‘Shazam!’ Star Zachary Levi Opens Up About His Mental Health

The star discussed his experiences with depression and how therapy helped him confront his issues.

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Shazam! star Zachary Levi recently opened up about depression, mental health and therapy in an emotional new interview.

Zachary Levi recently appeared on Michael Rosenbaum’s Inside of You podcast to discuss his experiences with mental health and depression, as well as how he managed to live through a difficult period of his life. It’s not the first time the Shazam! star has openly discussed his mental health, previously explaining how he didn’t even feel worthy for the DC role when he was an offered an audition. He and Rosenbaum discussed therapy, with Levi pointing out that what you take out of therapy is what you bring to it.

“I think that, as with any therapy, it really depends on what you need, that you’re ultimately going to get out of it. Because we both went to the same place, but both of us, while we might have some crossover in our reprogramming or what we needed to be done in our lives. We might have had some similar issues, we might have had some very different ones as well. What you take out of therapy is what you bring into therapy and decide to work on in therapy.”

The Shazam! star went on to explain that therapy gave him his life back, because he went in wanting to live. He opened up about the family issues he’d lived with for years and how he learned to forgive himself. He also revealed that his biggest revelation from the whole experience was that people are doing their best. Hopefully Zachary Levi’s honesty about depression and mental health help others feel comfortable enough to seek help or open up to loved ones.

“Ultimately, what I took away from being there was getting my own life back. I ultimately want to live, which led me there. I left there wanting to live, and being hopeful about what my life could be after having been awakened to a lot of what my major malfunctions were. Where they were rooted, in my past, in my family. My mother specifically, and my stepfather and how they treated me. My father and him not being around, forgiving myself, building the empathy that you need for yourself when you learn how to do that. How that translates to the empathy that you build for your muses. Because at the end of the day, one of the biggest revelations that I took away from all of it was one I continue to champion even now. People are doing their best, even the ‘worst people in the world.’ They are trying to, or think they are giving their best.”

What do you think about the Zachary Levi‘s comments? Do you think we need to be more open about mental health? Tell us in the comments below.

Here is the official synopsis for the first Shazam! film:

We all have a superhero inside us, it just takes a bit of magic to bring it out. In Billy Batson’s (Angel) case, by shouting out one word—SHAZAM!—this streetwise 14-year-old foster kid can turn into the adult Super Hero Shazam (Levi), courtesy of an ancient wizard. Still a kid at heart—inside a ripped, godlike body—Shazam revels in this adult version of himself by doing what any teen would do with superpowers: have fun with them! Can he fly? Does he have X-ray vision? Can he shoot lightning out of his hands? Can he skip his social studies test? Shazam sets out to test the limits of his abilities with the joyful recklessness of a child. But he’ll need to master these powers quick.

Directed by David F. Sandberg, the film stars Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, Mark Strong, Jack Dylan Grazer, Grace Fulton, Faithe Herman, Ian Chen, Jovan Armand, Cooper Andrews, Marta Milans and Djimon Hounsou.

Shazam! is now available on Digital HD, 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD. Stay tuned to Heroic Hollywood for the latest news on Zachary Levi and the Shazam! sequel as we learn it. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel for more content in the future!

Source: Inside of You

Eammon Jacobs

Eammon Jacobs

British dork who can be found online raving about how good Tron: Legacy is.