Ep 238 | Zachary Levi Gets Real About Suicide, God & Being a Dad | The Glenn Beck Podcast

Summary

Episode 238 Summary: Zachary Levi Opens Up on Mental Health, Forgiveness, and the Future of AI on The Glenn Beck Podcast

Released on December 14, 2024, Episode 238 of "The Glenn Beck Program" features a candid and heartfelt conversation with actor Zachary Levi. The discussion delves deep into personal struggles, the importance of mental health, forgiveness, political corruption, the rising threat of artificial intelligence, and the transformative power of parenting.

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1. Introduction

Glenn Beck welcomes Zachary Levi, highlighting his multifaceted career as an actor known for roles in Shazam, Chuck, and Tangled, as well as his work as an author. Beck sets the stage for an in-depth conversation about Levi's personal vulnerabilities beyond his Hollywood persona.

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2. On Celebrity and Personal Struggles ([03:17] – [05:01])

Zachary Levi reflects on his place among esteemed actors like Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt, acknowledging their wisdom and integrity.

Zachary Levi ([05:01]): "I really believe that we are called to love every single soul, that we are all children of God, even the people that are acting like complete imbeciles or hatefully or whatever."

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3. Mental Health and Overcoming Suicidal Thoughts ([05:01] – [20:14])

Levi opens up about his battle with mental health issues, detailing a severe mental breakdown triggered by moving to Austin to pursue a vision of creating a new kind of movie studio. He candidly discusses his suicidal ideation, influenced by his mother's suicide and personal traumas.

Zachary Levi ([13:19]): "Suicidal. Suicidal."

Zachary Levi ([15:19]): "I think that's part of the problem in helping people to understand self-love, which is there's a stark difference between narcissism and loving yourself."

Levi emphasizes the transformative power of therapy, which helped him recognize his lack of self-love and the destructive self-talk rooted in his childhood experiences.

Zachary Levi ([15:19]): "Self-love is recognizing that no matter what you do... you are worthy of that love."

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4. The Power of Forgiveness and Understanding ([19:03] – [27:09])

The conversation shifts to the concept of forgiveness, both towards oneself and others. Levi shares powerful anecdotes about individuals who have found forgiveness despite enduring horrific circumstances, highlighting the strength it takes to see the humanity in others.

Zachary Levi ([25:57]): "You can both have mercy and understanding with the bad doer and still hold them entirely accountable for everything that they have done and are doing."

Levi advocates for a justice system that balances accountability with rehabilitation, arguing that empathy can coexist with holding individuals responsible for their actions.

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5. Political Corruption and Media Division ([27:10] – [46:03])

Beck and Levi critique the current state of American politics and media, discussing how a corrupt administrative state and biased media contribute to societal division. They express concern over the manipulation of public discourse, leading to an "us versus them" mentality.

Zachary Levi ([41:03]): "We're all going to interact with [AI] and we're not gonna talk about it. It's terrifying."

Levi stresses the importance of transparency and accountability in government to restore trust and unity among citizens.

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6. The Impact of AI on Society ([48:17] – [61:38])

Levi and Beck explore the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence and its potential to disrupt industries and the workforce dramatically. They predict significant societal changes, including massive layoffs and the transformation of creative industries, as AI becomes more integrated into everyday life.

Zachary Levi ([59:02]): "We're on the precipice of massive layoffs. Like, massive layoffs."

Levi foresees a future where AI could render traditional roles obsolete, urging proactive measures to address these impending challenges.

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7. Marriage, Parenting, and Breaking Generational Trauma ([63:17] – [75:46])

The discussion turns personal as Levi shares his journey towards fatherhood, reflecting on his past fears of becoming an older dad and his determination to break the cycle of generational trauma.

Glenn Beck ([64:17]): "There is nothing more that will challenge you than being a parent."

Levi speaks passionately about his non-profit, NerdHQ, aimed at funding therapy for those who cannot afford it, emphasizing the critical role of mental health support in healing and personal growth.

Zachary Levi ([72:23]): "If we can help heal everybody's hearts and minds, if we can do that as parents... we can also help other people in whatever their journeys are."

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8. Zachary Levi's Mental Health Advocacy and NerdHQ ([72:23] – [75:46])

Levi elaborates on his commitment to mental health advocacy through NerdHQ, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to destigmatizing mental illness and providing financial assistance for therapy. He recounts his successful efforts with Operation Smile, raising millions for cleft palate surgeries, and his shift towards focusing on mental health as a pressing societal need.

