Shia LaBeouf
Shia LaBeouf says he converted to Christianity while playing a devout Christian on the set of his new film, Fury Reuters

Jewish-born actor Shia LaBeouf has converted to Christianity after he "found God" while working on his new film Fury.

In a tell-all conversation with Interview Magazine, the star said he decided to reject Judaism and become a Christian while playing a devout Christian character on the set of his new movie, out this year.

"I became a Christian man, and not in a f*cking b*llshit way – in a very real way. I could have just said the prayers that were on the page", LaBouef told reporters.

The 28-year-old, who is photographed in the magazine posing shirtless, says: "It was a real thing that really saved me... It's a full-blown exchange of heart, a surrender of control."

LaBeouf, who climbed to the top of the Hollywood A-List for his role in Transformers, told Interview Magazine that Fury director David Ayer and co-star Brad Pitt helped him through the conversion process.

He had previously identified as being Jewish, having been born to a Jewish mother, and he had a Bar Mitzvah age 13. When contributing to a book entitled I am Jewish in 2004, the actor said it was "beneficial to be Jewish" and that he had a "personal relationship with God that happens to work within the confines of Judaism."

"Really, I feel cocky when I say I am Jewish, not bad cocky, but good cocky. Because what I am really saying is that I am one of the few chosen ones out there", LaBeouf wrote previously.

This is not the first time LaBeouf has made headlines for unexpected behaviour in his personal life. In January he famously "retired from public life" with a stunt on the red carpet at the International Film Festival Berlinale wearing a paper bag over his head that said "I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE."

He bought the bag back a month later for a performance art installation titled #IAMNOTSORRY, in which he sat in a chair, wearing the bag and crying.

The former Disney star also courted global attention when he hired a skywriter to apologise for plagiarising writer Daniel Clowes, and then plagiarised his apology as well.