THE 21ST CENTURY’S FIRST BONA FIDE SEX SYMBOL OFFERS DETAILS OF HER NEW SUMMER ACTION FLICK, AND EXPLAINS HOW BEING A MOM AND A CELEBRITY SIMULTANEOUSLY CAN BE A TIGHTROPE WALK

BY MATT SCANLON, WITH REPORTING BY SUSAN HORNIK

In the canon of star-making moments of the new century, the scene in which Megan Fox perspirationally assists Shia LaBeouf in fixing his Camaro in Transformers is nothing short of legend. Then just 21, Fox had already been a working actor since she was 15, but landing the lead role of Mikaela Banes in the 2007 Michael Bay-directed film was life and career changing in roughly equal amounts, and prompted an MTV Movie Award nomination for “Breakthrough Performance” and three Teen Choice Award nominations.

The resulting publicity—as well as Fox being quickly thereafter cast as a possessed high school cheer leader turned-succubus who kills her male classmates in Jennifer’s Body—prompted Los Angeles Times’ film reviewer Chris Lee to declare her “a woman whose hotness has become emblematic of an era. Call Megan Fox the first bona fide sex symbol of the 21st century.”

Born in 1986 in Memphis, Tennessee, Fox reported to Parade magazine in 2010 that she was raised in a Pentecostal environment, but later attended Catholic school for 12 years. Beginning training in both drama and dance at the tender age of 5, she was involved in school chorus well as the school swim team, and at 10 moved with her mother and stepfather to St. Petersburg, Florida. Taking a number of awards at the 1999 American Modeling and Talent Convention in Hilton Head, South Carolina was enough to convince the young woman of a potential career, and at 17, she tested out of school in order to move to Los Angeles.

There were roles prior to Transformers, including 2001’s Holiday in the Sun and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen in 2004, but Transformers and its Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen sequel produced a wave of cultural and critical analysis that has yet to recede.

Parts in the next few years included the Robert B. Weide-directed How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008), Passion Play (2010), Friends with Kids (2011), and This is 40 and The Dictator (both in 2012). The role of April O’Neil in 2014’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a particularly welcome one, though— a chance to embrace a kid-friendly role and flex acting chops in the process. Visual effects for the film from Industrial Light & Magic included a breakthrough high-definition motion capture system that realized actors’ expressions in a manner that fulfilled producer Michael Bay’s wish that the Turtles be “charming, intimidating, and individually recognizable.” The result was a hit that grossed $191 million in the U.S. alone and $493 million worldwide.

Announced just two days after Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles of 2014 was released, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows is based on the same comic characters created by Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman. It was originally scheduled for release in 2017 (the 30th anniversary of the original 1987 film), though one can appreciate Paramount Pictures’ inclination to strike while the iron is hot. Directed by David Green and produced again by Michael Bay (among others), it’s scheduled for U.S. release on June 3.

The plotline brings our sewer-dwelling crime fighters Donatello, Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael (played by Jeremy Howard, Noel Fisher, Pete Ploszek, and Alan Ritchson) into conflict with both Techno Cosmic Research Institute’s Baxter Stockman and last-flick foe Shredder, who has engaged Stockman to create the mutants Bebop and Rock steady. Things are further spiced by a full-on extraterrestrial invasion (right here in New York City!) with Dimension X’s Kraang (voiced by Fred Armisen) as the ringleader. Helping the shelled crusaders are April O’Neil (Fox), Vern Fenwick (Will Arnett), and the vigilante Casey Jones (Stephen Amell). The cast also includes Laura Linney and Tyler Perry, and once again ILM is providing visual effects.

As if saving our urban bacon and the fact that much of the principal photography was shot in Manhattan (to the tune of $63 million of city economic activity, according to the New York Daily News) weren’t sufficient, Big Apple residents have additional reason to appreciate the Turtles. In late April, they were declared by city tourism agency NYC & Company as our own official family ambassadors for 2016, succeeding Dora the Explorer, who was last year’s pick. Described by agency CEO Fred Dixon as “the perfect guides to help families discover the vibrancy and excitement throughout the five boroughs,” they’ll be seen in a variety of ads, which will provide additional exposure for the new flick.

At this March’s WonderCon, Fox described the project.

“Lots of action, it’s a big movie…a big spectacle. Lots bigger than the first one, and tons of new characters. It almost seems like overload, but I have seen the movie and it works really well. If I were a fan, I’d be like, “How are they going to fit all those people into this movie?’ There is a lot of….I don’t want to say heart because that is so cliche, but there is a lot of interaction between the brothers that I think is really important. The guys that play the Turtles are amazing actors. They captured some really special stuff.” When asked to detail her character’s relationship with the Turtles, she explained that “…it’s a little more like they are family at this point, they are not exploring each other and trying to figure out who they are—they’re friends and working together and helping each other out. I get to have more fun with them, too, which is nice.”

During late-March’s CinemaCon in Las Vegas, and asked to describe her participation in the action sequences, Fox said with a smile that “…they didn’t put me through that much. I do prance around in a school girl uniform in this one—that was the toughest thing I had to do, as well as run around in heels. Whenever I do a movie, I have to be running in heels at some point.”

It was a light moment, but one that reflected Fox’s famously unflinching honesty. She has, for example, also commented on the challenges that being a mom and star simultaneously entail, particularly in how best to shield her children, Noah and Bodhi. And with respect to the perils of social media, she is particularly outspoken.

“I think it’s really toxic for our youth culture,” Fox explained to ET while on the set of the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film. “There is a hierarchy in schools of who… has the most followers and who has the most likes. It’s a really terrible message to wake up every day and have your kids going, ‘Who liked my photo?’ and ‘Who’s following me?’”

On her action sequences in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows: “They didn’t put me through that much. I do prance around in a school girl uniform…as well as run around in heels. Whenever I do a movie, I have to be running in heels at some point.”

Some of that experience was based on a brief foray into Twitter, which the actress recalled lasted “for five days.” “When I was on Twitter, I would have 12- and 13-year-old kids going, ‘If you don’t follow me back, I am going to kill myself.’ I was like, ‘This is awful!’”

Fans of FOX’s series New Girl, now in its sixth season, were treated to Fox in a recurring role this year as Reagan, a pharmaceutical rep who sublets Jess’s (Zooey Deschanel) room while she is on jury duty (in fact, Deschanel took a break from the show to have a baby). It will be a part that Fox will return to as well. Later this year, she stars in the James Franco-directed Zeroville, a dramedy about a young seminarian (Franco) interested in film who arrives in Hollywood in 1969 only to fall into the bad habits of that town’s social climbers—and into love with the starlet Soledad Paladin (Fox). Based on the darkly comic 2007 novel of the same name by Steve Erickson, the film attracted a wide-ranging cast that includes Seth Rogen, Jacki Weaver, Will Ferrell, and Danny McBride.