Zachary Levi ([74:29]): "Mental health is like dental health. We've all got a cavity here or there... and you want to go address that as soon as possible."

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9. Conclusion

The episode wraps up with mutual appreciation between Beck and Levi, reinforcing the themes of personal responsibility, the importance of mental health, and the need for societal change. Levi expresses gratitude for the opportunity to share his story and advocate for mental health support.

Glenn Beck ([76:01]): "Just a reminder, I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend so it can be discovered by other people."

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Zachary Levi ([05:01]): "I really believe that we are called to love every single soul, that we are all children of God..."

• Zachary Levi ([15:19]): "Self-love is recognizing that no matter what you do... you are worthy of that love."

• Zachary Levi ([25:57]): "You can both have mercy and understanding with the bad doer and still hold them entirely accountable..."

• Zachary Levi ([59:02]): "We're on the precipice of massive layoffs. Like, massive layoffs."

• Zachary Levi ([72:23]): "If we can help heal everybody's hearts and minds, if we can do that as parents..."

• Zachary Levi ([74:29]): "Mental health is like dental health. We've all got a cavity here or there..."

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Key Takeaways:

• Mental Health is Crucial: Personal stories highlight the importance of addressing mental health and seeking therapy.

• Forgiveness and Empathy: Understanding and forgiving others does not negate holding them accountable.

• Political and Media Critique: Corruption and biased media contribute to societal divisions that need addressing.

• AI's Future Impact: Rapid AI advancements pose significant challenges for the workforce and societal structures.

• Parenting as Transformation: Embracing parenthood can be a powerful means to break generational trauma and foster personal growth.

• Advocacy for Mental Health Support: Initiatives like NerdHQ are vital in making mental health services accessible to all.

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This episode offers a profound exploration of personal resilience, societal challenges, and the enduring quest for a better, more compassionate world.

Transcript

[Glenn Beck]

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[Zachary Levi]

Gift bowl at the Johnson's house.

[Glenn Beck]

They're unwrapping it and wow. Tommy John, Tommy John pajamas. These could go on, right? No. Yes, Peter, With Tommy John you are the go goat, greatest gifter of all time. What were you thinking? Owe it all to Tommy John with their best pair you'll ever wear or its free guarantee they're the real MVP. Hurry to TommyJohn.com Spotify for last minute gifts and save 40% site wide. See site for details I was thinking the other day that somebody asked me, glenn, who is it that you want to talk to that you haven't had access to because of your political stance or whatever and you know, like Hollywood people. And I, that list used to be very long and I went, Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Zach Levi. There might have been two others, but I don't even know who they were. I mean, I had to think for a long time and I don't know if that's true. Those are just the people that seem like they have something to say. Interesting. That's not necessarily about politics.

[Zachary Levi]

Sure.

[Glenn Beck]

And when I read, when I read anything on social media about you, the number of people who say, you saved my life, your book saved my life, your experience saved my life, that's what I want to talk about.

[Zachary Levi]

Well, first of all, thank you for having me. Also, that's a really wonderful list to be on with two incredible human beings. I don't know Denzel personally, but I am a massive fan of his and how he's carried himself throughout his life and his career. And I agree. I think that man is so deep and so full of wisdom and has been so consistent in being able to bring that forth, you know, through his various interviews and stuff. Like just really, really.

[Glenn Beck]

And just not just being wise. Yeah, just being wise.

[Zachary Levi]

Absolutely.

[Glenn Beck]

Yeah.

[Zachary Levi]

And fair and all of that. But I think that kind of comes with wisdom. And listen, I know Chris. We've been friends for many years. I rarely, barely ever see him. He's very, very busy and I've been blessed as well to be busy. But I can attest that he is a really incredible human being and genuinely cares, genuinely cares about his family, his friends, every cast that he is, the lead of every crew that he is, number One leading. So very grateful to be on a list with those two gentlemen and whoever else might have been on that list before. And, you know, listen, I do think I also see a lot of these messages. I mean, you know, social media is very funny because, as you know, you get. I mean, particularly since I've come out and been more vocal about my stance on various things, politically and otherwise. You know, that comes with a lot of vitriol. It comes with a lot of hate and darkness and toxicity, which is such a bummer because I really love all of those people, too. You know, like, I really do believe that we are called to love every single soul, that we are all children of God, even the people that are acting like complete imbeciles or hatefully or whatever, Right.

[Glenn Beck]

Who hate and want to destroy. They're still my brother.

