The 'Shazam!' star insists that he 'fully' supports the actors 'union, the WGA, and the strike,' claiming that his joke about the strike rules was 'taken out of context.'
- Aug 5, 2023
AceShowbiz - Zachary Levi has spoken up in defense of himself after he was chastised over his comments on the actors strike rules. Clarifying his remarks in which he appeared to call the guild's restrictions on promoting studio content "so dumb," he claimed that it was "taken out of context."
"It's come to my attention that an offhand remark I made in jest last weekend is being taken out of context," Levi said in a statement to the press on Friday, August 4. He insisted that he "fully" supports the Hollywood strikes as he continued, "So let me be very clear. I fully support my union, the WGA, and the strike. I remain an outspoken critic of the exploitative system that us artists are subject to work in since I started my journey in this business 25 years ago. This strike is necessary to protect ourselves, our writers, and all those working in production who make the industry move."
The "Thor: Ragnarok" star went on noting though, "But we also cannot forget our fans during this strike. Fans that spend their money and energy traveling far distances to talk with us about our work that means so much to them, we should be able to engage. Our business exists and succeeds because of the fans, and I think it's imperative we appreciate them for their support of our careers."
Levi previously made headlines after a video surfaced of him speaking at a fan event, seemingly Manchester Comic-Con which took place in the U.K. late last month. In the clip, he lamented that he couldn't talk about his past film and TV works, including "Chuck", "Tangled" and the "Shazam!" films, due to the strike.
"I'm not allowed to talk about… This is so dumb. I'm not allowed to talk about my previous work," Levi said in the video, before he took an indirect approach to mention them. "I'm not allowed to talk about movies that I may be a superhero in. I'm not allowed to talk about TV shows that I may have been a nerd who worked at a Best Buy. I'm not allowed to talk about any animated princess movies that I was fantastic in as the best prince ever. I'm not allowed to talk about those things."
It's not clear what Levi said before or after the clip, but many took it as a sign of disapproval to the strike. Someone, however, defended the 42-year-old, saying, "Zachary Levi fully supports the strike.I was there.He was about to do Q&A with a full house and tried to put it in a funny way why he wouldn't be able to mention the movies & roles he would be questioned about."
Last month Levi posted on his Instagram page a video in which he passionately explained the need for a strike. "[The studio executives] do not care about human life, they don't care about, really, life in general. They care about profits," he said in the clip.
He added, "It's always profit over people and not the other way around. So mark my words, if we don't do something drastic right now... we're doing something very drastic, and we need to be doing this very drastic thing." He went on stressing, "We need to be striking, we should have done this years ago."
Levi's comments on the actors strike came after Stephen Amell landed in hot water over a similar issue. During an appearance at Raleigh's GalaxyCon in North Carolina, the "Arrow" alum criticized the "myopic" strike before clarifying the remarks.
