Warren Beatty Calls Transgender Son Stephen Ira 'a Revolutionary'

— -- Reclusive actor Warren Beatty has spoken publicly about his transgender son, Stephen Ira.

"He’s a revolutionary, a genius, and my hero, as are all my children," the actor said in a new wide-ranging interview in Vanity Fair.

According to the magazine, the actor's son changed his name from Kathlyn Elizabeth to Stephen Ira ten years ago.

Beatty, 79, has four children with actress Annette Bening, with two already living on their own.

The actor -- who is set to portray another famed recluse Howard Hughes in "Rules Don't Apply," out Nov. 23 -- reflected on his nest emptying.

"There’s something about the empty nest that makes you say, ‘Well, maybe I should go out and make a movie,'" he said in the magazine. "It’s like [writer Jean] Cocteau said [when he quoted French poet Paul Valery], 'A poem is never finished, it’s only abandoned.' And that’s the way it is with movies -- like children. You continue to work on them, and work on them, but then you have to let them go."

And if fans wondered why Beatty doesn't spend more time in the spotlight, it's because he's embracing family life.

"I think I’ve been lucky enough not to have to do movie after movie after movie for financial reasons, so I’ve been able to live life, and also make movies," he said.

"I didn’t have to grind them out," Beatty continued. "I could go long periods where I was living life, rather than tripping over cables. Sometimes life just takes over, as it has taken over with four kids, in a way that has been more wonderful than I could have imagined at an earlier age."