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah, yeah. You know. Yeah. And I've said this before, but I, you know, but, you know, begs repeating. I think often it's like, you know, when Jesus was talking about, you know, what is it to love those who love you? Well, that's not really love. That's easy, right. But we're being called to love our enemy, pray for our persecutor. I take that very seriously. And so even these people who want to destroy me, and they very much, if given the chance, they might very much do that. Right. I think a lot of people, they puff themselves up online because it's a lot of anonymity, and of course they want to say all these various things. But nonetheless, a lot of that toxicity is, thank God, overwhelmed by a lot of the love and the support and the prayers and the testimony of people that do say things and share with me. Your book saved my life. Your testimony has helped me to live a bolder. Even just coming up politically, there have been a lot of messages of people saying, I was so on the fence, I was so afraid, I didn't want to speak my truth into the world. And because you, with everything to lose, were willing to go and do that, I felt emboldened to be able to go and do that. And so, yeah, it feels great, man. It feels. But more than anything, it's because it feels like I feel like I'm being used by God.

[Glenn Beck]

Right.

[Zachary Levi]

And that if we can always just be in that pocket, wherever God wants us, doing whatever God wants us to do, speaking whatever truth and wisdom and love and light into this world as we can. Like, when you feel that, you know, it's like, oh, I don't ever want to not be in this place.

[Glenn Beck]

I know, yeah. And it's weird. I'm a recovering alcoholic. Insanity runs through my family like a pack of wild elephants.

[Zachary Levi]

I can relate. Yeah.

[Glenn Beck]

Lots of suicide in my family, et cetera, et cetera. And just crashed in the 90s. Just lost everything. Lost my family. Lost. I couldn't look a person in the eye that would actually believe me because I was an alcoholic. I had lied to him about everything important for a long time. And in trying to destroy my career at that same time, I admitted all of this stuff on the air and I turned my mic off and I said to my producer, who's still my producer, mark this down in your calendar. This is the day Glenn Beck destroyed his career. The opposite happened because. And it is so amazing. God will take the worst of you. And all of a sudden, if you're willing to just say, I was this. I had the darkest. Whatever it is, everybody's hiding a piece of that in themselves and they all feel alone.

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah.

[Glenn Beck]

You know?

[Zachary Levi]

Oh, absolutely.

[Glenn Beck]

So when. When you come out, you know, is this around the time of Shazam? Isn't it?

[Zachary Levi]

When.

[Glenn Beck]

When you were really crashing?

[Zachary Levi]

Oh, yeah, well, yeah. No, I mean, literally right before I booked that job, I. I moved out to Austin seven years ago with a head full of steam and dreams and this vision that God put on my heart. 25 years ago, it was, I guess, you know, 25 minus 7. So do the math. I don't know, 18 years ago at that point, but to buy a bunch of land to build basically a new United Artist type of movie studio that's also a living community kind of resort situation, because, you know, I just. Having worked in the industry for all those years, it's also so broken. It's so broken. You know, I mean, it's just so, so broken. It's so inhumane. And it's not about making excellent anything. It's just commoditizing art and artists and squeezing every cent out of every single one of the creators. And it's just a broken system. And so I really felt like God was like, you're gonna. We gotta go make. God is going to make a better Hollywood, and I get to be a part of doing whatever that is right? And I just felt this. And I still feel it. I'm still convicted to do it, and I'm still working on it. But I moved out to Austin. I sold my house in la, like, just like, I'm done. This is it. We gotta go. Not realizing how much of myself I was running away from, not realizing I was a Very unhappy person at that time. I hadn't accessed that yet. I hadn't understood it yet. So then you make big, brash decisions. I go and I buy the 75 acres out in a city that I'm not from, that I barely know anyone in. I'm totally alone, and I have a complete mental breakdown.

[Glenn Beck]

Because you're left with your thoughts and yourself.

[Zachary Levi]

Well, and also, I didn't know at the time, but I had been on an Adderall prescription, and I was a pack a day smoker, by the way.

[Glenn Beck]

Oh, wow.

[Zachary Levi]

So I didn't understand, really, only in the last few years that people like Andrew Huberman and others really broken down, like, how hormones really kind of work in our bodies. Specifically dopamine. What I didn't realize at the time was, so I moved out to Austin, and I was like, new me, new life. I don't want my Adderall prescription anymore. I'm gonna quit drinking. I'm gonna quit smoking. A pack a day. And I didn't realize. I had no idea that I was about to fall into a dopamine spiral. Death spiral. And so that coupled with all of my deep, unhealed traumas throughout my life that I had never really done any work on. Cause I didn't understand how.

