Zachary Levi

She's so great. She is so solid as a human being. And she's so talented. And Megan, what's Megan's last name?

She's a rising star.

White Lotus season two.

The thing with Nicole Kidman.

I don't remember either. But she was great in that too.

Yeah, she's very talented, and we were very grateful to have her play Teresa. Drew Powell plays my basically best friend in the movie, Peter Facinelli, plays our pastor.

Jacob Laval, yeah, who's here. He's based in New York. He's a wonderful kid, young man now. Crazy talented. Yeah, very talented, and so uniquely perfect for this role, because... You know, you're you're trying to bring a child with autism to life in the most authentic way possible. And also we were casting in the height of the pandemic.

There were a lot of people that were just like, I'm not I don't want to leave my home. I don't want to chance it. The plague is flying around the world. So everyone that ended up playing these roles was someone that was tailor made and fit perfectly. Like, you know, God works this way. I mean. Those were the people that were supposed to be in this film with the cast, the crew.

And it was a little engine that could. It was a thing that kind of came out of nowhere as we were preparing to make American Underdog. This was like an added bonus. And then we shot that shot American Underdog. And then we were supposed to originally the movie was supposed to come out three years ago.

But because it was a small slice of life. family film and because a lot of people were still hesitant getting back to theaters even in you know beginning of 2022 Lionsgate and I think wisely said listen we don't want this thing to get lost we don't want to get just destroyed by these tentpole movies are the only ones doing well so let's sit on it and three years later here we are

I mean, I think heart is the most important ingredient in almost any story told, whether that's a comedy or a drama or a dramedy, or even if you're watching... an action movie or, you know, sci-fi or whatever. Like, are you the audience able to connect to that character?

The first and most important thing you're connecting through is the humanity in that character, which is the heart of that character. I've been very blessed that a lot of these roles, they come to me. Up until Shazam, I couldn't be very picky about the jobs that were coming my way.

Now, post-Shazam, I have more offers, and so I have a little more agency in deciding, okay, we'll go this way or we'll go that way. But up to Shazam, I had say over the auditions I would go on or not, but those jobs are still like, okay, what is God going to put in my lap? What role am I about to go and play? And I will say that, you know, maybe it's because I lead with my heart.

My whole life I have. I have a really deep empathy and love for all of humanity. And I really mean that. It's not just a... you know, a soundbite or whatever. I just, I, it's one of the reasons why I felt so compelled to even begin speaking, I guess, you know, being more open politically, because I felt like not just where I think we needed to go, but guys, we're tearing each other apart.

We're not seeing the person across the table as a child of God. We're seeing them as the enemy. We're seeing them as a monster. And I just don't operate that way. I want to be able to go and bring people together as best I can.

And as an actor, when I get to tell stories that are so led heart led, um, that get to tell stories that are infused with hope and, and that are inspiring that, you know, that, that bring people back to understanding themselves and each other more. I think that, you know, that's a, those are great opportunities.

Is it also fun to go and do things that have nothing to do with that, that are just for fun, just for laughs? Absolutely. I want to do all that stuff too, but yeah, As an actor, I want to, I mean, to me, like, I'm proud of almost everything that I've done in my career.

Well, I'm proud of everything that I've done. I see ground to exploit. On different levels, right? On different levels. But what I'm saying is I am particularly proud of this film in part because I got to play a role that really goes through it. It's not just one level of being, all right, I'm this guy.

And not to say that other roles that I've played haven't also had levels and layers, but there's an overall kind of more... upbeat, let's say, vibe to Chuck that I did on NBC for years or Shazam or Tangled or Harold and the Purple Crayon or whatever.

I have so much love for all these projects in one way, shape, and form, but to play this real character, similar with American Underdog, Kurt was much more stoic And so there, there was, um, there wasn't quite the same roller coaster. Like, cause Kurt was also just this really like solid dude, as you're talking about, like he wasn't struggling with alcohol.

He was struggling with his own, like, what am I doing? I'm lost in this journey. And I, I feel like God called me to be the next Joe Montana, but that's not happening. And I'm stocking shelves, but I love this woman and she's got two kids and I love them too. And so I'm going to go commit to that and we'll see where God takes me the rest of the way.

Scott is wrestling with God the entire time, putting on a good face. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Charming this guy, you know, working, but also just losing himself in a bottle because he's drinking away his problems because that's what so many people struggle with. I mean, alcoholism is rampant.

Yeah. Oh, sorry.

Yeah, it is. And I haven't really, I've only seen the movie once. Really? Yeah. We did it when John finished it. We had a screening just like kind of our cast and it was wonderful. It was great to finally see what we had made together. But I haven't seen a lot of these scenes since then. And these are things that I have struggled with, that I think we all struggle with on some level.

Gratitude is massive. It's so absolutely integral. to the health and wellbeing of ourselves and those around us to practice gratitude. There's so many amazing studies that have been done by the way, like not just when we practice gratitude, When we see other people, in fact, I think they've shown it's even more powerful if you watch other people be grateful to other people.

Like if you're just a fly on the wall and you watch some person help an old lady across the street with her groceries, that in and of itself, and you see that old lady grateful to that person, it changes you inside. Like it's incredible, right?

Ambitious, yeah.

Yeah. And that, when I read the script and when I was, I mean, that was me. That was me tapping into a lot of my own issues with that. Because obviously we all want to go do well in this world and we want to be ambitious and you want to be successful. There's nothing wrong with any of those things. But if you're not looking at what's right in front of you,

right in front of you, right in that moment and being present with that and being grateful for that. And because of that, because he was struggling and feeling like he's failing. Well, when you feel like you're failing, it's very difficult to be grateful for what you've got in front of you because you feel like none of it is good.

I mean, yeah, there's, there's, there's no coincidences, right? Like God's using all things. And I really do feel though, as a, at a very young age for three or four years old, I knew that I was going to be an actor.

I knew it. I knew it in my mind. I can't explain it. It's like the closest thing I can, I can paint as a picture is imagine when we're with God at source in heaven, you know, whatever that other place is. Imagine like there's some kind of mission select screen that we're looking at, like an options of what is the life that my soul is going to go live or something.

And as a part of that, there's like stipulations like, OK, you go choose this path. And part of that path is you're going to be an actor and that's going to be a part of the journey that you're going to be on. And that's going to. And I also felt very called from very, very young age to. be a leader and to love people and to like affect positive change in this world and build community.

Like I felt these things in me. I couldn't articulate them in words that would probably make any sense. Cause I didn't have a vocabulary at that time, but the knowing in knowing in my knowing and my soul and my purpose and my calling, like I felt these things. And so, um,

I think that was helped along certainly by being the middle boy between two girls in a house that was full of a lot of trauma and me just trying to find an identity and a voice in all of it. Also, very early on, knowing people, having a deep empathy for people, feeling them and how they reacted to things, I knew that a smiling, laughing person felt good on the inside.

I was tuning into that very young and I was like, oh, okay, wait a minute. Well, I know how to make people smile and laugh. I do a little joke. I do a little dance. I do a little funny impersonation or whatever. And I can evoke these responses. And making people feel good was like, oh, my God, that's the drug I've been addicted to my whole life.

Yeah, so my mom, God rest her soul, was really a wonderful, dynamic, beautiful, intelligent, like wickedly intelligent human being who also dealt with tons of unhealed trauma. And that led her down a road that I think brought upon probably like borderline personality with narcissistic tendencies. And that's a very difficult burden for people to handle.

This might sound strange, but I actually have a lot of empathy for narcissists. They're some of the most destructive people in the world. That's because they're some of the most destroyed people down inside of themselves. But my mom... as a borderline personality specifically, her moods were always what ruled the moment.

