How the Kindness of a Stranger ‘Loved’ This SHAZAM Actor ‘Back to Life’
By Movieguide® Contributor
After SHAZAM! star Zachary Levi experienced the lowest point of his life, it took kindness from a stranger for him to realize his worth.
“I got knocked around by Hollywood. Even now, there are things that you know can be destructive,” Levi explained, “but I have worked on myself so much that I can see those who are the traumatizers in my industry and be like, oh man, they’re just lost. They’re lost in that and I want better for them, but simultaneously, I’m not going to sit around waiting for my industry to become somehow saved.”
“I’ve been very actively trying to build an independent movie studio/living community for people in my industry to be able to go create art and content and entertainment that is not being scrambled and infused with nonsense agenda,” he said. “Just make great entertainment for the masses…If I’m going to go build a studio, to go do that and accomplish that mission.”
Levi “blew up his life” and made a lot of bad decisions. He experienced a lot of “heavy trauma” and went through a divorce. Eventually, he decided to move to Austin.
“I was like most people, doing what a therapist once told me — a lot of hit and run, meaning you’re not the one doing the hitting but you are the one doing the running,” he shared.
“My mom had died in 2015 and…I hadn’t spoken, really had a relationship with her in 13 years,” he added. “…She died tragically, like alone on a bathroom floor, from complications of pneumonia. Like there’s all these things that just…you don’t realize how psychologically damaging they can be or emotionally damaging they can be, and I was just trying to keep going, put on that face, be actor guy, go do conventions.”
Levi just kept trying to push on, oblivious to how wrecked he was on the inside.
“I did not have much more gas in my tank, and I, with a headful of steam and dreams, after many, many years of knowing that I was supposed to go and buy land somewhere like Austin and go build this new Hollywood and save the world and all of the things that I feel like God’s put on my heart, that was the driver,” he explained. “That was the last bit of fuel that I had left in me, and it drove me all the way to Austin, and I bought my 75 acres, and I was like, all right, God. I thought in my hubris, I’m like two years tops I’m going to build this whole city and all this stuff.”
“I ended up there and everything. I was like, what have I done? I’ve blown up my life. I’m here alone, living in an Airstream on this land that’s 30 minutes outside of Austin…I think it’s worth mentioning, I thought…physically I got to clean up my body. I stopped drinking. I stopped smoking. I was a pack a day smoker for like 15 years.”
Levi also realized his dependency on Adderall and tried to cut out all of his addictions cold turkey.
“I fell into the darkest, deepest hole that I had ever really been in, and I was like, ‘God, I don’t want to live anymore,” he recalled. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t even feel like you’re real. I don’t know where you are, I don’t know why you’ve led me here to die in this darkness,’ and thank God I had the family and friends and support around me that I needed to just prop me up enough to then go to this three weeks of super intensive life-saving therapy.”
READ MORE: FAITH AND HOPE TAKE CENTER STAGE IN ZACHARY LEVI’S NEW MOVIE
“It saved my life,” he said. “It really did, but part of what was lifesaving about that wasn’t just all of this…clinical information that I was getting with lots of different therapists of different backgrounds; there was this woman…[who] prayed for me every day…[She was] one of the most wonderful human beings that I’ve ever met in my entire life.”
Levi was extremely touched by this woman, who wasn’t supposed to pray for him, according to her job.
“She prayed me and loved me back to life,” Levi recalled. “Literally like there was a day that we were driving…and I was just distraught because I felt like I’m getting nowhere. Nothing is happening. I’m still in this darkness. I still feel like…what’s the point in living.”
“And she was praying for me, and she said, ‘Hey, just just know that you know, right now, I’m technically not supposed to do this. So if you said anything like, you know, I could potentially lose my job’ and I said, ‘…I would never say anything. Please don’t stop praying for me. You’re one of the only things that’s still keeping me alive.’ And she goes, ‘Oh no, of course. Of course, and then we drive for a moment longer and then she turns back to me, she says, ‘But also know that I would gladly lose my job for you.”
Throughout his life, Levi thought he wasn’t worthy of love, but this woman showed him that he was.
“And this complete stranger to love me like and legitimately love me…This woman, like she was built to be a mom, loving energy in that moment absolutely for me,” Levi said. “Legitimately, I consider her to be [a guardian angel].”
That woman helped Levi get out of his funk, and in his very next role, he was cast as a major superhero, SHAZAM.
His most recent movie is THE UNBREAKABLE BOY, which is currently in theaters. It tells the story of an autistic boy with brittle bone disease whose parents find joy and hope through their faith. It’s important to Levi that he continues to be in faith-based projects like this.
“I think we all need more hope, we all need more redemption. We all need more unity,” Levi said. “I think that on a spiritual level, a lot of films, though they may be very entertaining, if they’re not coming with a message that is ultimately helping us to grow, helping us to become better versions of ourselves — I think we’re missing an opportunity.”
“And a film like [THE UNBREAKABLE BOY], it doesn’t require big action sequences. It doesn’t require lots of CG and stuff — although we do have some of that fun stuff in the film — this is a real, grounded, slice of life, true story about a family navigating the waters of autism,” he continued. “That, in and of itself, is something that is touching everybody’s life at this point. And I have never seen a film like this that handles it so authentically and so beautifully.”
READ MORE: THE UNBREAKABLE BOY REVIEW
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