[Glenn Beck]

But wait, wait. My mom committed suicide when I was, you know, 14 years old, whatever. And I said up until I was 30, 35. I'm fine. Yeah, I'm fine. And I actually thought I was.

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah.

[Glenn Beck]

So did you just didn't know how to work on it, or did you think, oh, I don't have to. I'm fine.

[Zachary Levi]

I didn't know how to work on it because I didn't even know that I had to work on it.

[Glenn Beck]

Right. Okay. Okay. Yeah. That's where I was.

[Zachary Levi]

No, I was completely. I think most people. I think most people are still struggling with not even really recognizing everything that's there.

[Glenn Beck]

Yes.

[Zachary Levi]

Once you do, it's almost impossible to not have to start working on it. Because it's glaring. It's right in your face.

[Glenn Beck]

It's terrifying.

[Zachary Levi]

It is terrifying.

[Glenn Beck]

Because you think once you start thinking about all this stuff, you're like, I don't know that there's anything good in there. I don't know.

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah.

[Glenn Beck]

That's all I know is this.

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah. And you are afraid. I was afraid. Well, so I had this breakdown again. Didn't understand at all, really, what was going on. I just was in a complete darkness. Didn't want to live, didn't know why. Thank God.

[Glenn Beck]

Suicidal Suicidal.

[Zachary Levi]

Oh. And that wasn't the first time in my life. I had had other stretches of time where I had absolutely considered. I always tell people, like, if suicide is a 10 rung ladder and the last rung is where you actually do it. I got up to rung nine. Me too, a few times in my life, you know, and it's scary. And thank God I had just enough other things in my life to not do that. In this particular instance, my nephew, first nephew had just been born. He was about a year old. And I kept thinking, if I kill myself, my younger sister will never recover. Who is the mother of this child and who is. You know, I'm very close to both my sisters, but my younger sister, I think, you know, she was my assistant for many years. We were always kind of, you know, a little bit of Bobbsey twins. But I knew that my younger sister and my older sister, they would never recover. And that child's life would be forever altered in such a horrible way.

[Glenn Beck]

Yes.

[Zachary Levi]

And then I would be. I would then be passing on this generational trauma in a completely different way, but very similar way. And he would be so negatively affected. And that was really the only thing that was keeping me, me from killing myself. Fortunately, my younger sister and my older sister and my family and friends that loved me and believed in me surrounded me just enough. And my younger sister found this really incredible life saving therapy that I went to. It was like three weeks in Connecticut where I was just doing so many different modalities of therapy. And it was really a life changing, life saving experience. But one of the biggest things I learned in all of that was that I didn't love myself. I had never even really understood what, what the concept of self love was. I think that for years people talk about, oh, do you love yourself? And again, like you thought? I thought, you know, it's like, yeah, yeah, I'm good. You know, I go out, I play ball with my friends, I do this, I do that.

[Glenn Beck]

Like, and also, it's also seemingly a little like I'm not that self centered. Yeah. What do you, what do you.

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah, yeah.

[Glenn Beck]

Love myself. Get over it.

[Zachary Levi]

Exactly.

[Glenn Beck]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Zachary Levi]

And that is, unfortunately, I think that's part of the problem in helping to people to understand self love, which is there's a stark difference between narcissism and loving yourself. Narcissism. What's that?

[Glenn Beck]

Give it to me.

[Zachary Levi]

Well, I mean, essentially, and I know that you know this, but, you know, narcissism is thinking that literally the world revolves around you. That everyone should be doing essentially what you think they should be doing. And if they're not doing it that way, then they're fucking idiots or whatever. And, and you have every license to operate however you want to manipulate anybody that you need to in order to get what you need. Because it's a dog eat dog world, whatever. And yeah, this is it. And narcissists are very good at rationalizing all of that as loving themselves. Whereas self love is to, I believe, boiling it down as best we can. It's recognizing that no matter what you do, no matter where you're from or where you're going or anything in between, you are a beloved child of God. You are an extension of God and God's love and therefore you are worthy of that love. And then it's a matter of really trying to impress that upon yourself because the darkness is full of the lies that want to contradict that and say no, no, you did this and you did that and da da da da da da da. And you're like, oh. And not realizing by the way that most all of our self talk until we heal it. A lot of us, we grew up with childhoods and homes that were not the best. They were abusive, they were psychologically abusive, physically abuse.

