Before becoming Chuck on TV or the superhero Shazam!
In cinema,
Zachary Levi
began his acting career in the theater, in musicals such as
Grease
or
The Wizard of Oz
.
That's why he says he understands that Helen Mirren, at 77, wanted to do many of her scenes without her doubles in
Shazam!
La Furia de los Dioses
, (which opens in Argentina this Thursday the 16th), including one in which they fight hand-to-hand.
“She was always very present, wanting to jump and rolling up her sleeves ready for whatever.
When you start doing theater, you learn that for the play to work
you have to put your egos aside
and do your best.
And she shares that, obviously.
Even when she has scenes like the one in our fight in which they lift you up with cables and you fall to the ground spectacularly ”.
Zachary Levi himself tries to do his own action scenes whenever he's allowed.
"Some scenes are dangerous and are done by the incredible doubles we have, it makes sense, they don't want you to get hurt, the next day you have to report to work," he told Clarín
in
Los Angeles.
The city where Zachary came from Louisiana, in the interior of the United States, to develop his acting career and which saw him become a superhero.
You fight against mythological beasts.
That can be seen in "Shazam! The Fury of the Gods".
Photo Warner Bros.
A comic that took time to reach the cinema
The DC comic from which
Shazam!
is from 1940. But it only came to the movies in 2019, with the young actor Asher Angel playing the 14-year-old orphan who becomes a superhero when he says the magic word Shazam!
and his alter ego appears, in an adult version, played by Zachary Levi.
In the sequel that opens this week, the young Billy Batson is already 18, the alter egos of his adoptive brothers are learning to handle the super powers that he passed on to them, while his alter ego (in the body of Zachary) tries painfully to flirt with another of her DC colleagues,
Wonder Woman
, in a cameo performed by Gal Gadot.
Like his character, Levi is also a man with a teenage heart, the producers say.
Messi, the other superhero
Zachary passed through Buenos Aires almost by chance
, when a cruise ship that was taking him to Antarctica broke up.
He liked the little he saw, he hopes to return as a tourist at another time, and more than anything surprises by applauding the Argentines for the World Cup.
Enemies.
Zachari Levy and Hellen Mirren in "Shazam! The Fury of Gods. Photo Warner Bros
"Congratulations!
I'm sure a lot of people in the world were wanting you guys to win.
And
all for Messi
.
He's such a cool guy, so humble, maybe the greatest of all time.
With all the things he won, he just couldn't win that world title to write history.
It was worth watching."
Levi says that another thing that was worth it was immediately agreeing to film the sequel when the director of the first
Shazam!
He told him that he wanted to continue the story by making him fight this time with villainous daughters of a Greek god and some mythological creatures, including a dragon.
It is that for the director David F Sandberg
the gods and monsters of Greek mythology are the first superheroes and villains
in history.
Zachary Levi thinks the same.
“Since I was a child I grew up between comics and video games.
It has been a dream to be able to play a superhero as an actor, the coolest job
I
've ever done in my life”.
The production tried to differentiate the dragon from
Shazam!
The Fury of the Gods
from
Game of Thrones
or from
The House of the Dragon
, also owned by Warner.
In Greek mythology, Ladon has more than 100 heads, but they ended up making him more conventional but no less threatening, since his power is to project terror by freezing his enemies.
He is differentiated by his four legs and the villain who rides him, one of Atlas's daughters, Kalypso, played by
Lucy Liu
.
His sisters Hespera (
Helen Mirren
) and Athena (
Rachel Zegler
) will try to moderate his thirst for revenge with more or less success.
Helen Mirren, supergoddess
Hellen Mirren, The great actress had fun doing the action scenes of "Shazam! The Fury of Gods".
Photo Warner Bros.
The British actress ended up acknowledging that she had injured her finger in a battle scene, but that she did not want to say anything because she saw that stuntmen were very brave and wanted to be taken seriously.
Mirren (who
has known how to play Queen Elizabeth II and is now going by Golda Meir
) says that what convinced her to accept this challenging role, in her who admits that she is not very sporty, "just a little yoga in the morning", was to have seen the first
Shazam!
He found the movie sweet, funny, and liked that the superheroes ended up being the kids who got bullied at school.
That made her quickly jump on the bandwagon of hers, transformed into an action movie villain, something else to add to her extensive resume.
The fight between them takes the best part of the sequel, the survival of humanity depends on who wins the final battle.
As it happened with Messi,
the spectators bet on the hero
.
And the greatest strength that this superhero has, says the actor who gives him life, is his heart.
“Shazam!
he has a good heart and that's why he always ends up making the right decisions ”.
An orphan with magical powers
Asher Angel
is a musician as well as an actor.
Although one of his songs with Wiz Khalifa made him very popular on YouTube, he assures that it was his work on
Shazam!
, in 2019, the one that changed his life.
Although his character, Billy Batson, gets a magician to give him super powers, it is not him who puts on the superhero suit, but his adult alter ego played by actor Zachary Levi.
Asher Angel, as Billy Batson, takes on Hellen Mirren's character in "Shazam! The Fury of Gods."
Photo Warner Bros.
Still, he says that being able to participate in this saga is a dream come true. "It's great to do something that people can connect with."
Be thankful that in the sequel,
Shazam!
The Fury of the Gods
, characters such as the villains of the story have been added, the three daughters of Atlas, angry with the magician who took the powers from his father to pass them on to Shazam!
A blockbuster with talented actresses, mythical monsters and many special effects.
"More heart, more family, more action."
The kid's dream, she admits.
The heart, which attracted Levi and Mirren to the story, is put from the outset
by that orphan who has passed through several families
and who is finally accepted by the Vasquezes, a couple with many adopted children, to whom Billy ends up sharing part of his magical power.
The Shazam family of Vasquez family alter egos adds a tender moment to the story.
His friend Freddy, played by Jack Dylan Grazer, even has a semi-romantic encounter with the youngest of Atlas's daughters in the sequel.
Asher Angel, as Billy Batson, in "Shazam! The Fury of Gods. Photo Warner Bros
In the first movie the teens were awkwardly trying out what to do with magical powers.
They did so badly that they were nicknamed: "the Philadelphia fiasco."
Billy now feels like he has to lead them, but he's not sure if he can until the villains show up and it all makes sense.
“This second part of the saga allowed us to return to the set and reconnect with each other.
It will be possible to see that there is a special chemistry in the group”, anticipates Angel.
WD
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