Last month, actor Zachary Levi stepped out at a Donald Trump rally and officially endorsed Orangina. Apparently, Levi did not start out as a MAGA faithful – he’s a hardcore fundamentalist Christian, and his biggest political issue in recent years was “being anti-vaccine/anti-science.” Which meant that he was originally all-in for Robert Kennedy Jr. Then Kennedy endorsed Trump. Levi thought, hey, why not. So he appeared at a rally with Trump and Tulsi Gabbard. Levi obviously played his endorsement like he was being martyred in Hollywood for the MAGA cause. Meanwhile, Hollywood is like “who???”
When Zachary Levi stood onstage at a Sept. 28 rally in Michigan and endorsed Donald Trump, he declared it an act of “career suicide” that would end his chances of working again in “very, very liberal” Hollywood. The crowd ate it up, applauding the 44-year-old Shazam! star for his sacrifice to the MAGA cause. But in L.A., there was more than a little head-scratching. Not because Levi was endorsing a convicted felon and adjudicated sex offender — the anti-vaxxer actor has done weirder things than that, like supporting Robert Kennedy Jr. for president — but because lots of folks here had assumed Levi’s mainstream career already was all but dead.
His latest big-screen venture, Harold and the Purple Crayon, was one of the year’s biggest box office duds, and his 2023 superhero movie, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, had one of the worst openings of any DC theatrical release.
“When he was cast as Shazam, it was literally his dream,” recalls an insider who has known Levi for years. “He thought this was his ticket to being The Rock or Chris Evans. But it didn’t happen for him, and he’s bitter about that.”
In fact, Levi doesn’t even live in L.A. anymore; he’s now ensconced in a cattle ranch in ruby-red Texas, from where he’s recently been focusing on faith-based projects, like 2021’s Christian-themed American Underdog and — arriving in February — The Unbreakable Boy, in which he’ll play the father of a child with brittle bone disease. Indeed, Levi has leaned so far into faith-based productions, it’s beginning to look as if his endorsement of Trump — and his courting of a conservative fan base — was more a savvy career move than professional suicide.
It actually is a thing now – actors who are considered has-beens in Hollywood find a second life/career in these sickly-sweet fundamental-Christian movies. One of my local movie theaters usually devotes one screen out of ten to the latest “our Christian faith saved us from divorce/sickness/death/voting for a Democrat” movie. Zachary Levi is “pulling a Kirk Cameron,” basically.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.