Shia LaBeouf's behavior has gone from precocious and unpredictable to downright bizarre in the past year. Take a look at how the star went from a kid actor to a man wearing a paper bag over his head: 
After a string of commercials, TV and movie appearances, LaBeouf found fame at 14 as the star of Disney's "Even Stevens." The comedy ran from 2000 to 2003 and earned the young actor an Emmy for outstanding performer in a children's series. 
As "Even Stevens" wrapped up, LaBeouf landed another breakout role, this time in film. He starred in 2003's "Holes," which was adapted from Louis Sachar's novel. 
"Holes" wasn't the only movie LaBeouf worked on that year. He also appeared in "Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd," "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle " and "The Battle of Shaker Heights." For the latter movie's premiere in August 2003, the then 17-year-old actor brought his mom as his date. 
As his fame grew, LaBeouf became part of the parade of kid stars who were becoming household names, like Amanda Bynes and Raven Symone. The trio appeared on MTV's "Total Request Live" in 2005. 
In 2007, Shia LaBeouf was hand-picked by Steven Spielberg -- who eventually became a mentor for the up-and-coming actor -- to star in the thriller "Disturbia." The release helped establish LaBeouf as a major talent in Hollywood as the movie scored a surprise No. 1 at the box office. 
With one top movie already under his belt, LaBeouf went on to score another No. 1 blockbuster with 2007's "Transformers." He starred in the movie as Sam Witwicky, a character he reprised in two more films before deciding to quit the franchise. 
In November 2007, LaBeouf earned that other Hollywood rite of passage: his very first mugshot. The then-21-year-old actor was arrested for trespassing in a Chicago drugstore. According to People magazine, a security guard at the store repeatedly asked LaBeouf to leave because he appeared intoxicated, and when the actor refused, the security guard called the cops. 
LaBeouf was described as Spielberg's protege, so it wasn't surprising to see the actor turn up in the famed filmmaker's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" in 2008. The only problem? The movie didn't go over so well, and LaBeouf made waves bad-mouthing it two years later, saying that he and his colleagues had "dropped the ball." 
Despite earning a reputation as Hollywood's newest troublemaker, LaBeouf was still as popular as ever in 2008. That year, he was at work on a second "Transformers" movie and was starring in another action film, "Eagle Eye." In May, he was brought back to "Saturday Night Live" to host for a second time; that appearance was just two months before he was arrested at the scene of a car accident on suspicion of DUI. The wreck left LaBeouf with a nasty hand injury. 
In 2010, LaBeouf tried to shake off some of his action star rep and bad boy behavior. He signed up for Oliver Stone's "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps," started studying the stock market and dated his squeaky clean "Wall Street" co-star, Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan. "I cleared my life to make this movie," he told GQ magazine that year. "My past life did not follow me to New York. I created a whole new existence." 
LaBeouf's transformation included saying goodbye to the "Transformers" series in 2011. The actor filmed the third installment, "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" -- which replaced his former co-star Megan Fox with Rosie Huntington-Whiteley -- and then announced he'd washed his hands of Michael Bay's chain of blockbusters. "I don't have anything new to contribute," he said that year. 
Leaving summer popcorn films firmly in his past, LaBeouf focused on creating a career in indie filmmaking. In 2012, as he starred in "Lawless," he said that "there's no room for being a visionary in the studio system. It literally cannot exist. ... I'm done." 
As part of his newly public path as an independent artist, LaBeouf revealed in April 2012 that he also has a side career as a graphic novelist who self-publishes his own work. 
Interestingly, the more adventuresome LaBeouf became with his art, the more often we saw him naked. The actor happily went full-frontal in a Sigur Ros music video in 2012, and then announced that he planned on getting naked again in Lars von Trier's explicitly erotic drama, "Nymphomaniac." LaBeouf has said -- perhaps jokingly -- that he sent in videotapes of himself having sex with his girlfriend to prove he could handle the role's unsimulated sex scenes. 
With that level of commitment to his work, it's not surprising that LaBeouf wanted to drink moonshine for "Lawless" or drop acid for 2013's "Charlie Countryman." "There's a way to do an acid trip like 'Harold & Kumar,' and there's a way to be on acid," the then-26-year-old actor told USA Today. "What I know of acting, Sean Penn actually strapped in to that (electric) chair in 'Dead Man Walking.' These are the guys that I look up to." 
