IT IT

shares that the story of Billy Batson and his superheroic adult alter ego have been his one constant. “It’s weird because I haven’t done anything else in between. I did Shazam! and then [the sequel] straight after—and yeah, there was the Covid break—but it feels like it’s just continued on.”

After years spent crafting the sequel and living through a pandemic,

Playing Shazam means a lot to Levi, who appreciates the rare gift that it is to get to return to a character for a second outing on the big screen. “If you’re an actor, you’re always dreaming that you’re doing movies that are good enough that the studio says, ‘We’re going to make more.’ I’ve never been the lead of a franchise that’s doing well enough to be able to do that. So it’s a crazy dream come true to have the job, to begin with. Now we get to make more,” he says. “What’s even cooler is—and I don’t say this lightly—I saw a screening of the movie a couple of weeks ago. I think we’ve made a better movie the second time. I don’t know a lot of people that can say that.”

It’s a huge statement, especially coming from the star of said movie, which has garnered a passionate fanbase. Levi is aware of that and is effusive about the original Shazam! and its fans. “I think we made a really good first movie. I think that’s evidenced in the people’s response to it, how it’s landed, and how it has been received. I’m so grateful and proud of that movie.”

So what’s so special about that sequel? “I think we were, all of us actors, just syncing up our relationships and our characters,” he says. “The story is fantastic! [Screenwriter] Henry Gayden knocked it out of the park both times. David F. Sandberg, our incredible director! We all had more runway. We had more money. We had more time. We were able to make something really f***ing good.” and are now dealing with full-blown teenagehood and having the powers of Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury. “They grow up really fast,” Sandberg laughs. “It’s crazy looking back at the first one now, and it’s like, ‘Wow, they were so tiny.’ Now they’re little adults. We leaned into it because we can’t pretend it’s the day after the first movie, you know?”

Both Billy and his superpowered siblings have grown up since Shazam!

For Levi, that meant aging up his performance while still keeping the youthfulness that’s key to his hero. “The biggest thing I wanted to do was just make sure that I was attempting to behave in a way that was still obviously much younger than I am but still a little older than what Asher and I had to accomplish together in the first one.” Going into Shazam! Fury of the Gods, it was that relationship that helped Levi work out how to craft a (slightly) more mature Shazam.

“I’d just try to take my cues off of Asher and be like, ‘Okay, where’s he at in his life right now?’ He’s playing a version of himself in a lot of ways,” Levi shares. The actor also studied this generation of teens to perfect just how to bring his adolescent adult to life. “Where is our culture now? What is the attitude? What do people think is cool and not cool right now if they’re 17?”

Fury of the Gods finds our hero at a crossroads, about to age out of the foster system where he found his family and trying to work out who he is in the world of DC heroes. “This movie’s very much about Billy as he’s trying to figure out what his place in