Zachary Levi looks to compete with some of his fellow DC stars for the title of “please never come back to your role”, with his history of alliances with right-wing conspiracy theorists resurfacing amidst his anti-vaccine views.
Levi is the big star man for the Shazam! films, with him behind one of the many false dawns of the old DC film series. Praised for his performance in the film which is still possibly DC’s best offering in over a decade, he’s unfortunately not quite like the superhero he portrays on-screen.
The 42-year-old kickstarted his own potential downfall when he tweeted out criticism of the Pfizer vaccine, agreeing with the non-scientific sentiment it was a “real danger to the world”. It only gets worse the deeper your delve, with an old appearance of his on the Joe Rogan Experience (that font of scientific truth and reason) seeing him praise Jordan Peterson.
The Shazam! star praised the controversial pseudointellectual Peterson as one of the deepest thinkers around, which is akin to a first-year film student calling Quentin Tarantino the greatest director alive before actually broadening their horizons.
Similarly, he also didn’t say anything when Elliot Page was misgendered (although this one is arguably harder to pin down; there are still a lot of people who still struggle with deadnaming, who are still supportive of trans people). Rogan quickly corrects himself in the clip, but Levi doesn’t appear to say much at all.
The response is decidedly negative to Levi’s appearance on Rogan’s podcast (episode #1845), and he’s hardly endearing himself to those catching up on the drama. How exactly the appearance on Rogan’s podcast was ever going to end well for him is one of life’s greatest mysteries, as with all celebrity guests.
Only someone like Louis Theroux has really walked away unscathed from a JRE appearance — partly because he seems to actively challenge the worldview of Rogan and is perhaps more of a scholar than anything else.
Levi’s next outing as Shazam is only just around the corner, with Shazam! Fury of the Gods is set to debut in cinemas on March 17.