Fan Fare
Entertainment behind the scenes
Trading on Twitter with Shia LaBeouf
There is something slightly surreal about talking with an up-and-coming
Hollywood star about the intricacies of trading on Wall Street. In an interview with Shia LaBeouf for his role in Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps”, that’s exactly what happened.
The 23-year-old, most famous for the successful “Transformers” franchise, plays Jake Moore, an idealistic and successful financial trader who comes up against Michael Douglas’s ruthless Gordon Gekko and an equally formidable Bretton James (played by Josh Brolin) in Stone’s update of his 1987 hit “Wall Street”.
To research his role, LaBeouf met financial titans like George Soros and Warren Buffett, but also dealers just starting out in the cut-throat world of banking and investment, in order to be ready for the part.
“I think just out of necessity for the film and for my confidence, you know, just to be able to look Brolin in the eye and feel like I wasn’t going to melt, I had to feel like I was really trading and he was acting,” he said in the seaside cabins at the exclusive Hotel du Cap just outside Cannes. He quickly earned a reputation among other members of the cast for his knack with numbers after making quick profits on a reasonably small outlay as part of his training. Douglas said LaBeouf increased his initial investment 10-fold.
“W.” cast and crew get personal about politics
The makers of the upcoming “W.” biopic about President George Bush say they put 
personal politics aside for the Oliver Stone-directed movie — and so far the early reviews seem to agree.
But that didn’t stop the cast and crew sounding off in a Beverly Hills press event this week about their personal feelings towards the U.S. president and his administration.