So if my mom was in a good mood and I did something wrong, I broke a glass, something that was sitting on the counter and I accidentally knocked it over, shattered. If she's in a good mood and she's rocking out and she's listening to Bon Jovi or Journey or the stuff that she would be in a good mood, she'd be like, oh man. And she'd, okay, what happened? But it would be okay.

unfortunately mom was not in that mood more often than not and it got worse and worse through her alcoholism and through a lot of other just unhealed trauma and so you knock that same glass off of the counter and it is how dare you you little shit you you know like the fangs and the claws and everything would come out but because that's what she learned from her mom and that's what she learned from somebody her mom or dad or you know this generational trauma and so you

Yeah, kind of. I mean, but it wasn't, I don't think it ever felt like if I could be more perfect, it was more just like you start to learn, okay, this is my reality. How do I navigate it? And my mom and stepdad both had kind of impossible. My biological father, who's also passed away, and I love him, but we didn't really have a lot of a relationship.

I grew up with my mom and my stepdad, both of them heavily traumatized people. My stepdad was super traumatized in the ways of having thresholds that were like impossible to hit, like a bar that you could never, never really get to. Very, very, very high standards. And so that became this mission of how do I navigate that? While simultaneously... navigating a target that's constantly moving.

It's one thing to have a- Yeah, you know, you can have a bar. Like if both parents had this impossible bar, you know, okay, well, it's just, then it's like perfection, perfection. You gotta get up there, you gotta go do that thing. But with my mom, there'd be these moments of really beautiful love and grace with the thing. It's like, it's okay, don't worry about it. And there's where the target is.

You're like, okay, I think I'm safe. I guess I'm okay. And then the next day it'd be like, I can't. And you're like, whoa, whoa, the whiplash of it all. So then, you know, as a child, you just start to literally, you know, teach yourself or learn ways to navigate that minefield. And it's a difficult minefield. Certainly, there was the perfectionism on the other side of things.

And that all kind of became conflated in and of itself. It was gnarly. It was a gnarly experience. But I will say... None of that. And many people deal with very similar experiences. None of that makes me a victim. None of that makes me absolved from my stupid behavior that comes out of my trauma. We are all responsible for healing our trauma and responsible for the actions that come out of that.

I think the problem starts getting into where we start throwing blame and shame and guilt on people. It's like you should know better.

100%. But again, like I said, I don't think anything's wasted on God. I think that's all kind of part of it. You know, our job in all of it is to make sure that we become aware of that, aware of what we need to work on in ourselves, but know that God's still going to use your trauma and redeem that. I learned so much recently.

by growing up in my home with my mom and my stepfather, I got tools that people who grew up in really loving homes may never ever have. That's right. You know, so I see the silver lining in that, which is again, doesn't excuse any of that, but he goes, okay, all right. What was God doing in all of that? Why, why did I choose to go and have this experience in this household and

If my mission in life or my calling was to go and be this actor, well, shocker, all of that led me to better understanding. Again, in the midst of a lot of it, before I went through the healing that I did, I got... knocked around by Hollywood.

Even now there are things that, you know, can be destructive, but I have worked on myself so much that I can see those who are the traumatizers in my industry and be like, Oh man, they're just lost. They're lost in that. And I want better for them. But simultaneously, I'm not going to sit around waiting for my industry to become somehow saved. I'm going to go.

I've been very actively trying to build an independent movie studio, uh, living community for people in my industry to be able to go create art and content and entertainment that is not being scrambled and, and infused with nonsense agenda, just make great entertainment for the masses of all the way it used to be. And also simultaneously, um,

if I'm going to go build a studio to go do that and accomplish that mission, well, let's go build a living community into it all so we can give people better lives because we all deserve that too. And I think that there are people... You have to get out of California. Well, I did. I went to Austin. Yeah. Yeah. I'm in Austin, Texas.

Yeah, it was right before Shazam. Yeah, so I mean, you know, like the bottom line is I was like most people doing what a therapist once told me, a lot of hit and run. Meaning... you're not the one doing the hitting, but you are the one doing the running. So you get hit with trauma. You get hit with, and trauma, there's a spectrum of trauma, right?

So I know people, a lot of people like to throw it around like, oh, I've been traumatized and they're not or whatever, but PTSD in war, PTSD kind of stuff is one end of a spectrum of very intense trauma. There's traumas all the way across the board. Mental health is like dental health. You can have a little cavity, you can need a full blown root canal. It's all the same type of-

It must. And unfortunately, most of us, are completely unaware that we're carrying this around. We have no idea. Most people are in this world. They're just surviving, right? And we're doing these hit and runs. Things are hitting us and we're just like, all right, I got to pick myself up and I got to run. I got to keep going because there's not enough time to sit and wallow in this.

There's not enough time. I have to go work. food on the table. I mean, whatever these reasons are, you keep moving forward. And there's also a resilience in that. And I think there's something beautiful about the human condition and that we can persevere and we can do these things.

But suffice to say, I was heavily traumatized from childhood through my industry, through my own stupid choices, bad relationships, a very short-lived marriage that was unhealthy, that I was an unhealthy person going into to begin with. My mom had died in 2015 and we were, I hadn't spoken, really had a relationship with her in 13 years at the time she did die.

And she died tragically, like alone on a bathroom floor from complications of pneumonia. Like there's all these things that just, and you don't realize how psychologically damaging they can be or emotionally damaging they can be. And I was just trying to keep going, right? Put on that face, be actor guy, go do conventions. I love fans. I love spending time with everybody.

I'm just going to keep doing what I do, completely unaware of just how broken inside that I was and that I did not have much more gas in my tank. And I...

with a head full of steam and dreams, after many, many, many years of knowing that I was supposed to go and buy land somewhere like Austin and go build this new Hollywood and save the world and all of the things that I feel like God's put on my heart, that was the driver. That was the last bit of fuel that I had left in me. And it drove me all the way to Austin.

And I bought my 75 acres and I was like, all right, God, I thought in my hubris, I'm like two years top. So I'm that was not the plan. And, but also, but also, so I ended up there and everything. I was like, what have I done? I've blown up my life. I, I, I'm here alone living in an Airstream on this land. That's 30 minutes outside of Austin. I don't like it. Like it was gnarly.

And by the way, it's all simultaneously. I thought, And this is a big factor. I think it's worth mentioning. I thought, you know what? I'm also like physically, I got to clean up my body. I stopped drinking. I stopped smoking. I was a pack a day smoker for like 15 years. Like, and that's a lot. Really? Yeah. And I had also had a, an Adderall prescription because I have dealt with ADHD and stuff

literally my whole life. I was grateful that my mom never put me on anything when I was a child, because I think it's important to allow a kid to not have to have that type of thing. However, I did find it to help me. The problem was that Adderall, I was depending on too much and cigarettes and not realizing that really what was done at the bottom of it, that's a dopaminergic dependency.

Your dopamine system literally has been hijacked and you need to keep getting dopamine in you just to keep moving forward in life. And I thought in my infinite wisdom, I'm going to cut all this out cold turkey. Oh, boy. Holy crap. Combining all that unhealed trauma and all that unhappiness and then literally pulling the rug out from my dopamine system and having no dopamine whatsoever.

I fell into the darkest, darkest, deepest hole that I had ever really been in. And, and I, and I was like, God, I don't want to live anymore. I don't know what to do. I don't even feel like you're real. I don't know where you are. I don't know why you've led me here to die in this darkness.

And thank God I had the family and friends and support around me that I needed to just prop me up enough to then go to this three weeks of super intensive life-saving therapy, not too far in Connecticut. And it saved my life. It really did.

