MOVIEaboutChrisPalkoAKAcage

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After he wraps up Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Disney Channel alum and Transformers star Shia LaBeouf may be tackling a far less family-friendly role: The 21-year-old hopes to play horror-core rapper Cage in a biopic that should make Eminem's 8 Mile look like Mary Poppins. Though LaBeouf only recently began speaking about his admiration for Cage -- the actor even flashed the hand sign for Cage's crew, Cardboard City, on Saturday Night Live in April -- he's long been a fan of the rapper's nihilistic, profanity-strewn rhymes. "I have been listening to Cage since I got into hip-hop when I was 12," LaBeouf says during a break from filming the fourth Indy flick. "I grew up on the West Coast listening to a lot of 2Pac and Eazy-E, so when I found out that Cage was white, it was incredible. I'd never heard anything like that."

Years later, LaBeouf reached out to Cage as a fan. "He wanted to do a documentary on me, but I deleted the first few e-mails thinking he was just another random film student," the MC born Chris Palko recalls. "When I mentioned it to some friends, they were like, 'Are you kidding me? I fucking love [LaBeouf's Disney series] Even Stevens!' " Soon after, Cage allowed LaBeouf to film his 2006 tour, at which point the actor decided that the Def Jux rapper's tumultuous life story -- which included hard drugs, suicide attempts, and a stint in a psychiatric ward -- was big-screen worthy. "I was a basket case, with a head full of PCP," Cage says of his past. "My story's real as fuck, and I'm confident that we can capture that."

That grittiness spills directly into Cage's back catalog, which matches ear-twisting surrealism with moments of stomach-turning misogyny and violence. "After circle jerks I wash my hands off and do dirt / Sick with a smirk, plus I be disturbed / Fucked the first two bitches like dogs, and I jacked off on the third," he rhymes on "Agent Orange," where he imagines himself as psycho delinquent Alex from A Clockwork Orange.

Even though LaBeouf has yet to tap a writer or director, he's eager to take on a role that will confound an industry expecting him to be, as Steven Spielberg has said, "the next Tom Hanks." "It's kind of like how no matter what film De Niro was making, he was always ready to pull Raging Bull out of his back pocket," LaBeouf says. "Cage is my Jake LaMotta."