Regardless of her acting talent, which frankly has yet to be proven (look to Jennifer’s Body for that) you’ve got to love Megan Fox. On screen some comes across like the ultimate fembot, glammed- and dolled-up almost beyond the point of humanity. She’s a pouting, posing, running machine, especially in the hands of Michael Bay. But in interviews she’s reliably awesome, because she evidently thinks she’s hot enough to say any damn thing in the world. And, for right now, that might be true. Cue a bunch of slightly trash-talking comments about Bay and Transformers 2, which has led to a head-shaking, condescending response from Bay. What better way to start the weekend?

Earlier this month Fox dropped the first Bay bomb, when she said that of her acting ability, we’d only seen “seven percent. On the new one [Transformers 2], I tried. But unless you’re a seasoned veteran, working with Michael Bay is not about an acting experience.” Which might not be a dig against Bay exactly; more like a truthful assessment. Her follow-up makes that pretty clear. “I don’t want to blow smoke up people’s ass. People are well aware that this is not a movie about acting. And once you realize that, it becomes almost fun because you can be in the moment and go, ‘All right, I know that when he calls Action! I’m either going to be running or screaming, or both.’” Then she said that she still doesn’t understand Transformers 2, because it must be a movie made for geniuses.

Bay’s response, in the Wall Street Journal, was fantastic.

Well, that’s Megan Fox for you. She says some very ridiculous things because she’s 23 years old and she still has a lot of growing to do. You roll your eyes when you see statements like that and think, “Okay Megan, you can do whatever you want. I got it.” But I 100% disagree with her. Nick Cage wasn’t a big actor when I cast him, nor was Ben Affleck before I put him in “Armageddon.” Shia LaBeouf wasn’t a big movie star before he did “Transformers”—and then he exploded. Not to mention Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, from “Bad Boys.” Nobody in the world knew about Megan Fox until I found her and put her in “Transformers.” I like to think that I’ve had some luck in building actors’ careers with my films.

He’s right about helping build actors’ careers, and he’s certainly made Megan Fox. But he hasn’t done it by making them act, so there’s a little give and take in that statement. He even circles around an admission that his movies aren’t for actors with another statement to the WSJ.

I’ve been talking to some big actors right now about something that is totally different. A small dark comedy, a true story, with actors just acting, no effects. I’m done with effects movies for now.

So what effect will this have on Fox’s chances for Transformers 3? Hard to say now. Bay sounds like he’s not much interested in the film, and when he does get around to it, hard to imagine that he’d push away one of the reasons for the film’s great popularity with the boys. Besides, he sounds like the kind of guy who’d hire Fox again just so he could really make her work her ass off. I can imagine that if she does end up in Transformers 3, she’ll realize the running and screaming so far has been nothing compared to what he could make her do.