But part of what was life-saving about that wasn't just all of this, let's say, clinical information that I was getting with lots of different therapists of different backgrounds and ilk. There was this woman, there were women who worked at this place who were companions. They were like these house moms. This place was set up for CEOs that were like- Do you say where you went? Oh, yeah.

Is it Silver Hill? No, no, no, no. It's called Privé Suisse. Privé Suisse.

It does sound fancy. And by the way, it's expensive. And that's part of why when I came out of there-

But we should change that. Yeah, totally. Which is what my mission is now, is trying to democratize, at the very least, mental wellness, mental health services and things so that we can get people. If we can get everybody right in their own heart and mind, they start loving themselves, taking care of themselves, taking care of others.

There's nothing. Sure. But, but we are a rare amount of people. And again, that's why I say, thank God I had done well enough in my career where I could afford something that was so costly. But there was one woman there, um, who of all of these, these house moms and they would rotate through and they would basically like take care of you because you were so despondent.

They couldn't depend on you to even drive yourself to your own appointments. So like they would have these women who were wonderful that were, you know, either wives or mothers or both that were semi-retired who had big hearts and that wanted to help these people get through their treatment. And this woman, um,

She prayed for me every day, even though she wasn't even supposed to, like she would pray for me. Wasn't supposed to. Well, yeah. I mean, in the book, I talk about it in the book, but basically, and I understand, by the way, they've also made amendments to their programming because of this and because of the success of it.

And I'm very grateful to those folks at Privy Swiss for having seen the efficacy of it. But, you know, what they wanted to make sure was that nobody was getting conflicting or contradicting opinions. therapy or advice, right?

And sometimes you can go to a therapist that's giving you non-spiritual, just purely clinical advice, but you might have somebody over here in a spiritual sense being like, well, I don't know about that. You know, let's pray through it or let's do whatever.

And unfortunately, I do think a lot of people who are spiritual people, Christian people, they still have this weird, like, I don't know about going to therapy because all the answers I need are in the Bible. I just pray away all of my issues. I don't think that's how that works.

Having gone through it myself, I definitely don't think that's how that works.

Yeah. Absolutely. And they can be very complimentary, as they should be. Your spirituality and the spiritual wisdoms that are even found in the Bible that are, I think, very much backed up by even a lot of what we're finding in science and clinical science and whatnot. So because of that, they didn't want anything contradicting itself.

So there was kind of a rule like, hey, don't get too personal into these types of ways. But this woman saw my heart. She saw who I was. And she is just one of the most wonderful human beings that I've ever met in my entire life. Also a mother. And she prayed for me and she prayed me and loved me back to life, literally.

Like there was a day that we were driving to one of my, I just got out of one of my appointments and I was just distraught because I felt like I'm getting nowhere. Nothing is happening. I'm still in this darkness. I still feel like I, you know, what's the point in living? And she was praying for me and she said, hey,

just, just know that, you know, right now I'm technically, I'm not supposed to do this. So I, if you said anything like, you know, I could potentially lose my job. And, and I said, oh my God, I would never say anything. Please don't stop praying for me. You're one of the only things that's still keeping me alive. And I always get emotional at this point. She goes, oh no, of course, of course.

And then We drive for a moment longer. And then she turns back to me. She says, but also know that I would gladly lose my job for you. Oh. As a kid who didn't realize that the biggest thing that I was struggling through was not loving myself. And the reason why I wasn't loving myself was because I had never really gotten that from my parents as much as I know they loved me.

They were struggling so deeply that they weren't able to model that or show that to me and my sisters, I think, in the way that they needed to. And so the thing that I struggled with the most in my life was that I didn't think I was even worthy of that love. and this complete stranger to love me, like, and legitimately love me.

It wasn't like, you know, we all tell people, I tell people all the time, I love you, but strangers, and I mean it, I mean it, I mean it in the way that I believe God calls us to love, like as deeply as to love our enemy and pray for our persecutor, things we talked about last time. But this woman, Like she was built to be a mom loving energy in that moment. Absolutely for me.

Like if no other, like, Oh my God, like legitimately I consider her to be. And so all of that, you know, that's all that came out of me moving to Austin and all of this stuff. And then the irony or not irony, but the kind of amazing way that God works was I was still in this therapy. I was like a week and a half in, um,

Or two and a half, two and a half, two and a half weeks into my three week course, essentially. And I had told my team and in Hollywood, my agents and managers, I was like, guys, I am not good. I am going off grid for three weeks to a month. Like, you know, so if anything comes around, just we're, we're putting, you know, hitting pause. They're like, awesome. Got it. Cool. Cool. Cool.

Two and a half weeks. Yeah. Oh, and sorry, and quickly, prior to me going to this place, two months prior, I had been offered the opportunity to audition for the role of Shazam in the movie Shazam.

And I declined it because I was like, they're not going to cast me. I'm not John Cena. I'm not The Rock. I don't know why they're coming after somebody like me. So I was like, thanks, but no thanks, and I passed. Again, not knowing that I was in a really low place of self-esteem and not believing in myself or whatever.

So now two and a half weeks into therapy, I get this email from my agent or somebody's like, I don't want to bother you. Don't want to bother you. But there's another role. There's a supporting role. Very small, like one scene read if you're feeling up to it, but no pressure. Oh, yeah.

Not an offer for it.

Yeah.

Exactly. And they... it's a supporting role. It's one scene. And that day I just happened to that. It was a Wednesday. And I just happened to have had the first breakthrough moment where I could see some light at the end of the tunnel. And I see this, this message. I'm like, this is, this is so silly.

I like, I'm supposed to be here and doing this healing, but, but I do believe that that was all meant to be. My agent was supposed to send that because I see this and, And I'm like, I'm starting to feel a little bit better about myself. I'm confident enough to maybe, you know, put myself on tape for this thing. I go, when do they need this by? And he says, by Friday.

So I give myself a couple more days just to see like, am I starting to stand back up again? Am I starting to feel myself again? And I was, I was feeling stronger. And so I said, you know what? Screw it, whatever. I went to the gym, I came back from the gym. It was in my room. I propped my phone up on the dresser, whatever, with a book, you know?

And I did one take and I sent one take of this other role. And hours later, my phone's blowing up and my agent's like, dude, not only did they love your read, but they also think you might be right for Shazam, which they have not cast yet. And I'm in therapy, finishing up, wrapping up this therapy. I'm like, what is happening right now?

And so then I had to explain, like, they were like, you got to get on a plane. You got to come back to LA. I was like, I'm not getting on a plane and coming back to LA. I still have a week of like the follow-up, like homework, like all of this stuff. Like I'd done the...

bulk of the therapy i needed to do but they were still they do give you tools to sail away yes and i was already picking up these tools along the way but still it's like you wanted to have that last week of like saying your goodbyes and getting the last bits i'm like dude i can't i'm in fact part of the reason why i'm here is because of that industry i can't just go do that and he's like okay i get it let me go talk to let me go talk to warner brothers and he comes back and he says okay um

Would you do a camera test? But like we can do it through basically iPads through Skype.

So from therapy on Monday, then I had a conversation with the director of the weekend. I explained the situation. I was like, I can't put myself on tape reading these scenes. I can't do this with my with my psychiatrist. Who's going to read off of me? Yes. With Beth. Yes. Uh, Beth actually probably could have done it, but again, you want, you know, and I'm like, I don't know.

So we decided we're going to do this Skype, you know, video camera test through, through the iPads. I did that on Monday, Monday evening rolls around phones blowing up. What dude it's between you and another guy. If you don't come, he's going to get it. If you do come, there's a really good chance that you might get this role. And I went downstairs. It was, it was Monday evening.

