Zachary Levi claims supporting Trump made him a Hollywood outsider
Zachary Levi considers himself a Hollywood outsider because of his political beliefs.
The "Shazam!" star says there are people who don't want to work with him, after he publicly endorsed President Donald Trump.
"I know that there are people that would prefer not to work with me now because of my opinions. My team has let me know," he said during an interview with Variety.
"They haven't given me any specific names, but there are people who prefer not to work with me at this time. And it's unfortunate. I knew that was probably going to happen. I didn't make this decision blindly or casually."
"I know that there are people that would prefer not to work with me now because of my opinions. My team has let me know."
Prior to the 2024 presidential election, Levi faced backlash for publicly endorsing President Trump. He explained that he does, however, still have allies in the industry.
"While there are some people who might prefer not to work with me anymore, there's a lot of people on that side of the political spectrum who are even more inclined to hire me and to want to do business with me because 'I need some people who voted another way.'
"They see that what I did was at great risk. And they were like, 'You know what? I give you a lot of props for that because that's not an easy thing to do.' And I go, 'I appreciate that,'" he said.
"I was not a fan of Trump's Trumpiness. I didn't like a lot of these personal things, the ways that he carries himself a lot of the time. I understand people's aversion," he told the outlet.
"Do I think the whole package is somehow perfect? No. In fact, most people who voted for Donald Trump recognize a lot of the imperfections in all of it. Nobody was saying, 'This is the Orange Messiah.'"
Levi dished to Variety that a lot of people in Hollywood "secretly" voted for Trump in his last presidential run.
"I know it to be true because I've gotten messages from lots of people who I won't name but who were very grateful to me for taking the stand that I took. And also they would tell me, 'I want to do that, but I'm so afraid.'
"And I would tell them, 'Listen, you're on your journey. I'm on my journey. You've got to keep trusting God. And if you feel compelled to step out in that way, then do it boldly and know that you're going to be OK. And if you don't feel that conviction yet, then don't. It's all good,'" he said.
In a video uploaded to Instagram in October, Levi addressed "The View" co-host Whoopi Goldberg's claim that Hollywood was a "right-leaning town" where "very few people seem to bite it because they're Republican."
Levi disagreed with her comments, pointing out that she was only able to name actors Jon Voight and Dennis Quaid as examples of the thousands working in Hollywood today.
He added actors like them seem to only come out as Republican "at a certain level of your career to get away with it."
"And what that means is there's plenty — and by the way, they have sent me lots of messages — plenty of people in my industry in Hollywood that are terrified to publicly say that they would vote for Donald Trump or be conservative in any way," Levi said at the time. "That's why you don't see them. That's why they're not very prevalent or prominent because they know that there's ramifications for this kind of s---."
Levi pushed back against fears of industry backlash by arguing it has been "eroded" after pandemic lockdowns and the recent writers and actors' strikes, predicting it will soon be "f--- gonzo."
"So anyway, my cry to all of you out there, you closeted conservatives, closeted Trump voters, y'all, it's now or never, you know what I mean?" Levi said. "Do whatever you feel like you need to do. If you need to come out publicly and say it, if you feel like you still can't, then don't. I would never pressure you to do that, but know that if what you're afraid of is somehow the backlash of an industry that's not going to exist very soon, then don't let that hold you back."
In September, Levi endorsed Trump during an event for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard.
"In a perfect world, in whatever that would look like, perhaps I would have voted for Bobby," Levi said. "But we don't live in a perfect world. In fact, we live in a very broken one. We live in a country that has been hijacked by a lot of people who want to take this place way off the cliff, and we're here to stop that."
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