Shia LaBeouf cut his acting teeth on Disney's "Even Stevens" series (2000-2003), and the role of quirky Sacramento teen Louis Stevens ("I am making a quality cucumber shake here!") whetted the 14-year-old's appetite for meatier fare. He won critical acclaim in his big-screen debut in "Holes" opposite Sigourney Weaver and Jon Voight (2003).

When his signature series ended in 2003, Shia -- his first name rhymes with "hiya" -- packed his Daytime Emmy and struck out for the reel world. His résumé includes "Charlie's Angles: Full Throttle," "I, Robot" and Disney's little-seen golf flick "The Greatest Game Ever Played."

As the intense L.A. native's 21st birthday looms in June, he is helming his transformation from kiddie star to young leading man via "Disturbia," DreamWorks' high-tech remake of the Hitchcock thriller "Rear Window."

Directed by D.J. Caruso, LaBeouf stars as Kale, 17, a troubled videogame junkie under house arrest for punching a teacher. Bored, Kale begins spying on his neighbors and soon suspects one (David Morse) is a serial killer. Hey, even killers have to live next to someone.

"Even Stevens" fans may be shocked, but their hero cusses, ogles women and tries to steer the girl next door (Sarah Roemer) into bed during the PG-13 thriller. Next on his plate: The sci-fi fantasy "Transformers."

The son of divorced ex-hippies -- his father is a former rodeo clown and recovering heroin addict, his mother, an ex-dancer -- LaBeouf was candid and outspoken in a recent chat with the Chicago press. The print on his shirt -- tiny bees carrying umbrellas -- summed up his let's-get-on-with-it attitude.

Q. Did you plan to make "Disturbia" to transition into more adult roles?

LABEOUF: There's a plan, but none of it's calculated as defined as "'Disturbia': You need to make something like that." It's never that defined.

There's "What have you not done yet? What are you scared to do? Let's do that." If you're not stretching yourself, there's no point to be doing this at all. I was fearful of making a thriller, a suspense thriller, especially one like this, where it's primarily me for most of the film. It's a lot of pressure. (Gleefully) But D.J. is a sick director. He'd never made a PG-13 and it felt like, "OK, This is kind of dangerous. This is fun. This is something I haven't done."

Q. What do you look for in a script?

LABEOUF: It's always the director. The screenplay is secondary for me. You can make a great story out of nothing if a movie's character-driven, someone like Dito Montiel (his director in "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints") -- If you have a director that's going to let you have freedom and let you be spontaneous and jump around, that's important. That's very important. And a good cinematographer.

Q. Any concerns on remaking a classic like "Rear Window?"

LABEOUF: We did test screenings, 800 test screenings, and we asked everyone 25 and under, "Have you ever seen or heard of 'Rear Window?' And 99.9 percent of people had not heard of 'Rear Window.' Not even seen it, but not heard of it. So that's a pretty good figure for us!

Q. How did this project come about?

LABEOUF: The creation of this movie came from a conversation between (director) Caruso and (Steven) Spielberg. Caruso wanted to skew toward a young audience and Spielberg wanted to revamp "Rear Window." The dilemma: How to do it without trying to redo Hitchcock and without dissing Hitchcock? Critically, you're screwed at the point. Film lovers hate you, and immediately it's a negative situation. So they started taking a bunch of different movies and mixing it up and finding our own version of an old story.

Q. Such as?

LABEOUF: There's aspects of "Say Anything" in our movie, there's aspects of "Straw Dogs," there's aspects of "The Conversation" with all the technology and whatnot, things that "Rear Window" didn't have. We're like a real mish-mosh. He's a real D.J., Caruso.

Q. On breaking away from his squeaky clean Disney image:

LABEOUF: It's why I did something like "Project Greenlight." For me, the whole point of the show -- beyond the movie, beyond the show -- was an opportunity for me to curse as much as possible, to talk about smoking cigarettes, for me to age myself publicly. That was my goal.

Disney Channel is great and all but it's dehabilitating for an actor -- sort of tonally deaf. It's like it's zoned where it's just one tone, and as an actor, that's crippling. There's nowhere to go. It's like this one constant string of same.

Now again, where Disney was at when I started (on "Even Stevens") and where it's at now are just two different worlds. If you were to have a show on Disney now, you can really have a whole popped-out career. "Hannah Montana," you know? It's immediately the biggest thing for kids, or "High School Musical," where it's on the top of Billboard charts!