I went downstairs and there was Beth, Beth in the book. That's her name in the book.

Yes. And Beth happened to be working that evening shift. And I go, Beth, I, don't know what to do here because I can't tell if this is God, like this is, this is the fruit of having done the work that I needed to do and God calling me into this. Or if this is the darkness.

We've got a prime role for you. You know, like whatever. I'm like, what is happening? This is a big decision. It is. It's huge. And so I go, I go downstairs and I go, I don't know what to do. And she's like, let's pray about it. So we prayed about it and we came, we both came out of that prayer and we looked at each other and we're like, I think I'm supposed to do this.

And not because it was this amazing, feel good, oh, go do Shazam. It was actually because we felt peace. It was just peace. And I think that's what we're all looking for all the time. That's where we know we're on the right path. If you're on a path that is surrounding you in peace, that's a real good side that God is like, I'm right there with you, you know?

Which is not to say that God is not with us when we're not feeling peace, because sometimes that's very much the situation that we're in.

Exactly. Exactly. Your spidey sense is going off. But in this case, it was all about that peace. And so I called my agent and I and also I went to the Heidi who ran the organization. I was like, hey. I need you to go to all of my therapists of which they were myriad. And I need you to make sure that they all sign off that I'm good enough and healthy enough to go and do this.

Because if any of them says no, then I need to listen to that and do whatever I need to do to make sure. And she went to everybody and they all said, you know, check. He's good. You can go. And so I flew to LA. I camera tested on Wednesday, Tuesday, Thursday was off and then Friday I got a phone call and I was Shazam.

It was three scenes. It was one where I saved Mary. She's like walking across the street absentmindedly in a snowplow, almost hits her and kills her and I go save her as, you know, as grown up Billy Shazam. Another one was the one between me and Freddie that you saw in the clip of me. I don't even know how to pee in this thing.

And then I can't remember what the third one was, but you know, they were, they were, they were very much the scenes that were in the movie.

Well, fortunately, with film camera testing and things like that, it's not normally a big peanut gallery of people. You've got the director, you've got whoever's operating the camera, you might have some other technicians, the casting director.

No, the director, for sure. But the casting director, if they're doing their job well, they're bringing in all of these options for the director to see, but at the end of the day, it's the director's choice.

And then obviously the executives getting to watch whatever that camera test is, because that's why they're filming it so they can go show the executives and get approval there, too. Ironically, with network television, although it's I don't know what it is now, but when I was coming up in television, which is the beginning of my career, 98 through 2012, really.

That was way more difficult because with network television, in order to get a role on a show or whatever, you got to go audition for the casting director, then the producers, then you go to the studio executives. And they're literally like you're packed into a room. There's 20 executives sitting in there, arms crossed, being like, all right, monkey, make me laugh, you know?

And then if you pass that, you go to the network and the network is all the network executives and some of the studio executives and the producers and the casting directors. And you're just like, oh, my God. And people. It's horrifying. It is. It is horrifying. It is a traumatic experience.

I think a lot of a lot of it now is done by like people put themselves on tape themselves and they send those those in. But it was fascinating because there were a lot of people who would just crack under the pressure. Great actors that would have been great on set, but they couldn't do that because it's gnarly.

And then there were some people that were really good at doing a network test, but you get them onto a set, they don't know how to build a character. They don't know how to be in a scene. They don't have those particular skill sets. So it was a very interesting process, all of that.

Listen, I had a lot of background doing lots of theater my whole life. And in theater, you are, you know, things are much bigger and broader. And I did musicals and musical comedies and, you know, all kinds of stuff.

Poor unfortunate souls.

That song is in my head nonstop right now. It's a great song. It's amazing. It's a banger.

I mean, so from the time I did the first audition for the other role to the time I was Shazam was one week.

It was one week. My whole life changed in one week. Not just because of, but very much because of the therapy that I went and did, the work I needed to do on myself.

Megan, let me tell you what. When you really commit to doing something in your life, and this has happened multiple times over my life. I might be struggling with something, something I'm screwing around with, cigarettes, booze, girls, whatever it is. And I'm like, these are distracting me from my purpose and my goal.

God does not wait for you to prove it to him after, well, let's see if you hold on to this for six months. Because God knows when you mean it. So if you in that moment be like, I mean this. I'm not going to go pick that up. God's like, oh, okay. Yeah, you do. I got you. And so here come those blessings.

Because at the end of the day, I think that God absolutely has tremendous amounts of gifts and blessings that he wants to bestow upon us. It's not that God is like holding it back because, oh, you know, it God's I don't believe in this God, the taskmaster, you know, naughty and nice list and whatever all that nonsense is. And, you know, holding all of this against us. God's love for us is immense.

And God is looking at us like we would look at our children. who are like, give me the bigger toy. And it's like, well, you can't even hold the little toy. So if you show me, you can hold the little toy. And if you can show me, you can pick up that five pound dumbbell, then I'll give you a 10. And then I can give you a 20.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. And as soon as our child shows that they're responsible enough to level up to whatever this new cool thing would be, driving a car, whatever it is, we want to be able to say, yes. Oh my God. By the way, we're stoked because we see the responsibility growing in them, that they are maturing, that we are maturing.

I think when God looks at us and sees us wanting to mature, God's like, oh, praise. Yes. Because look at all of these other things that I wanted to give you, but I've had to, I couldn't because they would crush you. I think that every gift and every blessing,

comes with power literally the money we're given the resources we're given the relationships that we're given the careers that we're given all of that comes with power gifting blessing comes with power and if we've learned nothing else from spider-man it's with great power comes great responsibility and it's true if you want those gifts then you have to be ready for the power that comes with the responsibility i mean that's

Shazam, that was October of 2017. So I had just moved to Austin, I had just had a breakdown, I just went to therapy, And then this, by the way, I thought my chance of being a superhero were well in the rear view mirror. I was already nearly 40 years old at that point. And I had gotten to play the smaller role in the Thor franchise, but it didn't really do much.

I was like, all right, I guess that was if I got one chip and I was very grateful for that too. Like I got to be in that world, but I was like, I guess that was the chip that I played and Hollywood wasn't banging down my door. So yeah, it was crazy for that to all happen as quickly as it did.

Yeah, I mean, listen, it all depends on who you're talking to. Like, I have been super blessed that I, yes, I continue to go on a tear and continue to work and be working on projects that I am very proud of and grateful to be doing. The, you know, Shazam as a franchise, the first one did pretty well, the second one didn't, right?

So did those, did all of a sudden the magical doors of Hollywood burst open and everyone, you know, I got Spielberg being like, get Zachary Levi on the line. We got an Oscar performance we did in four, like, because that's what he talks like apparently.

See, now look here, Buster. But so, you know, no, those phone calls weren't rolling in.

My dreams continue to be fulfilled every single day.

Well, I mean, because I jokingly... When I got... As you pointed out earlier, I was supporting Bobby Kennedy. Then the miracle in Butler and the bullet that would have changed the history of the world. Speaking of God. Oh, my God. God, yes. And...

But because of that, then I think the humility that started to run in Donald Trump in a way that I don't know that even existed prior to that and him reaching out to Bobby and creating this alliance.

And then I go and I'm like, OK, I guess I'm going to I'm on the Trump train now, you know, one that I was never on prior, but one that I knew I needed to go beyond because of the state of everything and the team that he was collecting. And so Tulsi had reached out to me and was like, hey, I'm doing we're doing this town hall with Bobby.

