"I'm not an Adonis, that's for damn sure. I've never really thought of myself that way, and it doesn't matter to me. My favorite actors aren't Adonises. Dustin Hoffman is a flawed-looking man; he's amazing to me. Tom Hanks is flawed-looking; people love him. Same with Gene Hackman"
About this Quote
The subtext is about permission. Hollywood’s masculinity script still leans on the clean, heroic type, yet most beloved leading men are defined by texture: Hoffman’s anxious intensity, Hanks’s everyman warmth, Hackman’s blunt-force authority. By calling them "flawed-looking", LaBeouf isn’t dragging them; he’s naming the thing audiences trust. Flaw reads as story. A face with edges suggests a life lived, a mind working, a capacity for contradiction. Adonis beauty can feel like a closed loop: impressive, distant, hard to project onto.
He’s also quietly repositioning himself within the industry’s status economy. Rather than compete on the impossible runway of conventional attractiveness, he aligns with actors prized for range and grit, the ones whose appeal is cumulative. That’s a career argument disguised as self-deprecation: don’t judge me by the still photo; judge me by the performance.
Contextually, it fits LaBeouf’s larger public persona - volatile, self-aware, skeptical of celebrity polish. The quote reads like an attempt to reclaim control of the gaze: you can look at me, but you don’t get to define the terms.
Quote Details
| Topic | Confidence |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
LaBeouf, Shia. (2026, January 15). I'm not an Adonis, that's for damn sure. I've never really thought of myself that way, and it doesn't matter to me. My favorite actors aren't Adonises. Dustin Hoffman is a flawed-looking man; he's amazing to me. Tom Hanks is flawed-looking; people love him. Same with Gene Hackman. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/im-not-an-adonis-thats-for-damn-sure-ive-never-166660/
Chicago Style
LaBeouf, Shia. "I'm not an Adonis, that's for damn sure. I've never really thought of myself that way, and it doesn't matter to me. My favorite actors aren't Adonises. Dustin Hoffman is a flawed-looking man; he's amazing to me. Tom Hanks is flawed-looking; people love him. Same with Gene Hackman." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/im-not-an-adonis-thats-for-damn-sure-ive-never-166660/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I'm not an Adonis, that's for damn sure. I've never really thought of myself that way, and it doesn't matter to me. My favorite actors aren't Adonises. Dustin Hoffman is a flawed-looking man; he's amazing to me. Tom Hanks is flawed-looking; people love him. Same with Gene Hackman." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/im-not-an-adonis-thats-for-damn-sure-ive-never-166660/. Accessed 10 Feb. 2026.




