Sia reworked her directorial debut to cast Kate Hudson in the lead role, after ditching Shia LaBeouf from the project.
The Chandelier hitmaker revealed she initially tapped the Transformers star to lead the cast of Music but ended up making the film with Hudson, instead.
“I was going to do a narrative film, and in fact, Shia LaBeouf was cast to play Kate’s character,” Sia told Australia’s Studio 10, according to the Daily Mail.
Music features Sia’s frequent collaborator Maddie Ziegler as an autistic girl who is forced to move in with her drug-dealing half-sister, played by Hudson.
“I asked for a meeting with her, and she said she was born to do it. She could sing, she could dance, she could do it all,” Sia said.
She didn’t expand on why LaBeouf was dumped from the movie, but her comments have emerged days after she weighed in on the actor’s legal troubles, following a lawsuit from his ex-girlfriend, singer FKA Twigs, for the “relentless abuse” she allegedly suffered during their 2018-2019 romance.
Sharing a link to The New York Times report about the suit, Sia tweeted: “I too have been hurt emotionally by Shia, a pathological liar, who conned me into an adulterous relationship claiming to be single.”
She advised: “I believe he’s very sick and have compassion for him AND his victims. Just know, if you love yourself – stay safe, stay away.”
LaBeouf has admitted to hurting people he loved in the past but claims many of the accusations made by Twigs are untrue.
He has yet to respond to Sia’s allegations.