We had a mutual friend that introduced us, a trainer, like a trainer at the gym that I knew from a gym here in New York who moved to Austin. And I said, hey, would you come and I want to do a workout. She's like, cool. So we do a workout and we're talking about the state of the world. And I'm like, oh, man, that Tulsi Gabbard, I think she's the bee's knees. And she's like, I know Tulsi.

I go train Tulsi sometimes. I go, oh, well, I'd love to meet her someday. Cut to a week later, we're sitting down and we're all having coffee. And I'm telling her, I think you're awesome. I love what you stand for. I love that you have the balls to have been Democrat your entire career, but recognize that the party has been lost.

The values that it once held, a lot of values that I even agree with, have been lost. And you see that those values have transferred over here and you're supporting Trump. I'm like, that's amazing. I love all that. And I share all these same concerns and I want to be able to help in all of this, but I'm not sure what to do because... I'm in Hollywood and that's a wacky thing. She's like, I get it.

And like a week later, I get a text or a week or two. I don't know what it was. And Tulsi says, listen, we're on the campaign trail for Trump. We're on the campaign trail supporting Trump, me and Bobby doing town halls. We would love for you to moderate one of those town halls. And I told her I got to think and pray on this because this is really crossing the Rubicon.

But I did, and I felt peace. Again, I felt peace. I felt peace because I knew that this was more important than saving my career. I think that we too often fall into these paradigms, these thought processes of self-preservation, and it is not good. We need to be wise and we want to survive and we want to live and flourish and all those things.

But we can't merely make decisions off of, well, I hope nothing bad happens to me.

Oh, I did. I thought a lot about that. And I prayed a lot about that. And I knew that I had a child that was, you know, coming in on the way. And because even then my girlfriend and I knew that we were pregnant and I was like, okay, well, What am I doing? What will all this look like down the road? But again, at the end of the day,

First of all, I've known since I was a kid that I was born and called to be a leader. I've known it. And not in weird romantic ways or anything. The world needs help. It needs help. And the only way to go and help the world is to love the world. Nobody hating the world is actually going to make it a better place.

They're just going to start cutting out the things that they don't like or whatever and cutting down the people that they don't like. But I really believe that we have to be able to see it as a whole and be like, okay, what can we do? How can we be effective change? So I already felt that calling on my life. And then when it came to this, I was like, so what am I worried about?

Am I worried if I feel like God is calling me to this? And I did. I was like, I think this is this moment. Cause I was never trying to just like insert myself. I was like, God, if you want me to go and step out in a bigger way, I need you to, I need, you know, give me the call. And the call literally came from Tulsi Gabbard. And, uh, and more than that, I'm very, I very, very much.

And I've been preaching for a long time that I think AI is about to destroy my industry. Yeah. So I was like, so what am I, what am I worried? I know I love Justin Bateman.

And, but I was like, so what am I really afraid of at the end of the day that I'm somehow going to lose jobs in an industry that I already believe is completely falling apart and that won't even be creating jobs for me in a few years anyway. Like, come on. If I lose all of my acting career and I hope I don't. And I, and so far I haven't.

And that's why Bill, I think was going back to the original question. He, because I jokingly said at the town hall, I said, you know, look, I, I, this could make me a pariah and you know, I might be.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. But it was a joke. But a joke knowing full well that who knows? Who knows what the downstream effects would be? But none of that matters. If the world goes off a cliff, what does it matter?

That's why I said on the podcast when I talked to you before, what is it to gain the world but lose your soul in the process, lose our ability to have liberty, freedom, free speech? Like the things that ironically, the people on the other side are all suggesting that Trump is trying to take away, which I'm like, have you, do you understand free speech?

I think a lot of people don't understand free speech, that it actually protects hate speech, stuff that I don't want anyone to say. I don't want any of that to come out of people's mouths. But in order to hold the concept of free speech, we must protect- Yeah, I'm kind of proud that it can, though. Yes, exactly. And what the ACLU used to fight for, which is- Defending the KKK.

Yeah. Yes, because we must hold onto these things. Otherwise, democracy, our republic, it all fails. And so it was like, listen- I'm not even giving up my life for that. Some people have died for that. Many people have died for that. If anything, my career dies, my acting career that I've been blessed enough to do for 25 years, if that's in the cards for me, then okay.

God, if I'm walking with God, God will protect me.

A cleanse and transparency. Like, why anyone? It's very indicative of those who are complicit in the corruption when they are shouting for the rooftops. No transparency. We shouldn't be looking at these things. Look at how he's tearing everything apart. It's like, no, why don't you want to know what's in all of our drugs and food and water and everything? Why don't you want to know that?

By the way, we all deserve to know that. These are our leaders. They're public servants. That is their freaking job. Not to tell us what's good for us and what's right. And, oh, you'll know whatever information you need to know. They seem annoyed that we want to look underneath the hood. They are.

And that's why I think a lot of Americans, even people who didn't vote for Trump, his approval ratings are good because they're like, hey, listen, at least the guy's doing what he said he was going to do. And more than that, these were some of the things I was kind of even secretly hoping he was going to do because damn it, we do deserve to know what's going on. And then that's informed consent.

Then I'll know, okay, that's what's in a vaccine. That's what's in this drug. That's what's in my Froot Loops. That's what's it. Okay, now I know.

Exactly. And we should be getting into... Through the doge of it all. Look, Tulsi, I am so excited for her to be getting into and uncovering all of the secrecy and nonsense and corruption that's been going on in our intelligence agencies. Oh, my God. And everything that's going to be downstream of that. Everything that Bobby's doing with HHS. Oh, my God. Amazing.

Doge is also a very important part of how we get to the bottom of this. But I've been trying to tell people and I, you know, I've been getting Jesse Waters the other night trying to unilaterally talk about how we're losing. Yeah. And the people coming up to me saying, oh, you just want Trump voters. I was like, no, I'm listening.

And I'm like, guys, I was listing. That's like saying, you know, if sugary drinks were being taken away, and I would be like, guys, he doesn't understand. He's losing soda, Diet Coke.

Listen, which I totally understand.

Understood, but... There's a part of me, I don't, when I'm responding to people, I'm actually not, like I'm responding to them, but I'm using it as an opportunity to say something important. So it's really just, seriously, it's like, because there's other people that might be slightly thinking that, but maybe they're not sure and they're looking for clarification.

And if I can go and put that out there, all of a sudden somebody's like, oh, okay. You know what? I was, I saw this thing and I was kind of like, what the heck?

Yeah. And I think that that's all of us leading by example. And again, it's like, it's super easy.

But listen, but listen, but that's, but that I trust me when I tell you that it takes everything in me to not want to just unleash. Right. Cause that's what it does. We're all on the other side of this little keyboard anonymous or not anonymous or whatever it is, but still you're not talking to that person face to face.

No one would ever say the things that they say on Twitter face to face with that person. They wouldn't do it. So I have to really, my ego wants to be like, destroy. And I go, wait a minute, wait a minute, child of God, child of God, child of God, lost misunderstanding, coming at me with vile, calling me a Nazi, whatever it is.

I was like, okay, okay. This person has been programmed to believe these things. They have been lied to by legacy media for far too long. I cannot take my frustration and anger out on someone who is, by the way, not being responsible with their own reaction. But I can see that.

I'll come in with a little wink and rub and speak what is true. And then hopefully that message is not just for them. It's for whoever wants to go see it.

My mom was raised Catholic. Okay. And because of that, rebelled big time.

Look at you.

I think it's the rulers on the knuckles that really scared him away. Listen, I think that, unfortunately, while there are immense amounts of wonderful Catholics who really do love God and love their neighbor and want to do good in this world and have been very positively affected through their relationship with God through the religion of Catholicism.

