Ep 128: Hollywood Star Zachary Levi on Speaking Out for Trump, AI vs the Arts, and His $100M Texas Studio Project

Sep 25, 2025

Zachary Levi, famous for his roles in Chuck and Shazam!, dives into his daring political endorsements and the risks he's taken for his beliefs. He discusses his ambitious $100 million studio project, Wildwood, designed to foster artistic excellence and community. The conversation touches on AI's looming presence in the arts, sparking concerns about job loss for human creators. Levi also reflects on Hollywood's ideological shifts and emphasizes the need for principled leadership in today's challenging cultural climate.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

ADVICE

Apply Triage To Social Priorities

Prioritize societal problems by triage: address issues that affect the most people first.
Combine empathy with logic when deciding policy priorities and moral focus.

ANECDOTE

Emmys Ignored Charlie Kirk

Levi recounts the Emmys' silence about Charlie Kirk and how Hollywood treats him as an extension of Trump.
He says that industry programming and virtue signaling block neutral or sympathetic mentions.

INSIGHT

Hollywood Prioritizes Profit Over People

Hollywood values often prioritize ticket sales and signaling over artists' dignity and audience care.
Levi views the industry as broken and called to build an alternative that centers humans and excellence.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Zachary Levi is best known for starring in the popular TV series Chuck and hit movies like Shazam!, while millions of children, my daughters included, know him as Flynn Rider in Disney’s Tangled. But recently, he did something even more noteworthy in his industry: he endorsed Robert Kennedy Jr. and later President Trump, while openly sharing his Christian faith. Why did he put his career at risk? What’s the story behind his $100 million studio project in Texas? And will AI open new doors for actors and writers, or will it supplant human ingenuity and, ultimately, millions of jobs?

Join us for a fascinating look behind the Hollywood curtain with a counter-cultural leader, and a spirited debate over technology’s impact on the human condition.

We begin the conversation with Zachary’s courage to speak out ahead of the 2024 elections, and the role of leaders to put principles ahead of self-preservation. Next, we reflect on the legacy of Charlie Kirk, and his ability to engage his opponents with both truth and compassion. In contrast, not a single actor had the temerity to invoke Charlie at the recent Emmy Awards, and Zachary takes us behind the curtain to explain how a quintessential American institution like Hollywood capitulated to woke ideologues. And he’s not just speaking out, he’s also building an alternative: learn about Wyldwood — a $100 million studio project outside Austin aimed at reviving great art and providing a new kind of community for artists. Finally, Zachary discusses AI’s impact on Hollywood, and why he worries it will eventually consume the creative arts. He and I see the AI landscape very differently — his take is more pessimistic, mine more optimistic — but we have a fun debate, and ultimately agree that it’s our job as leaders to build toward solutions that lift up humans and preserve the values that make our civilization great.

00:00 Episode intro

01:40 Speaking out in Hollywood

07:10 Debating politics with truth & compassion

15:23 Charlie Kirk & Hollywood’s demise

20:10 Building a new type of Hollywood

25:51 Technology vs humanity - are we better off now than 1950s?

33:25 The merits of capitalism: Jeff Bezos vs Elon Musk

41:41 Debating AI & technological progress

50:05 Will AI create or replace millions of jobs?

56:45 The role of leaders / optimism for the future

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blog.joelonsdale.com