Robots are back in disguise as Transformers 2 hits the blockbuster trail this summer. Steve Pratt talks to Shia Labeouf and Megan Fox about the unexpected stresses of stardom.

RISING Hollywood actor Shia Labeouf still bears the scars from his latest movie, the Transformers sequel. He arrived for the London premiere this week with his hand bandaged, the legacy of a car accident during the filming of Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen last summer.

He shattered his hand when his truck flipped over.

After surgery and a short break he was back on the set wearing a custom-made hand cast designed to be both photogenic and super protective.

His hand injury was written into the script in which the 23-year-old is once more in the middle of the battle, as college student Sam Witwicky, between Autobot and Decepticon robots. “It’s not just an adventure to watch, but it’s a real adventure to make,” he says.

It’s not his car accident but another injury that he wants to talk about. It happened during filming “a bit of a chaotic scene” in New Mexico, he recalls.

“In the middle of the action scene, I impaled my face on a spike and was surrounded by Navy SEALs. I had to go to a military hospital to get stitched up.

“You have to go with these things because that the temperance of the movie. It’s an aggressive movie, it’s an aggressive shoot. I broke my hand, I almost went blind, and sprained my knee.

“It was a rough shoot. The pace is the worst thing, just the non-stop, non-stop shooting. But I feel good now.”

He’s less keen to discuss his hand injury. “You break your hand, it’s hard to button your pants or something like that,” he says.

“But you have to come back up and work through it.

There’s only so much you can fake, when you have three cameras going at once, and it takes a long time to retake the stunt.”

He doesn’t see how training would have done any good as he’s “not playing a gladiator, just an ordinary kid in an extraordinary situation”. His only training was to stop smoking cigarettes and starting chewing tobacco and sunflower seeds.

He and co-star Megan Fox, who plays his onscreen girlfriend, have had to cope with being thrust into the limelight. And that means lots and lots of press and media attention.

“I don’t know if you are ever prepared for public scrutiny,” she says. “But it’s part of the job, maybe not the most pleasant part, but I get to experience so many other things that are blessings that I should not be able to experience, so that’s the trade off.”

A magazine interview that reported her remarks on smoking marijuana has been misinterpreted. She wouldn’t call it promoting recreational drug use, she explains, because that makes it sound like she’s advocating taking cocaine and things like that.

“I talked about the legalisation of marijuana which I think, in the United States, it should be. If alcohol is legal, I don’t see why marijuana should not be.”

She might have cause to regret her openness with the media. “I struggle because I feel I have the best intentions when I do these sort of interviews and speak in the way I do. Unfortunately, some journalists choose to knowingly twist the meaning of my words and that discourages me from being outspoken,” she says.

“But I feel like it’s something I just want to do because I hate reading or watching bull**t interviews and watching the creative images, the things people present to you on television that you know are fake and manufactured. I try not to be one of those.”

Fox also has to contend with her looks and labels such as the sexiest or prettiest girl on the planet. Because the first Transformers movie was so successful around the world – earning more than £400m – a lot of people recognise her now, she points out.

She just doesn’t know how to react when people tell her she’s the prettiest girl in the world. Who would?, she asks.

LaBeouf, who played the young Indy in last summer’s Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, doesn’t get comments about his looks but his attitude has provoked comments in the media. He’s been labelled an alcoholic, resentful and foul-mouthed among other things. He’s learnt to live with it, revealing the details in one article that made him laugh out loud. “Reading that I found my mum very attractive. That was hysterical,” he says (omitting to mention how his mum reacted).

He doesn’t go along with the idea that he’s made his career through talent. Talent seems “like a crazy-ass word”, he says. “I just think determination is a better word. It’s like boxers, who are ordinary men with determination. Talent is a crazy word, it seems weird.

“I’m very fortunate. I’m not the most gifted performer in the world, just very lucky to be given these opportunities. But I’m not in this to get successful. I’m happy, and I need to keep working.”

Reprising his role in Transformers 2 was great, he says. “My trailer was bigger this time. It’s flattering. You know, it’s the best kind of review to be asked to do it again.

“It doesn’t feel as crazy (this time). First time, it was figuring a lot of things out. We were flying by the seat of our pants. We didn’t know what it would be like and this time, we’ve battened down the hatches. We’re just getting better at it.”

Director Michael Bay is known as a tough man on the set but LaBeouf reckons it was terrific making the movie with him. They’re like big brother, little brother.

“He’s like a football coach, and he doesn’t coddle you.

That takes getting used to – a lot of actors are used to being coddled, but I enjoy the hell out of it. It’s like skydiving for five months,” he says.

■ Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen (12A) opens in cinemas tomorrow and is reviewed on Page 11 TRANSFORMERS COMPETITION OKAY, so our cars aren’t quite up there with the likes of the Transformers’ Autobots and Decepticons, but they’re getting there. The trouble is, if your household has different cars for different people or different purposes, you’ll know the real downside is the cost of insurance.

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Just answer this question to be in with a chance of winning. Which actor plays Sam Witwicky in the new Transformers film?

Put your answer on a postcard and send it to: Transformers Competition, 7DAYS, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington, DL1 1NF. Normal Newsquest competition rules apply. Closing date is noon on Monday.