[Glenn Beck]

I think there's some family, I mean I don't know, there's great families, but I think there's some families like I always thought even though my mom killed herself, she was an alcoholic, my dad was, it was a problem, I still thought it was okay, you know. And I think there are some people that live in. But you there people don't understand the power of words.

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah.

[Glenn Beck]

You know, as a father, I've said things to my daughters. They're going to run out of the room crying and I'll be like what the hell did I just say? You know, you know what I mean? Because I'm just inept with girls, but.

[Zachary Levi]

Well, clearly not if you've actually had two of them.

[Glenn Beck]

I have three of them and I had two wives, so. Okay, well there you go. Anyway, you don't realize the marks that are left on people. And you also don't realize how sometimes things that you said were interpreted because of where they are. And so they carry that around forever. Yeah.

[Zachary Levi]

And our parents. And this is one of the other big things I had to really come to the conclusion of. Or really the revelation of which was that, well actually hold on, go back. The self talk that is constantly convicting us and lying to us and telling us we're worthless and horrible and a piece of shit and all that stuff that is directly linked to the voices of our parents and the ways that they would reprimand us and the ways that they would chastise us and the way that they would critique us. If you grew up in a really loving family that's full of encouragement and not judgment, your self talk growing up is exponentially better just from the jump. Right. You can still have bad self talk based in your own kind of thoughts, based on what you do, but at.

[Glenn Beck]

Least you have a grown great foundation.

[Zachary Levi]

Exactly. But a lot of us never had that. I would actually venture to say, unfortunately, most of us didn't have that. Right. But coming to the realization that that also doesn't make our parents the bad guy, because they were doing the best they could at the time with the tools that they had. Right?

[Glenn Beck]

Yes.

[Zachary Levi]

And so that was one of the other big revelations I got in this therapy because I didn't actively sit around in the same way. I didn't actively sit around thinking ill of myself. I was fine. I didn't actively sit thinking ill of my mother or my stepfather or my dad or any of those people that had a part to play in the various kind of, you know, whatever traumas that I've experienced. So I didn't think that I had this unresolved anger or hate with my mother. And boy, was I wrong. It was all just kind of suppressed and whatever because I was still holding onto this idea that she should have known better. She is this person that abused me and did a lot, by the way. And she was also an alcoholic psychologically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it. When having these therapists telling me like, zach, you know, you need to lighten up on yourself. Like, you beat the shit out of yourself. Like, listen to the way you talk to yourself. Would you talk to anybody else that way that you loved? And I was like, no. And they go, well, then why do you talk to yourself that way? And that was a massive deal. And then so they're like, so you gotta forgive yourself. You have to recognize that you were doing the best that you could at any given moment in your life. Right. Which it is. It's so hard, but it's so true.

[Glenn Beck]

Yes.

[Zachary Levi]

And it's the beginning of this process. But one of the things that just hit me like a ton of bricks was, well, in the algebra of it, if it's true that I myself am worthy of forgiving myself because I was doing the best that I could, that means everyone is worthy of that forgiveness because everyone is doing the best that they could. And that destroyed me in the best of ways because I wept for my mom. I wept this woman who. I just saw her as her five year old self and the trauma that she experienced as a young girl and she could have gone off to be so many different versions of herself, but because of the programming and the environment and all of that, she ended up being the woman that she was. And I have to forgive her for that because that's not her fault. In the same way that, by the way, using an extreme, because I think extremes are, are good for kind of, you know, explaining points. But, you know, any one of us could agree that someone who straps bombs to their chest and goes into a market and kills innocent women and children and people like, that's a horrendous, villainous, monstrous act.

[Glenn Beck]

Right?

[Zachary Levi]

But that person, by and large, these people that do that, they think they're doing the holiest of things. They're not twisting their mustache.

[Glenn Beck]

I have often thought, because I've seen the propaganda that is pumped from the very beginning with, with Hamas, with the kids, where, I mean, for little kids, just this poison.

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah.

[Glenn Beck]

And I've often thought if, if, if I grew up that way.

[Zachary Levi]

Yes.

[Glenn Beck]

Would I have been different? There's this great. I got a. One of the guys who was in Vietnam and he was in the Hanoi Hilton. His wife gave me all of his notes and everything from that time to preserve. And he writes about forgiveness. They're pulling his arms out of his sockets every day for like seven years and he's writing, don't hate the person. You don't know. If you were in their shoes and you had their life. And I'm thinking, this guy is a giant. That's who I want to be when I grow up. You know, it's amazing.