In 2013, LaBeouf was poised to enter the world of theater with a Broadway production of "Orphans" that co-starred Alec Baldwin. Yet before he could make his debut on the Great White Way, the actor dropped out of the project over "creative differences" -- and then for reasons known only to him, decided to publicly share private correspondence about behind-the-scenes tension. He and Baldwin apparently had conflict "as men. Not as artists, but as men," LaBeouf later said. 
In December 2013, LaBeouf was accused of plagiarizing the work of author Daniel Clowes for a short film. At first, LaBeouf admitted that he failed to give Clowes proper credit and said he was sorry. But then, as he continued to apologize, observers noticed that he was plagiarizing his apologies. In January 2014 LaBeouf literally aimed higher with his tour of regret and decided to skywrite "I am sorry Daniel Clowes" across the skies of Los Angeles. 
After his skywriting effort, LaBeouf's actions grew increasingly strange. He said he was retiring from public life in early January, and then began tweeting "I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE" daily for weeks. All of that fueled rumors that he was actually in the middle of a performance art piece, and one could only hope that's what caused his bizarre appearance at the Berlin Film Festival. On February 9, he abruptly walked out of a press conference for his film "Nymphomaniac: Volume I" after randomly answering a question with a quote from a French soccer star. 
Although LaBeouf didn't stay for "Nymphomaniac's" media event, he did show up for the premiere wearing one eye-catching accessory: a paper bag over his head bearing his favorite phrase, "I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE," scrawled in black marker. 
In June, LaBeouf was charged with harassment, disorderly conduct and criminal trespass following an outburst at a Broadway venue. The charges were later settled on the grounds that LaBeouf continue to seek treatment for alcohol addiction. 
Shia LaBeouf (right) leaves criminal court on July 24, 2014 in New York City.
- Shia LaBeouf opened up about his past on "Ellen"
- He explained some of his recent behavior as an "existential crisis"
- The actor said he's had "some hiccups," and "some judgment error"
- Both his mom and a little jail time helped straighten him up
(CNN) -- Shia LaBeouf can sum up his turbulent year in two words: "existential crisis."
That's how the 28-year-old actor, who'll next star alongside Brad Pitt in October 17's "Fury," described his recent behavior on Ellen DeGeneres' talk show Friday.
DeGeneres, always the gracious host, kindly asked LaBeouf to explain just what's been going on with him since the start of 2014. He's gone from skywriting an apology for plagiarism to wearing a bag over his head to being arrested for an outburst during a Broadway production.
"I went through like an existential crisis, which turned into an exploration, really," LaBeouf told DeGeneres. "I had some hiccups, some judgment error."
So when he hosted a performance art installation called "#IAmSorry" earlier this year, the actor said that was a genuine attempt to apologize to the public.
"There was a lot of negativity online, so I thought, alright, let's see what this negativity is about. Let's invite it in," LaBeouf said.
"I was really, truly apologetic ... I was sort of apologizing to the public in a way. I thought for sure people were going to come in there and be super mean, but it wasn't that way at all. It was very human. Once they got in there everything changed, they stopped looking at me like an object they started looking at me like a human. They were very loving."
That loving experience didn't automatically put LaBeouf back on the right path. In June, he was charged with disorderly conduct, harassment and criminal trespass after being accused of drunken and disruptive behavior in a Broadway venue. (The charges were later settled with the agreement being that LaBeouf would continue seeking treatment for alcohol addiction.)
The time he spent in jail for that incident was enough to get him to rethink his actions. It wasn't the first time he'd been in lockup, but it was "the worst time," probably because he did spit on a cop, as he told DeGeneres.
"Jail is quite scary. I was there for what felt like forever -- 24 hours or 25 hours. ... It was really rough," he said.
Not to mention the actor also got a good earful from his mother, whom he's very close to. When he's not behaving as well as he could, he'll get a phone call in which he'll bluntly be told, "Stop f*****g around."
May be brusque, but it works: "Now I'm on the right path," LaBeouf said.
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