‘Shazam!’ Star Zachary Levi Is Bigger Than Big
Zachary Levi makes no small plans. About two years ago, the actor (you might know him as Chuck, from the sleeper mid-2000s series Chuck) sold his house in Los Angeles — a city he’d lived in for 15 years — and bought a few dozen acres of Texas ranch land just outside Austin. And then he started building.
“I want to build a film studio,” he says. “A studio that’s also kind of like an artist commune. Almost like a resort — almost like an amusement park! I want to build a really cool place where people like myself can live full-time, work full-time, and play full-time. It’s probably a 50-year project, all told.”
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So he’s starting with the easy stuff: remodelling the old farmhouse that came with the property, where he plans to live, and then a few other cabins and outbuildings for guests. And then? Maybe a pool. Maybe some slides — because who doesn’t like slides? “I feel really blessed that I’m at a time in my life when I have an adult-sized sandbox,” he says. “And I don’t get to go push Tonka trucks — I get to push Caterpillar machines around. It’s pretty cool.”
It really is a good time to be Zachary Levi — and if he’s thinking about slides, it’s only because, career-wise, he’s way at the top. In 2019, he’s already won a SAG Award for his ensemble work on the second season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Amazon’s award-gobbling series about a divorcee comedienne in the 1960s. And this spring, he’s starring as the title character in the blockbuster Shazam!
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Based on the DC Comics character, Shazam! is about a 14-year-old kid who suddenly finds himself with the ability to morph into an adult superhero — kind of like the Tom Hanks movie Big with better hair and more superpowers. “I think people are really going to dig it,” he says. “They’re going to feel that magic and feel the optimism and enthusiasm, and walk out of the theatre with a little pep in the step.”
In some ways, that also describes Levi himself: a big kid who got a big break and is intensely focused on making the most of it — or at least having the most fun with it.
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“All of it is so groovy right now,” he says. “Like I can’t believe the little kid who always knew he wanted to be an actor not only gets to do it now, but gets to be in this moment where it’s all working really well.”
All that’s left to do is just keep building.
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