I am not a fan of organized religion writ large, which is also not to say that I don't see the benefits that came from building civilization, morality, justice, like, you know, these various laws. I understand that. And by the way, even like, And diehard atheists see this, right?

There's a lot of people that have come around and recognized, like, I don't believe in any of that stuff, but I see the positive value that it's brought to society, civilization writ large. I don't know what's going on with the Pope. I don't really keep a lot of tabs. I did see some of this being spoken about.

I'm I'm more concerned with and wondering just how much that role has become influenced by other agenda. I don't know.

There's that housing, et cetera. There's that. There's that. But also, I'm not going to lie.

But I think there's even unfortunately more murky waters, like even when it comes to things like the World Economic Forum and Davos and all of those people.

I know you don't want to have to think about that, but you should think about that. We all need to be aware of what is happening in the larger political game that's being played on the earth right now, globally being played on the earth. I find it

quite uh disconcerting that the pope is about to have a symposium summit about like health and human thriving and inviting people like dr anthony fauci i think that is very and people from the world economic forum and all of this stuff now people can call me a conspiracy theorist and wow you're you know your tinfoil hat's too tight or whatever i don't care guys like

Just go do a little research, dig online, follow the money, do all the things you need to do. There is corruption on the highest level, not just in our country, all around the world. And I don't understand why that would even be going on. I don't understand why the Pope would be like, yeah, you're the people of everything that continues to be revealed.

You're the people that should be coming and having this symposium.

Yeah.

Oh, man. I watched it multiple times. And I've heard him talk about that before, about him being in prayer and petition for 20 years. I mean... I can feel it. I cried when, I mean, I cried when I was filming in Eastern Europe, Eurasia, when the election was happening. I think I even was, when I was talking to you, I was over there or something like that.

And so we were up, you know, hours before the U S was up. And so I was seeing the results, the poll results and stuff like that. And I was just like, wow, I can't believe it. This is actually happening. Like, like they were able to keep all of the potential, you know, things that polls and ballot boxes and everything like legit.

And so, and that's what I was saying to the other day to finally, cause, cause that was one step. And then it's like, okay, but we still got to get Bobby Tulsi, you know, all that. And so the other day I was on a flight home and I'm seeing the confirmation and I just started crying on the plane because I really do – like I know this man. I know him personally and I know that he has the integrity.

And so does Tulsi to go and be a leader that is non-corruptible. There are far too many people, even good people, but it's like you dangle that just little bit of like, oh, I could, I mean, I'm going to do good, but I'm also going to take a little bit. And then that starts with a little bit and there's a little bit of compromise. And then it's a little more compromise and a little more compromise.

And next thing you know, they're not doing any of the good. They're just in, you know, enriching themselves with insider trading or whatever it is that they're doing. And this guy means it. He means it. And. And I absolutely agree with him. I love that even when people saying like, oh, you better get in writing and don't trust that guy. Trump meant it. He meant it.

And that should show everybody too. Like, yes, he's bullish and Trumpy and all of the things, things that I don't like. I get it. I also understand why people have such a hard time voting for somebody like that, because you want, you don't want your leader to, to have certain egotistical aspects about him, put all that down for just a moment and see the things that he is doing.

Well is doing right. Man of his word. That was a hard confirmation. Both of those were hard. Like not only did the Democrats not want it to happen, but even these Rhino Republicans, Mitch McConnell, blah, blah, get that guy out of there as soon as possible. I mean, he's just going to freeze himself out of there anyway, but like, It happened.

And if that's not God at work to help heal this country in this world, I don't know what is.

Praise God.

Like, isn't that what the... Right on. Right on. But isn't that what someone in his position should have always been doing? Yeah. And every one of those regulatory agencies should have always been doing. The FDA should have been on top of all of this instead of just taking handouts from lobbyists.

Yeah, it's a brave new world in the most positive of ways, I hope, I believe. I mean, Lord knows there's still people working in the shadows and the darkness that are trying to derail a lot of these things. So I don't think we're out of the woods just yet. There's still a lot of work to do, right?

We must continue to stay in prayer and petition and believing that something really good is happening right now and do it with empathy. Make sure that people are not being just lost in this shuffle. You know, that is my appeal and I meant it and for all people. But I think that these are things.

that have been long long long overdue long overdue and we deserve it everyone deserves this kind of transparency like light is the best disinfectant like just get in there just look at it all let's have a real coming to jesus moment and we need to do that with all things we need to bring the american public in on a lot of these things that have been secretive and no no no we can't tell them like rip the band-aid off ssri is talking about that openly i mean it's

Well, absolutely. But I think that there's even more effective ways of solving for all of this. And you really got to go to the source. You got to go to the root, right? Why are SSRIs pushed on everybody so much? It's because there's incentive programs. Why are vaccine and the vaccine schedule pushed on children so hard? Because there's incentives.

Why should there be incentives for doctors to push what should just be healthy and natural and good? You shouldn't have to incentivize a doctor to encourage their patients to do something that's been tested and is safe and effective and everything. You just have a doctor say, oh, this is great.

So why are you having to pay them X amount of dollars bonus to make sure if they get 95% of their pediatrician gets 95% of the people in their practice and the children all fully vaxxed up, and then you give them hundreds of thousands of dollars in return? This is not okay. So I think that...

Moreover, I think when it comes to our farming situation, listen... maybe under FDR, incentivizing farmers, getting out of the Great Depression. There was some good that they were trying to do with all of that.

But all that did was led to, it led to like bad capitalism run amok and people in industrial farming and companies like Monsanto creating glyphosate and atrazine and all of these things that are poisoning us, which is why you can eat all the bread you want in Europe and you can't eat any bread in the United States.

What I think, like one of the biggest first things that they can do is if instead of incentivizing farmers to do massive monocropping with industrial fertilizer, instead start incentivizing farmers. And by the way, we must because to incentivize farmers to have regenerative crops. organic farms.

Because our soil is dead. We only have so many more cycles left because the nutrients have all been sucked out of it through all the industrial fertilizing and the tilling for monocropping. It's destroying our environment. So people that want to solve for all of these things, guys, we can help the environment and help the soil and bring down carbon in the environment.

Like all of these things that we just go back to the way we ought to be doing agriculture. And then you don't have to spray it with all the things because there's other, by the way, ways to mitigate pests and whatnot. But also that shouldn't be in a truck going 1500 miles to a grocery store that is not local. Grow it and sell it and eat it. Within a few days.

That's the way it's supposed to be done when we get back to more locally sourced.

But there's ways to even get around that where it's not coming from so far and still grown and more responsible.

Really awesome greenhouses that people can be building up and around various communities. There's a lot that can be done with that. There are greenhouses that people have been building on the rooftops of buildings in Brooklyn and in New York. That's pretty dope.

Go on, get back out there. Go finish your dance.

ultimately a little boy comes out and joins him and has fun it's classic great stuff yeah yeah really proud of this movie i think it's just it's it's very human it's very are people going to the movies again yeah they are i mean listen that's why lionsgate felt confident that this was a good time to release it three years ago when it was supposed to come out right after american underdog it was supposed to come out but you know around valentine's day of 2022 wow

But people hadn't really been coming back to the theater that much and they were like, this is not that big a movie. It'll get crushed, it'll get lost. And so I think they feel very confidently that people are back in theaters enough. And also I just think the timing of the story is now. This is the type of story and the type of movie that people are looking for.

First week of April.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Amazing.

No, not at all. Yeah, that's Maggie. Oh, she's so beautiful.

And she's going to be such a wonderful mom. No, I'm not scared. I... I feel, you know, again, like God's timing is good. It's perfect. It's us that want to fight it and wrestle with it. And it's like, no, no, it can't be this and it can't be that, you know, like Scott in The Unbreakable Boy.

