A lot can be said about Hollywood graduates who’ve left that pompous plantation for a land of promise.
Some fail, some succeed, some sell out.
Others make the most of their failure by resurrecting their careers somewhere else.
This is the life story of NBC TV’s CHUCK, and Shazam icon, Zachary Levi.
Shunned for backing the Robert Kennedy Jnr merge with MAGA, the Christian actor is still headlining some of the best quality content currently being put to film.
In his 2022 book, “Radical Love”, the seasoned actor offered up a blunt look at his life on the brink.
Despite his peppy exterior, he said, underneath all the success sat a bruised, battered, and broken man.
Raised in an abusive home, he later found himself being thrown around by the need for constant validation from California’s debilitating cesspool of an entertainment industry.
Riding highs and trying to stay high became an obsession until the “lows” landed him at rock bottom.
“Hollywood had never been a healthy place for me,” he wrote. “I don’t know if it’s a healthy place for anyone.”
For Levi (real name Pugh), the industry is inefficient and therefore inhumane.
A lot of it is a waste of life, he implied.
“Words like inhumane may seem strong when talking about something like the business of Hollywood,” Levi adds, “but there are differing levels of inhumanity.”
“The fact is that anything that treats people as a means to an end and not as an end in and of themselves is, to some degree or other, devaluing and dehumanising to them.
“It is another form of abuse.”
Leaving all of that behind was as much an effectual calling as it was a leap of faith, Levi explained.
He self-checked into a rehabilitation facility, far from the spotlight, after panic attacks and a seemingly inescapable bout of depression.
While there, he met a pastor and his wife, who, through just being present and praying, became “instruments of God in loving him back to life.”
Speaking about his rise, fall, and levelling out, Levi recently told the Christian Post, “his entire career has been a lesson in faith.”
“I am only here right now because of the faith that God gave me,” he said.
“The probability of becoming a successful actor in Hollywood is very, very, very, very low.”
“Against all of those odds and everything else I knew, in the faith that God had imbued me with, that this was what I was meant to do.”
“I was called to be an actor, and that’s exactly what did transpire in my life,” he asserted.
Levi made the comments while promoting his latest faith-based project, “Sarah’s Oil.”
While discussing the film, he remarked,
“Life is hard. This career has been hard; all of the ups and downs, the continued battle that it is in this world that is a very broken world, and always has been a broken world.”
Sarah’s Oil reflects some of that because it reaches for the God who can heal it.
Citing Philippians 4:6-7 and Proverbs 3:5-6, Levi said the film is about “continuing to lean into that faith that surpasses all understanding.”
“If you’re just leaning on your own understanding, it all feels impossible.”
Proving he is determined to live as he preaches, Levi had no issues sitting down to chat theology with Allie Beth Stuckey in July.
They spoke together at the Reagan Ranch centre, and talked about Levi’s turning point, Trump and transforming the entertainment industry.
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