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah. And there's a lot of really powerful examples of that. I did a film called the Mauritanian and it was a true story about this guy who was ultimately, you know, cleared of this accusation, but that he was involved in the 911 thing and they put him in Guantanamo and they tortured him and they did all the things that they did to him. And he in all of that found forgiveness for those American soldiers that were again, caught up in this culture that they were fed of. Like, these are the villains and these are the monsters and these are the bad guys and we gotta humiliate them and we gotta do this, that and the other thing. Look what they did. And he found forgiveness. Another great example. What's his name, L.A. louie, there was a movie called Not Unbreakable.

[Glenn Beck]

Yeah, yeah.

[Zachary Levi]

You know what I'm talking about.

[Glenn Beck]

It was World War II.

[Zachary Levi]

True story. I mean, that guy's story is insane. They got lost at sea. That he survived that long and then gets picked up by the Japanese and then he's put into one of their internment camps and tortured and all of these things. And for him to find the forgiveness in his heart transformed by God, obviously, like it's so powerful, but it's something that we have to remember. It's so easy for us to want to froth at the mouth to go get justice. We want Justin, we want to go get these people. But we have, if we're willing to at least take a moment and just look at someone and see the five year old in them that had all the promise to go anywhere in the world. But then they had those parents and that community and that society and whatever it was that they were raised in, which then guided them into those decision making, into that decision making. That's where the beginnings of grace and mercy and forgiveness and empathy, you know.

[Glenn Beck]

So I can guarantee you that there is somebody watching right now and going, you too. Oh, you're so soft. You'll just let. And I've been struggling with, blessed are the peacemakers. Because I've been saying when we were really, you know, we're at each other's throats and I hope that we can get past all this and we've turned a page a bit. But I had people call me and say, no, no, stand up. And I said, wait a minute. Being a peacemaker doesn't. Being a peacemaker means you're standing up peacefully, but you're going to say things that are true and stand for the truth. There's no peace in your life. Martin Luther King was a peacemaker. There was no peace in his life. Abraham Lincoln, no peace in his life. So it's not weak. It doesn't mean that you, you see the five year old and go, well, then, you know, they murdered that person.

[Zachary Levi]

No, no, no, no. I think this is on. This is one of the unfortunate kind of. And it's not a paradox, but I think people find it to be and they have a hard time wrapping their head around it. You can both have mercy and understanding with the bad doer and still hold them entirely accountable for everything that they have done and are doing. And we ought to.

[Glenn Beck]

Yes.

[Zachary Levi]

I don't think that just because somebody murders someone or if someone murders someone and we look in their past and we see that they were abused sexually, physically. You know, they. Somebody put a gun in their hand as a gang member at 13 and forced them to kill somebody. Like, who knows all the ways that people are twisted in these ways. None of that absolves them from their most recent murder. It doesn't excuse it. It just explains it. And we ought to be willing to go down the route of explanation so that we can have that mercy and still hold them accountable. Because I will say that when we just look at murderers as nothing but monsters, then we put them in a penal system that is only making them more monstrous as opposed to one that holds them accountable, incarcerates them whatever it needs to. And it doesn't mean, like, give them a resort. I'm not saying any of that. But there's ways to do it where you're actually rehabilitating them through love.

[Glenn Beck]

It's why we don't, in our justice system, have the victim pronounce the sentence. You know, I mean, we know what I mean. We look at people whose family have been horribly abused and killed and whatever, and we always. Look, I think the Amish have it down. You know, they have it done in.

[Zachary Levi]

A lot of ways.

[Glenn Beck]

In a lot of ways. But, you know, they can forgive a murderer of their children and go comfort his wife within hours. Their children's bodies are still in the school. Oh, my gosh. That's who we should strive to be. Yeah, but that's a tall order. We're a long way from that. But it's a good. It's kind of like the Declaration of Independence. We hold these things to be self. We've never been that country, but we've had flashes of it. And we're constantly trying. And that is such a huge motto or mission statement that, you know, we may never get there, but we should always be. Always strive, strive. And getting closer all the time.