But I'm so grateful that even though I've wanted to be a father since I was a kid, like I've always known it's in my bones, it's in my DNA. And I would have rushed it had I met somebody that it all clicked or whatever. And I wasn't. I was married and very briefly married and divorced. And we did not have children. And we weren't supposed to have children.

And I was supposed to have children at this point in my life after I had done a lot of work on myself so that I could love my child as deeply and as wholly as I could without spilling as much of my own generational trauma onto that child.

We don't know.

No, but also I look at mental illness as a, as I kind of maybe said before, it's mental illness is like dental illness is like any illness. Well, meaning it's a spectrum, right? Like if you're dealing, if you're waking up and you're just like in a funk and you've got some anxiety or some anger or whatever, it's like a little common cold. It's still mental illness.

And you could also need a full-blown root canal, mental root canal, which is what I needed, which is why I ended up going to the therapy that I did. Still mental illness. It's a spectrum, just like physical illness. And so I don't, and I also don't believe that it's something that is ever, that's it. That's done. That's fixed. That's forever.

And the same way that we have to brush and floss our teeth every single day, you got to brush and floss your heart and your mind every single day. You got to maintain it. It's a maintenance. And if you do that and you do it consistently, well, then you don't end up getting these cavities turning into full blown root canals. You can just keep it. In fact, you don't even have to have cavities.

You can wake up every day and be grateful and And even when the things are coming at you, you know, meditate, pray, eat well, sleep well. Guys, I can't. Sleeping is so integral to your mental.

I understand, which is also the reason why, thank God, we've got a night nurse and there's going to be some help. But nonetheless, yes, there will be sleep that is lost, no doubt. I know that's a part of the process, but I'm prepared for it and I can't wait.

All right, Blondie.

Gesundheit. The only person I know that knows anything about this Caped Crusader stuff.

Oh, yeah, yeah. It's crazy, right? What are your superpowers? Superpowers? Dude, I don't even know how to pee in this thing.

Hi. So good to be back. So good to see you in person. I know. Not just in a little square on a screen.

Oh, look at this. This is fancy.

I'm honored. I'm honored.

Yeah, I mean, listen, my goal is always to just make excellence. From the beginning of my career, even as someone who grew up Christian and was conservative in many ways, I would consider myself a libertarian. But I've always had conservative fans and Christian fans. And I've always said I have no intention of being a Christian actor.

I want to be an actor who also happens to be a Christian or who happens to be whatever else those other kind of – indicators are. But with this, with The Unbreakable Boy, with American Underdog, I went after those films.

Yes, the Kurt Warner film. You know, those films resonated with me because they were excellent. I could see it on the page. They were excellently written and the team around them wanted to make them excellently. And I love this story particularly, similar to the Kurt Warner film, American Underdog. It's a true story. It's a real family and their story.

And Scott Lorette, who I play, the father and husband, He wrote a book, The Unbreakable Boy, which this film is based on. And he was very brave and very vulnerable in showing just how not great of a father and husband he was for many years. He was.

And more than that, I mean, you know, he and his wife, Teresa, they they got pregnant on the third date. Like that was a massive curveball. It's like, wow, this is not what I was expecting. Right. But they were like, we're going to see this through. We're going to do this and we'll figure out our relationship as we go. That was hard. That was a curveball.

Simultaneously, during all of this right now, now they're having children in their first son, as you pointed out. has multiple things going on that he's struggling with. One is osteogenesis imperfecta, which is brittle bones disease that they, they find out kind of early on within the first couple of years, that's crazy and a massive curve ball, not what he's expecting.

And then a few years later, he's presenting very atypically and they find out he's on the autistic spectrum.

I think that all of these things are, um, indicative of, even if those aren't specifically the things that we go through or struggle with in our own lives, we're all, we all have these expectations of what we think our life is supposed to be, how it's supposed to look, how it's supposed to unfold.

Scott was already dealing with his own insecurities and unhealed traumas, not really accepting and loving himself. So these things then just pile on, right? We feel like, Oh, Well, clearly I'm screwing up if all of these things, if this is where the universe or God is bringing my way, this is my karma. This is what's happening to me.

And I was really grateful that I got to portray him and really bring it to life in a very authentic way. It's not just rainbows and butterflies and feel good. This movie, this movie has lots of that in it and humor and heart and it's infused with faith.

But it allows the audience to go into the grittiness and darkness and hardship that the human condition brings about, what it means to just be human. And then tackling marriage and parenthood and all of those things.

But I think that these are things that have been long, long, long overdue. Long overdue. And we deserve it. Everyone deserves this kind of transparency. Like, light is the best disinfectant. Like, just get in there. Just look at it all. Let's have a real coming-of-Jesus moment. And we need to do that with all things.

We need to bring the American public in on a lot of these things that have been secretive. And no, no, no, we can't tell them, like, rip the Band-Aid off.

Well, thanks for having us. It's been a long road the last three years of getting to trial. And then of course the two week trial was quite intense. Just got back to Austria on Saturday and my wife and I are still trying to decompress and really understand what just happened. So we're definitely very glad that it's over. We're very happy with the outcome.

It is. And, you know, now that I understand more about the legalities, I understand why they did it. It wasn't a sincere correction or apology. And in fact, when we deposed all of CNN's witnesses, more than a dozen, including their corporate rep, they all retracted their apology. They said that they disagreed with it.

They were never consulted about it, the reporters, the editors, the CNN corporate rep, and that it was made for legal reasons by lawyers. So that was pretty disturbing to hear. And it's a position that they maintained all the way up through trial. We gave them opportunities to you know, say something like we made some mistakes. We could have done better. We could have done more journalism.

We could have used different words, but they didn't, they doubled down all the way up until the very end. And for me, I think that was the most disturbing part was that even faced with this lawsuit and the overwhelming evidence that we had in discovery, they still couldn't say that they made a mistake. And even now you read this, the statement that CNN put out after the, the decision.

They said that they stand behind their brave journalists. And they're proud of it. They're proud of them. And they'll take whatever lessons they can away from this experience. I don't know what that means. But you mentioned, you know, why didn't we settle years ago? This was very important to me to expose what happened. Because if it if it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.

And I think that more often than not, this is the way that mainstream media gets away with it. They settle, they sweep it under the rug, and you never know the details. So, Vel and I were very transparent from the beginning three years ago that we wanted to take this all the way to the end.

And then, of course, we went through the experience with Discovery, and I didn't understand at the beginning how bad it really was. All the internal messages about arranging my funeral, nailing me, the concern from editors saying, this story is 80% emotion, 20% obscure fact, full of holes like Swiss cheese.

And they talked a lot about this internal mechanism called triad, this quality control system. And they tried to make a big deal out of it during the trial that, you know, the story went through that process, and they approved it. To me, that doesn't make it better, it makes it worse. So I'm glad about the outcome. I really hope that it got some visibility.

I know that the media didn't want to talk about the case for the first few years, not because they weren't aware of it, but talking about defamation as a sore subject in American media.

That's right.

That's right, and it's an important distinction. I wasn't running any black market operations. I didn't break any laws. I was providing a very valuable service to companies that needed my help, and they were very happy to have a real option to get their people out of Afghanistan. CNN knew about that. They knew about Audible. They knew about Bloomberg. So they had...

These are large companies that have global access to former SEALs and former Delta Force operators. They have people all over the world. And at the time, I was one of very few that had a real option. So they were happy to be able to pay me. to do this very important and very difficult job. We learned through discovery that CNN never even bothered to try to contact Audible.

