Shia LaBeouf stars in Transformers, which comes on the heels of his success in Disturbia. The hot young actor will also appear in the next Indiana Jones film.

LOS ANGELES -- As transformations go, Shia LaBeouf's evolution from sidekick to superstar-in-waiting is no less impressive than Optimus Prime scrunching himself into a semi.

Nor is there anyone more dazzled than the 21-year-old actor himself who, after supporting roles in Constantine and I, Robot, carried the spring hit Disturbia, voiced a penguin in Surf's Up and was cast in the next Indiana Jones sequel, due next May. Never mind the topic of conversation this day -- namely, the hugely-hyped, mega-budgeted Transformers, in which he stars as a teen entangled in a civil war between giant, alien shape-shifting robots.

"It's crazy. It's nuts," he marvels of the new gear into which his career has suddenly shifted.

"There's a few times you catch me with nothing else to say. I don't know what to say about it or how it happened. You never expect it to explode like this. The Indy news alone would've been my year -- would've been my life. It has just been wild. Nobody was expecting Disturbia (to work). It's not like people were eyeing that, expecting it to be a big hit or anything."

The same can't be said of Transformers, which was conceived as nothing less than a potential billion-dollar franchise.

Casting the lead human, then, was crucial, says director Michael Bay.

"It's very scary when you're trying to hinge a whole movie on a kid," Bay says. "One of my producers, Ian Bryce, said, 'You should look at this kid Shia'. I was like, 'Okay'. I saw some of his other movies and I really liked him. And I talked to (executive producer Steven Spielberg) and said, 'I'm seeing Shia' and he said, 'Oh yeah, he's great. I love Shia.' He came in for the audition and he nailed it ... I don't think there's a kid today who could have done a better job."

Yet given the speed everything is happening for LaBeouf, does the actor ever fear he'll burn out?

"I feel I'll get burnt out until it's the first day on the set (of the Indiana Jones film) and Steven's behind the monitor and (Harrison Ford's) right there and then it's just all adrenalin. Then you're just wired."

Although he's understandably tight-lipped about plot points -- or even the significance of his character -- it's known LaBeouf is playing a 1950s greaser (think Fonzie from Happy Days) who may or may not be Jones' son.

Beyond the sequel, LaBeouf has also recently signed to re-team with his Disturbia director in a thriller entitled Eagle Eye -- again produced by Spielberg. There are worse guardian angels, we suppose, to have in Hollywood.

"He's just a very pleasant guy," LaBeouf says of Spielberg. "He's always trying to make you feel comfortable all the time. He's super-aware that he's Steven Spielberg and what that does to a person and he's always trying to knock that down, all the time."

The pair will also be presumably working together again on however many Transformers sequels ultimately are made. At the moment, LaBeouf is signed to star in two more. Does he have thoughts about which incarnations of Autobots he'd like to see introduced? Not so much. But he has a clearer notion of what he doesn't want to happen. "I don't want to go into beast world wars with gorilla/giraffe fights."

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