A man assaulted in New York for looking like Shia LaBeouf got a call from the actor himself in commiseration.
Mario Licato, an advertising art director, was sucker-punched in a Lower East Side subway station on Saturday night. “While I was falling down the stairs, all I hear was, ‘This is because you look exactly like Shia LaBeouf,’” Licato told Gothamist.
According to an interview Licato conducted with Cosmopolitan, LaBeouf read about the incident, prompting him to contact Licato. The actor left a comment on his Instagram page advising Licato to check his work voicemail. “Feel better G,” the comment concluded.
“It was a pretty long voicemail,” Licato said. “He was like, ‘Hey, this is Shia LaBeouf … I just read an article that you were punched in the face because you look like me?” And he was like, ‘Aw, man. That sucks. I’m so sorry. But I get it. It’s happened to me before.” And then he was like, ‘I don’t know. I wish I was in New York. I’d come bring you soup.’ He was just like, ‘This sucks. I don’t even know what to say. I’m sorry. People are just crazy. Just because you look like me?’”
Licato added that LaBeouf shared his phone number, requesting that he call him back to “chat” and “giggle over this”. He said the actor “sounded bummed and genuinely really bad”.
According to Gothamist, no arrests have been made in connection with the attack.
LaBeouf, who in recent years has become a performance artist as well as an actor, most recently inspired headlines for spending three days in a movie theater in downtown New York watching his own movies in reverse chronological order, as part of a performance art project, titled #allmymovies.