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah, yeah, listen. I mean, there's so many confounding factors in all of this. I do believe that the legacy media has played such a nefarious part in dividing us, in pumping out rhetoric that is not just divisive, but very toxic. And so. And by the way, on both sides, too. I mean, I don't think that's. It's just exclusively on one side or the other, but that has created this. There's the good guys and the bad guys. And so it's not just right, you know, it's not just okay, but it's good to hate those people. It's good to hate Orange Man, He's Hitler. And therefore everyone who supports him must be a Nazi. Like, this is crazy talk, right? It's super crazy talking. And that's the kind of stuff that we're having to fight against. To me, trying to just explain to people or having conversations like this where we're talking about fundamentals is the only way that we're gonna ultimately get there and rec. And again, so much of it is tied into mental health. I think Jesus was so, you know, tapped into understanding these concepts obviously, because he's like, well, okay, you want to ye who is without sin, throw the first cast the first stone. Like, that's a real uno reverse card. That's like, yeah, go for it, but have you everything? You know? And it really gave people this check in their spirit. One of many things that he talked about. But I will say though, that I think part of it is also trying to help people redefine or find a better definition for certain terms that they don't that I think are a little confusing sometimes. Love is one of those words when I talk about, like, I love everybody and I believe that we're all called to love everyone. Most people go like, that's bullshit. Like, you can't do that. You don't like everybody. And it's like, no, no, you're right, I don't like everybody. But love and like, are not the same thing.

[Glenn Beck]

Exactly right.

[Zachary Levi]

Like, love is not graduated exponential love or exponential like, right? And one of the best definitions I've ever heard, Thomas Aquinas. But I think it goes all the way back to like Aristotle or whatever or something like that. But to love is to will the good of the other, which means you don't have to like them, you don't have to have her spend time with them. You can actually have lots of firm boundaries with whomever this person is. But you still want the best for their life. This murderer, you want them to be redeemed, you want them to see the light. You, you want them to come to their knees and beg the forgiveness of the family that they have hurt, not sit in court all smug and laughing at that. Right? That's the version of them that we want to hate. But if we can get through that, the only way to get through that is to see them as that child, that five year old child of God that was screwed up and not absolve them of their crime, not say somehow, well, yeah, they had a bad life, so it's okay. No, it's not okay. That act is not okay. But it is very well in our best interest in theirs to want to will their good, to want them to find the light. You know, I think it's.

[Glenn Beck]

I've been talking about this lately because I've struggled to describe exactly that you did so eloquently. Just as a dad, I've been thinking, you know, how we're just separating each other and, well, screw them. If I'm waiting at home for all my children to come home and three of them come and I say, where's your brother? He was just too unreasonable. We didn't even try. We hate him. We hate him. As a father, I would say, wait, wait, wait. You just left him behind. You didn't talk to him, you didn't try to love him enough to help turn his life around, turn his mind around. You just abandoned him. I would be furious with my three kids. And I don't think that's going to be different. On the other side, when we go home to God, I don't think we're going to be able to say, yeah, but they were all Nazis. Yeah, they were voting different than me. Yeah, but you didn't even talk to them. You did nothing and you're leaving your brother behind.

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah, I wonder, I mean, you know, whatever the other side, like, whatever that experience is gonna be, I have a feeling like, yeah, we're not gonna be, we're not gonna be thinking any of that at all because we're gonna be so consumed in the glory of God and we get it everything. And also. Yeah, and I've heard some, a lot of, a lot of like, near death experiences and things, you know, people talk about, you know, I'm hovering above my body, you know, I'm totally at peace. I see the light, I go toward the light. I'm surrounded by love. And then so many people have talked about, there's like a record of your life.

[Glenn Beck]

Yeah.

[Zachary Levi]

And you really do kind of like in an instant you're experiencing everything that you ever did and how you treated others, not how other people treated you, but how you treated others so as to learn from the experience that you had in that life. And so I think, yeah, we'll be far more kind of tied up in all of that stuff, but because of that, because I do believe that we will be accountable for the way in which we carried ourselves. Even more reason to try to find that humility to say, hey, listen, I could be wrong. I could be wrong. And if I can be wrong, that means I have every opportunity to be able to cross this chasm and say, hey, can we Talk. I don't agree with you. I think that everything you stand for is totally wrong.

[Glenn Beck]

But humility is the key. If you say, hey, I want to talk to you, but you're not asking me, I really want to know how you got there. Because I don't, I don't understand it at all. And then if you say something and I'm like, oh, no, I never thought of it that way. Most people want to win right now. They just want to win. My side to win. If you stop talking to each other, I'm saying to you, you have nothing to teach me and there's no growth. But it requires us to actually want to understand. How did you get there? How did this happen? Like the killer? What happened in your life? How did you get to be that guy?

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah.

