Zachary Levi is getting (perhaps unfairly) roasted for his strike comments [UPDATED]

[Update 8/4/23 11:55 am]: In a statement given to The A.V. Club, Zachary Levi responded to the clip of his strike remarks circulating on the Internet. “It’s come to my attention that an offhand remark I made in jest last weekend is being taken out of context. So let me be very clear. I fully support my union, the WGA, and the strike. I remain an outspoken critic of the exploitative system that us artists are subject to work in since I started my journey in this business 25 years ago. This strike is necessary to protect ourselves, our writers, and all those working in production who make the industry move,” he says.

“But we also cannot forget our fans during this strike,” the statement continues. “Fans that spend their money and energy traveling far distances to talk with us about our work that means so much to them, we should be able to engage. Our business exists and succeeds because of the fans, and I think it’s imperative we appreciate them for their support of our careers.”

[Original Story]: Zachary Levi has become… shall we say… easy to dunk on. Perhaps it started with his questionable stance about vaccines, which led many to reassess his political views as a whole (Levi has made these pretty publicly available on his social media). Perhaps it’s because he won’t stop defending the Shazam sequel which, while well within his rights, rarely comes across as a good look for an actor. All this to say, it’s no wonder some online denizens jumped at the chance to roast Levi for some recent comments about the SAG-AFTRA strike, apparently made at Manchester Comic-Con last month (per The Hollywood Reporter).

“I’m not allowed to talk about…. This is so dumb. I’m not allowed to talk about any of my previous work,” Levi says in a clip from the event circulating on X (formerly Twitter). “I’m not allowed to talk about movies that I may be a superhero in. I’m not allowed to talk about TV shows that I may have been a nerd who worked at a Best Buy. I’m not allowed to talk about any animated princess movies that I was fantastic in—as the best prince ever! I’m not allowed to talk about those things.”

As we’ve seen time and time again, the unfortunate nature of the Internet is that people tend to pile on even, and perhaps especially, when someone’s thoughts have been taken out of context. Most assumed that Levi was calling the strike rules themselves “dumb”—and perhaps he was. (The A.V. Club has reached out to Levi’s representatives for comment.) However, it’s equally possible that he meant appearing at Comic-Con despite not being able to talk about any of the work that would get him invited to Comic-Con in the first place is the “dumb” part.

Levi has, in fact, expressed explicit support for the strike, sharing his feelings in an Instagram video posted in mid-July. “[The studio executives] do not care about human life, they don’t care about, really, life in general. They care about profits,” he said (via THR). “It’s always profit over people and not the other way around. So mark my words, if we don’t do something drastic right now…we’re doing something very drastic, and we need to be doing this very drastic thing. … We need to be striking, we should have done this years ago.”

As the strike goes on, fans are beginning to smell blood in the water. Accounts like “Scabs of TikTok” are monitoring influencer activity and pouncing when social media stars break strike rules, while higher-profile people like Stephen Amell have gotten resoundingly criticized for expressing contrary opinions about striking. Some of this may indeed be deserved, as solidarity is crucial to a successful strike. But the eagerness of the public to punish union members (and even non-union members) for stepping a toe out of line may also obscure the true obstacle in this situation, which is the studios’ unwillingness to return to the table and broker a fair deal. Hopefully that happens sooner rather than later, so that the entire industry can move forward.