During her child star days, Christy Carlson Romano worked with Shia LaBeouf on Even Stevens as well as one of the best DCOMs, The Even Stevens Movie. Their characters, siblings Ren and Louis Stevens, had a sometimes tense, but mostly loving, bond. Yet the actors' real-life relationship apparently wasn’t so affable. I didn’t expect to wake up and see some tea from Romano about LaBeouf but, as a long-time fan of the show, I’m intrigued.
Romano has long been open about her Disney Channel days, like when she had a big crush on her Cadet Kelly co-star, Shawn Ashmore. But the thoughts she shared with E! News about what it was like working with LaBeouf on Even Stevens were particularly candid. Her description of their dynamic suggests things were a bit rough between them:
It was dysfunctional at best. It was a little competitive at times. He was a very ambitious child. He really needed to become famous because his home life was really complicated.
While Romano said the Holes actor didn’t speak much about his parents while working on the teen sitcom, the actor has spoken openly before about his tough upbringing. His real-life story was paralleled in the film Honey Boy. Said movie, which LaBeouf wrote, shed light on his complicated relationship with his dad while being a child star. (However, LaBeouf also later admitted that his dad's abusive nature was exaggerated to a degree for the movie.)
Even Stevens centers on the Stevens family, with each member being successful in their endeavors except for the sitcom’s horribly misbehaved youngest child and black sheep Louis. The show proved to be a hit, and LaBeouf found big-screen success after the Disney Channel show wrapped its three-season run in 2003. Based on Romano's claims, it appears she’s saying the competitive nature their characters had with each other wasn’t far off from real life:
I think that he needed to be the star of Even Stevens, but it was still our show. They made me much more of a costar character. And it just made sense with his schooling. They needed to be able to use me during times that he would be in school.
I feel for Romano in her disappointment that too much attention was being put on the character of Louis when it was supposed to be on the whole family. It’s also sad to hear that the Kim Possible star felt she was only used when LaBeouf was in school. At the same time, though, LaBeouf's character arguably was (and remains) one of the show's signature elements. So, with that in mind, it's easy to understand the business incentive to capitalize on the eventual Transformers star's performance.
A fun fact about Even Stevens was that the show’s original title was going to be Spivey’s Kid Brother, before it was developed into the show kids enjoyed in the early 2000s. In any case, the series was indeed meant to focus on the youngest sibling of a family. Christy Carlson Romano weighed in on why the show’s initial conceit may have been important to LaBeouf's career as a child star:
Initially it was going to be his show. That's what fueled his ambition, his competitive streak, and it's unfortunate because I did come to understand that he had this complicated relationship with his dad. At the same time, I wanted to be there for him, but I knew that I could never really fully be there for him because we had this work-life imbalance.
It looks like Romano has an understanding of why LaBeouf apparently felt the need to strive hard to play Louis Stevens to mask his home life. The PodCo founder expressed in her memoir how “small and helpless” she felt after overhearing an argument the Indiana Jones actor had with his dad on set.
All in all, it's interesting to get behind-the-scenes details on one of Disney Channel's most beloved shows decades later. If anything it provides more context to the production. As for where Christy Carlson Romano and Shia LaBeouf currently stand, she revealed that hadn't been in touch since reuniting at a 2005 premiere, but she still wishes her on-screen brother the best.
You can watch the sibling rivalry of Ren and Louis by streaming Even Stevens with a Disney+ subscription now. Feel free to also check out Romano’s memoir Once Upon a Trainwreck: The Fall and Rise of a Child Star, available for purchase on Amazon and at your local bookstores.
