Zachary Levi didn’t believe in himself. He had once, but he’d forgotten how. It was 2017, and the then-37-year-old American actor had just been unceremoniously killed off from the Marvel universe, and had no idea where his career—or his life—was going from there. It seemed everything he’d once hoped for, everything he had worked for, had gotten him just to almost-not-quite-stardom, and that was it.
“I had a total mental breakdown,” Levi admits. “Then I went to therapy and that saved my life.”
But just because he was starting to get his life back on track, that doesn’t mean he was secure about his career. Still, he pressed on. He sent in a tape for one of the supporting roles in a new DC project over at Warner Bros. called ‘Shazam’, based on the golden-age superhero. He didn’t think much of it.
There was something in the story that resonated with him, though. It was about a kid named Billy, an orphan who never had anyone who saw value in him. He didn’t see much value in himself, either. Then he meets an ancient wizard, and everything changes.
“Billy doesn’t hero in himself. Then the wizard says, ‘no, no, I see the hero in you,” Levi explains.
Levi was about to have a moment just like it.
“They saw the tape, and they said, ‘oh my gosh, this guy could actually be our Shazam. ‘ Then I got the job and my whole life changed,” he continues.
He still gets emotional talking about it.
“I was 37, and I thought my ship had sailed. That thing with the wizard and the kid? That’s how I felt about Warner Bros. and DC saying to me, ‘listen, at 37, you may have thought your ship sailed, but we actually think you’re perfect for the job.”
What’s Shazam about exactly? Think Tom Hanks in Big, but instead of turning into a normal adult, he turns into Superman. Levi has always had a boyishness to him—it’s what made him thrive on series like Chuck, and it’s what made him perfect for the adult superhero version of young Billy Baston.
“It was the perfect job because I to be clearly a grown a** man adult human being, but one that still had this essence of a child inside. That’s why I never grew up. I didn’t realize it at the time., but that’s what I have refused to grow up my whole life. It was for this,” he says.
Levi wants to go back and correct something, though. Shazam didn’t change his life—it greatly improved it. It increased his confidence, but success isn’t a panacea. That’s a lesson he learned during the pandemic.
In 2019 he was riding so high from the success of the film that he’d thought he’d finally figured it all out. All the demons he’d battled? They were gone, defeated just as swiftly and neatly as the bad guys at the end of the movie.
But mental health doesn’t work like that. Those problems don’t get fixed overnight, something he learned once lockdown began.
“I thought I had fixed or healed so many of the things in me. I was like, ‘I went to the therapy, I’ve got it’.’ And then the pandemic came up and it was like, ‘Oh, my God, there’s so much more that I need to heal and so many more areas I need to grow in.”
As Levi approached Shazam! Fury of the Kings, the much-anticipated sequel, his own journey mirrored that of his character’s—he still had the heart of a kid, but it was time to finally grow up.
“In this one, I get to graduate him a little bit in his own maturity. in his understanding of the world. I mean, he’s still fumbling through his teenage years, , but he’s not quite as young in this one. God willing, if we get to do more, then he’ll mature a little bit more, and so will I.”
Levi and I have sat together a few times before, and it’s clear there’s something different about him. As much as he gushes about how the sequel is even better than the original, avoiding the pitfalls that sequels also fall into, he’s focused on his own journey, too. When we sat together before, he was over the moon, and able to rattle off more about the history than friends of mine who are actual comic book scholars. Five years removed from a mental breakdown, Levi is not just excited about the film and the opportunity he’d always dreamed about, he’s excited about life.
“The Zach before you today, four years since we last sat together, is significantly more healed, more grateful, and happier,” he says. “Not like, ‘woo-hoo’ happy’, but peaceful, and hopefully being more patient and more kind with myself and with others.”
“I think we need more love for ourselves and love for each other. That’s who I think I am now—or closer to that, you know?”
Shazam! Fury of the Kings is in cinemas March 15 across the Middle East. Get tickets here.