After Megan Fox became one of the A-list actresses in Hollywood in the mid-2000s in Michael Bay’s sci-fi actioner Transformers and its sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, she increasingly lost major roles and prestige in the years that followed. Fox has largely disappeared from the industry for years now and tends to make headlines for her private life. You can read about the background to this and which projects are currently in focus for Fox here.
Megan Fox became a global star with Transformers – but that had its pitfalls
Fox made her breakthrough as an actress within a few years after she began playing supporting roles in Hollywood in the early 2000s, appearing in films such as Confessions of a High School Diva alongside Lindsay Lohan and an episode of Two and a Half Men . In 2007, she landed the lead role in Michael Bay’s action blockbuster Transformers, which ultimately brought her worldwide fame.
According to The Observer (via The Guardian), she reportedly auditioned for the role by Washed Michael Bay’s private Ferrari at his Hollywood mansion and was recorded. According to Fox, Bay later claimed that the recording had disappeared. When Bay was asked about it in an interview, he claimed that he also no longer knew where the recording was.
After she also returned in the sequel Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Fox made several statements about Michael Bay that led to her being fired from the franchise. She compared the director to dictators like Napoleon and Hitlerwhich studio boss Steven Spielberg is said not to have tolerated, as Bay later explained in an interview with GQ.
Fox spoke frequently about her relationship with Bay, often mentioning his inappropriate behavior. In 2011 she explained to the British magazine Wonderland:
It makes a difference [ob man eine gute Schauspielerin ist]. Not for Michael Bay, because his instructions are sometimes literal: “Be hot.” I once had a question on set. ‘Mike,’ I said. ‘Who am I talking to? Where should I look?’ And he answered: “Just be sexy.” I get angry when people talk to me like that.
Watch the trailer for Transformers: The Revenge here:
Transformers – The Revenge – Trailer 2 (German) HD
When she first appeared in front of the camera for Bay at just 15 years old as an extra on Bad Boys II, the director wanted to see her dancing under a waterfall wearing a bikini and high heels, as she did in an interview with Jimmy Kimmel (via Entertainment Weekly ) revealed:
We were filming this club scene and they brought me in wearing a stars and stripes bikini and a red cowboy hat and high heels. They brought me in like that and Mike said no to it like that. And they said, ‘Michael, she’s 15, she can’t sit at the bar with a drink in her hand.’ And his solution to that was to dance under a waterfall and get soaking wet. And that was… I was 15. I was in the 10th grade. That’s pretty much the microcosm of how Bay’s mind works.
The sexualization and portrayal of her person in Bay’s films naturally rubbed off on the public, who perceived Fox accordingly. For years she was chosen in top lists of the Sexiest Women Alive by FHM magazine, for example from 2008 to 2013, which in turn had a major influence on her further film roles.
After Transformers, Megan Fox became rare in the film industry
After she had to leave the Transformers franchise, Fox starred in the then-unrecognized and now celebrated horror comedy Jennifer’s Body. Fox still considers Karyn Kusama’s indie film to be the best best film of her career .
This was followed by roles in box office and critical flops such as Jonah Hex and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as well as indie films such as Taurus and Good Mourning, alongside her then fiancé Machine Gun Kelly. Today, Megan Fox rarely visits the industry and tends to show herself in Cameo appearances and supporting rolessuch as in the 2023 action hit The Expendables 4, after she was once again exposed to a larger audience as a replacement for Zooey Deschanel in the 4th season of the sitcom New Girl.
In March 2024, she spoke again on the Call Her Daddy podcast about the strong sexualization of her in films and the subsequent sexualization by the public, stating that she can do nothing right and she be permanently judged for their appearance ‒ both in one direction and the other. She also generated headlines through statements about her toxic on-off relationship with musician Machine Gun Kelly, from whom she is now expecting a baby, according to People.
In autumn 2024, the actress finally celebrated her lead role comeback with the Indie sci-fi thriller Subserviencein which she played a robot housekeeper. Only time will tell whether Megan Fox will return to bigger roles in Hollywood after this experience and her pregnancy. However, their relationship with the industry and public can best be described in one word: complicated.