Mr. Mark Hart on the stand explained that he just didn't think it made any sense that Audible would be interested in rescuing people from Afghanistan, but he didn't bother to try. He didn't even give them a call. So he had this preconceived narrative for a story about

afghans being exploited by predators uh presumably i had a punchable face so i i i played the role of the villain for his for his fiction um and very very little of it was yeah his theater and they pointed to a few clips that were you know technically correct he had um screenshots of correspondence from me quoting prices but the way that they laid it out in the in the clip made it look like i was charging afghans

these fees and made it sound like I was a criminal. So two pretty big errors that I don't think were covered up by the fact that they did accurately quote a few prices that I put out there. And again, just looking through discovery from start to finish the way that it was, it was about black markets and extortion from the beginning before they even had a story before the investigation.

And that's just, that happens to be exactly where he ended up two weeks later before going to air. Um, two hours before I told him that a lot of the stuff he was about to say was, was not correct. And I would need some time to provide thoughtful comment. He just ignored it and they went on the air.

Under two hours. And there were there were a lot of questions in there that would have required careful consideration, including my former affiliation with the Central Intelligence Agency. I would have had to reach out to some people and get some guidance on how to answer that when confronted by a reporter so that he didn't pump the brakes.

You know, we we can tell through discovery that he didn't want to pause the story. It wasn't hot news. It wasn't time sensitive. And he was upset that I wrote back. He said, when I actually responded to him, he said, effing Jung just texted. So...

I feel like a total failure. I've had some time now to try to recover. I've been in psychotherapy. I've been put on medication. Multiple medications. Initially on antidepressants. Wasn't enough. Still couldn't sleep. Still can't sleep. They'll have panic attacks, so they had to put me on stronger medication and put on stronger medicine for sleep and panic attacks. They all have side effects.

I don't have the energy that I had before. It's affected our intimacy.

It's hard to explain unless you've actually gone through it. You know, there was the professional damage that CNN caused, but that was not nearly as severe as the impact that this has had on my family, my wife, my mom.

not being able to tell them that things are going to be okay, that I can recover from this, that it's not as bad as it sounds, because, you know, as it turned out, it was a lot worse than I thought when I first saw the video. How so?

Well, it's not good for anyone to be labeled a criminal all over the world on CNN, right? But for me in particular, with my very, very small group of professionals, professional contacts, it's nuclear. It's radioactive. Eric Prince is another one of my contacts. I wouldn't expect Eric to be able to or want to work with someone who has that label attached to them. My contacts work for

Defense contractors, they work for governments and they care about reputations. They have human resources departments. So if they're bringing me forward for work or project and someone Googles my name, you know, prior to this outcome anyway, this is what they find. It's human trafficking, black market operator, and no company is going to take that risk.

And I wouldn't expect anyone to put their name next to mine. And that was the devastating impact that it had over a three-year period. People used to come to me for important work. And the outcome, the immediate outcome of this broadcast was no one would take my calls. That has improved somewhat since the lawsuit. We have had some media.

And I'm hoping that now that we have a jury verdict and my name has been officially and legally cleared and CNN has been exposed for making up lies about me. I'm hoping that that has some mitigating effect, but we'll see what the future holds.

Neither did CNN, because we asked all of their witnesses, more than a dozen, how much I should have charged, how much it should cost to evacuate someone from a failed state or a war zone. And nobody had any idea. And a few of them, including Mark Hart, said any amount of money would be too much, anything north of zero.

So while it may be defensible as a matter of opinion, the term exorbitant, I can tell you in the world of defense contracting, 100% margin in a place like Afghanistan, even during the best of times, is not unusual at all.

That's right. And it's misleading if you read it in a vacuum, $75,000 for a vehicle. It's not This isn't Uber. There's a lot of operational planning and work and precision that goes into an emergency evacuation from a place like Afghanistan after the Taliban took over. So there was a lot baked into it.

And I never had any issue sensitizing clients like Bloomberg and Audible with real security professionals working for them. They understood this. They came primarily from the special operations backgrounds and It's something we didn't really need to discuss. They got it. But when a CNN reporter sees the number 75,000 for transportation, they thought it seemed excessive. And it was interesting.

We learned through discovery, they got all of my pricing and all of my profits. I think it was about a 65% margin on average that I was charging clients who were happy to pay. CNN's margins are about 40%. or what they do, just as a basis for comparison. Interesting. It's nowhere near as dangerous. No, not very dangerous. Creating fiction from your studio in Washington, D.C.

But according to CNN, my prices were exorbitant.

I do. I certainly do, and I apologize to you for that.

No, I didn't. Um, And, you know, Bell reminded me frequently throughout the trial that that was always an option, that CNN was ready to talk. But as I mentioned earlier, that wasn't my motivation for doing this for the last three years. I really wanted to expose what happened. I didn't want CNN to be able to just sweep it under the rug with a settlement and an NDA and never be held accountable.

So I wanted to take it to the jury for a decision, and that's what we got. It wasn't without risk. Juries are notoriously... impossible to predict. But that was a risk that I was willing to take and that Bell was supportive of. And I think a lot of lawyers probably wouldn't have been.

You know, he invested three years of his time in his firm's time, not just him, but we had probably about nine attorneys on the case. So the the amount of work that was put into this over a three year period is is astonishing. So VELV always had my back and was comfortable taking it to the very end. So it was the perfect combination for us, and I'm very happy with the outcome.

And I'm also relieved that we don't have to spend two more years in a peel.

I wasn't surprised at all. I mean, just looking at the facts, I don't know how they could have come to any other conclusion about defamation per se, defamation by implication, and malice. I don't know how you could show more actual and express malice. So I wasn't surprised with the outcome at all, but, you know,

It's definitely been very taxing going through this process for three years, going through the trial. And I knew that CNN, you know, I felt like they probably had enough and I hoped that they had learned their lesson. Now that I've had some time to reflect over the past two days, I'm not sure they did when I saw the statement that they made that they still stand behind their brave journalists.

When I consider the fact that Alexander Markhardt was promoted to chief national security correspondents during this lawsuit promoted, if that's how they handle making a mistake of this magnitude, I can't say that they learned any mistake from it. But at least I feel like I've done my part to expose it. I know Vel did his part. And what happens from this point on is really up to the media.

And if they want to do the right thing and take an honest look in the mirror and realize that there is room for improvement, that this isn't something that should happen ever to anyone, whether it's to a politician or a normal person like me. It's not something that should ever happen, and it doesn't need to. So I hope that that's the outcome that it has, but our progress is done in this.

As you said, it's confidential, but I feel like I've been vindicated. We got the jury verdict. We accomplished everything that we wanted to accomplish. And I didn't see the point of dragging it along for two more years in appeal. I felt like We had already achieved victory, and I really was looking forward to just getting on with my life.

It was actually a filet from the hotel, probably the same thing that I had for most nights that I was there. Limited option. I sleep a lot better.

I do. The last few nights especially. Didn't sleep much during the trial, but not as little as Vel. He was pulling all-nighters several nights out of the two-week period. I don't know how he did it. I've never seen anyone be able to perform that. under such conditions.

I'm hoping that I can recover from it professionally. I've had a lot of outreach the last few days, especially people, former colleagues that I haven't heard from in many years, three years to be exact, that had watched the trial and are aware of the outcome. So I'm hoping that I can get back to doing what I what I like to do. But it's it's still too early to tell. It's only been a week.

I do. I spend a lot of time with Misha. We went on a long rollerblading around the city today, this morning.

In Vienna, Austria.

She's still with me. She's been through all of this with me. So she's very happy to have it over with and We're still trying to figure out what life is going to look like after this.

Thank you. Thank you for having us all the best.