Trump-Loving Actor Pushes Back on Bill Maher’s Assumption
Zachary Levi told Bill Maher he wasn’t “canceled” by Hollywood despite his public support of President-elect Donald Trump. And the Real Time host didn’t take the news well.
On the latest episode of Maher’s Club Random, Maher told the star of Harold and the Purple Crayon, “You got canceled,” after he endorsed Trump and moderated an event with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard in September.
“Hollywood is a very, very liberal town and this very well could constitute career suicide,” Levi predicted at the time. But so far at least, he said it hasn’t turned out that way.
“I could’ve sworn that already happened,” Maher said of Levi’s losing career opportunities.
But Levi claimed that he hasn’t actually faced any blowback at all. “For coming out and voting for Trump?” he said, “I mean, listen, I have yet to see what the ultimate effects of all that are gonna be. I already had multiple jobs that I was in the process of shooting or that I have yet to shoot, and none of those have been compromised.”
Levi has made a habit of expressing his far-right political views—and has faced criticism from his industry colleagues—but the lack of upward trajectory in his career is more closely tied to his inability to draw viewers to theaters. His last two major films, Purple Crayon and Shazam: the Fury of the Gods, both turned in dismal numbers and even worse reviews. Levi blamed “marketing” and “online hate and haters and trolls” for the failures.
On Club Random, though, Levi asserted that while he hasn’t suffered any consequences for his support of Trump so far, he said things could change down the road.
“None of my producers or any of the studios behind those films or projects [I’m working on] have called and said, ‘Hey listen this is a line too far, and we can’t have you associated with the project anymore,’” he told Maher. “We’re all still full steam ahead on those. How it ultimately plays out in the future? I don’t know.”
