I suppose this could have gone in P&E or CS, flip of a coin, really.
The actor Zachary Levi, best known for the TV series Chuck and as the lead in the two Shazam movies, came out for TFG over the weekend. Apparently he’d been an RFK Jr. fan, and is shifting his endorsment to the top of the ticket.
I knew he was quite religious, I didn’t know he’d grown up in a self-described “Christian conservative” household. I thought he’d been dating Yvette Nicole Brown from Community, and I knew she was a very public Christian, though her social attitudes are pretty standard-Hollywood progressive. I found out about this due to a post supposedly from Brown on Threads at how disappointed she was in him. She came out later to say somebody had faked the post. Didn’t say she disagreed with it, just said she hadn’t made a statement herself, and urged her followers to vote Harris.
Checking his Wiki entry, turns out he also tweeted some Vaccine conspiracy horseshit and followed an anti-LGBTQ+ group on Twitter.
Anyway, he says he may well be committing “career suicide” with this because, yadda yadda, Hollywood is full of liberals. Shame, as I liked Chuck, and he was good on Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, but everything I’ve learned about him since is just…ugh.
Looking at his recent work on IMDB, I’m not sure “career suicide” is quite the right word. Maybe “career euthanasia.” When your next big thing is a live action version of Harold and the Purple Crayon, I figure there’s not much left to lose by going full Sorbo.
I couldn’t be arsed to go see that one. The first one had its moments but was pretty forgettable. He also had a big flop of a kids movie this summer that was lambasted by critics. Trump, Purple Crayon…who’s to say what tanked his career?
Just took a quick look at his filmography and saw that an early role was in An American Carol, that David Zucker “comedy” that “satirized” Michael Moore and whose cast was full of other actors who would MAGA themlselves out of work a few years later, plus Bill O’Reilly as himself. So…early signs?
This is literally the first time I’ve heard of him. Even after seeing his picture and hearing the roles he’s played I don’t go “oh that guy”, I’m fairly sure I’ve never seen him act in a single role.
So unfortunately it’s probably quite a good career move, like he’s way more well known than before he came out as a MAGAt scumbag, and there’s no such thing as bad publicity
Not a fair comparison, Ezra Miller clearly had a serious mental health issue. Also The Flash was really good and he was good in it. Shazam 2 didn’t even register as a thing that happened for me.
Some actors, like Kirk Cameron, seem to only appear in “Christian” movies. That may be where Zachary Levi’s career is headed. So not career suicide, but certainly not mainstream success.
Ezra is the new Andy Dick, there’s multiple misconduct allegations. “Mental health” only gets you so far, as Kanye shows.
The quality of DC movies is a pretty low bar. I saw Shazam 1 and not 2, it had some enjoyable moments but was pretty bad otherwise. I do like Mark Strong in anything.
Shazam 2 was so bad, even my undiscerning kids recognized it was boring, stupid garbage.
This is exactly right. His “normal” career is spiraling the drain so he’s consciously making a pivot to the PureFlix demographic. Expect him to co-star with Kevin Sorbo in some “go toward the light in the afterlife!” bullshit any day now.
Based on what I’ve read, it definitely sounds like he has an actual serious mental illness, not just “rich celebrity takes too many drugs does awful things and pulls ‘mental health’ card”. But I’ve no particular knowledge of the matter or reason to stand up for him.
I would say it GOP, as with Kanye and the whole Qanon thing, has pretty much co-opted the “has a serious mental illness” end of the political spectrum, so it wouldn’t surprise if he came out as MAGA too
It does bring up the “love the art/hate the artist” conundrum, or at least the “will you cut out of your life everyone with whom you disagree politically?” Though once again, I lean towards “this time it’s different.” I understand people who were Reagan boosters. Less so for W. And with TFG, I question everything about their values when they come out and publicly endorse. In his statement, Levi mentioned “take America back” so you know he’s gone down that rabbit hole.
I always wonder how these actors’ relationships with their castmates felt? Kelsey Grammer is a solid Republican voter through thick and thin, and made his zillions of dollars acting opposite two gay actors. Did they just compartmentalize when, during the W years, the GOP was pushing for a “no gay marriage” amendment and their star’s support never wavered?
Fair 'nuff in this case. There’s some fun stuff but nothing earth-shattering in Levi’s filmography.
When it comes to folks like James Woods or Dennis Hopper, it gets tougher…they were each in a lot of classics. And Woods was truly a great actor, before he banked crazy right.
I liked the first Shazam, and also the first few seasons of Chuck.
On the other hand, my mental reaction to the thread title was mostly “wait, which one is that? I know who Eugene Levy is …”
Anyway I’m sure the Trump camp will be delighted to have another celebrity endorsement to crow about while simultaneously assuring everyone that endorsements from Taylor Swift and Opera aren’t a big deal because nobody cares about what celebrities think.
Disagree on both points. The Flash was a very derivative CGI fest (much of which didn’t even look good), and the story was predicated on the view empathizing with the loss of his parents who were on screen for a total of less than five minutes. Ezra Miller has no real range and essentially plays the same character in every film. The introduction of Morose Supergirl didn’t help things, either. When the CW version of the story was done with better writing and direction, and the actors make the characters more appealing and relatable than this film, then it has real problems even aside from the fact that nine seasons of that show all together probably cost less than the $220M budget of this film. The only entertaining things about the film was Michael Keaton stepping back into the classic Batman suit (and clearly having some fun), and the stinger cameo. And yet, it still wasn’t as bad as Suicide Squad or Blue Beetle.
The first Shazam movie received a lot of approbation for being a basically watchable film with some actual humor in contrast to the Zack Snyder films that came before it, but it basically mashes up themes pilfered from from Big and The Greatest American Hero and relies on Levi’s gag face response to punctuate what passes for humor. I don’t know anyone who watched the second one. Hitching his wagon to the proto-fascist MAGA train is probably Levi’s best career move at this point. He can play the Howard Roark character in an obligatory updated adaptation of The Fountainhead
And fruit-fetish pornography. It’s a real growth area for fundamentalist nutjobs.
Actually, rather than complaining about “career suicide”, Zachary Levi ought to be grateful for the career he’s had, which is way better than most actors.
I would say it actually did a good job of subverting those tropes in a way that was unexpected and entertaining, definitely as well or better than End Game did IMO. If you want to continue this sidetrack there is a thread on just this…