent human being.”
Mamet knows of whence he speaks – He recently completed a successful under-the-radar stage play with the actor and also has wrapped a directing job on a mystery film with LaBeouf (at one time, Mamet was set to direct the actor in a JFK/assassination conspiracy film which eventually was reassigned to Barry Levinson).
Mamet wrapped up his talk with Maher by slamming the current “woke” culture, explaining that “wokeism is the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life. The bright side of wokeism is when you turn on the television… all of the commercials and most of the people in television shows are people of color. So, it’s bad for white actors but on the other hand, it used to be back for Black actors. But the good thing is that white America gets used to looking at Black people not as Sidney Poitier, not as Willie Best, but as people and that’s really great.”
LaBeouf has gotten a lot of bad press in recent years, so it’s nice to see someone with such a storied name as David Mamet step up to bat for him.
