Zachary Levi is defending his decision to call California a “failed state” as he builds a $100 million studio compound in Texas.
The “Shazam!” star, 45, sold his Los Angeles home in 2017 and bought a 75-acre ranch outside Austin, a move he says was driven by both frustration with his home state and a spiritual calling to reshape Hollywood itself. During a recent interview alongside Liam Neeson, his co-star in the upcoming thriller “The Fix,” Levi pulled no punches about what pushed him out.
“I grew up in California. I love California. It is a failed state,” he said. “It is literally and figuratively on fire.”
Levi traced his disillusionment back nearly a decade, long before his public departure. “Ever since I started working in Hollywood and I saw how broken it all was, I felt very compelled by God to go build a better Hollywood — like a new United Artists kind of studio — where it’s owned and operated by the artists, where we can cut out all the middlemen, where we all can do really well, build a community,” he explained.
The actor envisions more than a production facility. “And then not just a place to work,” he continued. “People can live there, and kids can go to school there. And we have an organic farm, and, like, all of the things that I think everybody really wants these days.”
That vision is taking shape as Wyldwood Studios, a film and lifestyle campus in Bastrop County with soundstages, production offices, housing and wellness spaces. The first two soundstages are slated to open in 2027.
Levi acknowledged the personal cost of relocating. “I left behind a lot of community and family and perfect weather in Southern California, but when you weigh it all out — and you must — you have to come to these points in your life, and you go, ‘Is all of that really worth the thing that I know I’m supposed to go build in the future to make a better world?’ And, to me, that calling on my life was more important,” he said.
He has adjusted to Texas conditions with a practical outlook. “Fortunately, Austin’s awesome. It’s great, you know?” Levi added. “It can get kinda hot in the summer and kinda cold in the wintertime, but I can deal with it. There’s no thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothing.”
Levi’s Texas project coincides with a dramatic career pivot in “The Fix,” directed by Guy Moshe. The film follows disgraced former CIA operatives, led by Levi’s character Tucker and mentored by Neeson’s Larry, who undertake a rogue mission in Tehran after a botched operation during the chaotic 2021 U.S. Military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Neeson, 72, praised both the script and his younger co-star during the joint interview. “It is a terrific script,” he said. “Really, really good, talented director and writer. He’s a wonderful actor. I’m not just saying that because he’s here, but he is wonderful.”
Moshe said he spotted Levi’s untapped action potential immediately. “When I met him, I immediately asked myself, ‘How am I the first one to see what a great action star this guy can be?’ Like a 6-4, handsome, commanding, almost like old movie star type of kind of presence,” the director said.
Moshe noted that Levi’s rugged Texas lifestyle informed his performance. “But to me with Zach, the nice thing about him is which people, I think, don’t know as much about him — he’s very much of an outdoors person. He lives in Austin, Texas, on the ranch. He likes rafting. He likes to be outside. He likes to hike. I mean, he’s a very physical person in real life.”
The collaboration grew intense enough to spill into real streets. “Let’s just say I found myself in the streets of Tbilisi in a fistfight with Zach and I throwing punches with people in the middle of the street, which is maybe not something I should advertise,” Moshe shared. “But I don’t know if people would expect that of him. But, like, he’s quite a man’s man in that capacity.”
Elnaaz Norouzi, who plays Zara, a woman posing as Tucker’s Persian wife in the film, also weighed in on working with Levi. “Honestly, he’s one of those guys who just lets you be and lets you do,” she said. “But whenever he would feel like I need something from him in the scene to either understand the scene better or to get that chemistry, he would just give it to me.”
Levi himself sought out the darker material after years of lighter roles in “Chuck” and the “Shazam!” franchise. “I wanted to do something fun, gritty, darker, in comparison to other roles that I’ve played in the past, and this gave me that and then some,” he said, citing the film’s “moral ambiguity” and the question of “who’s really the good guy and who’s the bad guy.”
“We look at the regular world around us, and we see it burning. And we’re like, ‘Can we do this better? I feel like we can do this better,'” Levi added, tying his creative choices back to his broader mission. “So, that all culminated in nine years ago, me finding 75 acres outside of Austin, Texas, to buy, to develop, to turn into this magical kind of idea. That’s why I left.”
“The Fix” premieres in theaters Sept. 11.