[Glenn Beck]

More with Zach here in just a second. First, let me tell you. Burgers, ribeyes, surf and turf, tender filets. I don't know about you, but when I start thinking about that, it warms my heart just a little bit. The meats that I get from good ranchers. They are fantastic. And this holiday season they have a gift box for everybody on your list. You shouldn't, should not only visit goodranchers.com but also check out my exclusive box. It is perfect to treat for yourself. It also makes a great gift with my good ranchers box. You can try my picks. Support the show directly. Support American farmers and ranchers all while eating the tastiest all American meat. Remember, visit goodranchers.com use my promo code Glenn, claim your free gift in every box and 25% off. Good ranchers can save you from getting coal in your stocking, but they are here to save your plate from imported meat. Goodranchers.com promo code Glenn, deck your home with blinds.com DIY or let's install.

[Zachary Levi]

Free.

[Glenn Beck]

Design consultation plus free samples and free shipping.

[Zachary Levi]

Head to blinds.com now for up to 45% off select styles plus a free professional measure. Rules and restrictions may apply. And to your point, you know, this is part of the problem. What we're trying to fight against is that even people, you know, I'm obviously, you know, as the world knows now I'm more conservative leaning in my political spectrum. There are people on the conservative side of the political spectrum that I have a lot of respect for that I think are speaking a lot of truth and yet and I, and I think they're good people, right? But the way that they carry themselves and this is echoed also on the left as well. But I'm not gonna even attack that. I'm just. I want to even focus on our side of whatever this is, because on the conservative side, that should be leading by example, there's snark and sarcasm and just this desire to destroy. And because they have, in their minds, been, like, not even worth my time. Not worth my time sitting down with, you know, I don't know, a trans man or a trans woman in no judgment and no hate and no nothing, and just being like, hey, I don't agree. I don't think any of us are born in the wrong body. I don't think that biological men should be in women's sports. I don't think that biological men should be in women's spaces. I think that there's logic and reason to back these things up. But I see you as a human being, and I see that you are scared. So let's take a moment and let's talk about this so that you can be less scared about what we believe is probably the right thing to do. But there is no grace. There is no love. There is no just patience in that, because there is no human being.

[Glenn Beck]

How much of that is trained? I grew up with Bruce Jenner on the Wheaties box. I poured my cereal out of boxes with him on it. When I found out, he felt trapped in his body. And, I mean, it brought me to tears. I'm like, my gosh, all of this time he's feeling that. I'm not going to judge him. I didn't have that experience. I felt bad that he lived his whole life thinking that way. That doesn't mean that I'm going to go take him to the hospital and say, oh, that's a woman, Doc. That's absolutely a woman. No, he's not. He's not. And that's okay.

[Zachary Levi]

Well, and by the way, even Bruce, Caitlyn Jenner, one of the things I love about them, her. I'm actually not sure what their preferred pronouns are, but I'll just call her her because that's how she feels. But she has been very vocally standing up and saying things like, I'm not a woman, and I don't. And I shouldn't be in biological. Biological women's sports. So I have so much respect for that, because that's someone who recognizes this was a yes. That does not give me any right to then force this personal choice of mine into your life in any way, shape, or form. And that is one of the foundational principles of this country. It's like, you should have the Liberty and the right to live your life as an adult, to make decisions in whatever capacity you want. Amen. So long as they are not infringing upon the liberties of anyone else around you. That's how it works. Now we're getting into this. Well, this child believes that they're in the wrong body. And of course there's no programming or any, you know, any of that thing stuff going on, which obviously there is. But this child feels this way. And so we should indulge them in that and we should push that along and we should confirm that they are in fact in the wrong body.

[Glenn Beck]

When we can enlist 8 year olds into the army. When we tell 8 year olds they can drive, they can get tattoos. They can get tattoos. Yeah, yeah, you might. I won't ever go there because I wouldn't have gone there on the other things, but at least you'd have a case. You're saying to me that an 8 or a 12 year old who can't do any of these other things can make the biggest decision of their life that will stop them perhaps from having.

[Zachary Levi]

Children or even having, by the way, or even sexual. Or sex. There's no pleasure, there's no orgasm. And I don't think these kids have any kind because they're not even pubescent. They don't even have any idea that when they turn 16 they're gonna have this thing kick on and they're gonna wanna feel good with it.

[Glenn Beck]

Right.

[Zachary Levi]

And all of a sudden it's like, oh, I don't even have any of those things anymore. Like it is criminal. It's criminal that this stuff is going on. And hopefully, thank God the election went the way that I hoped it would. Me too, and you too. And we have people in office or that are about to go get into office that will hold all of that to more account. Because we need to. And it doesn't mean that we're now going to tell everybody this is the way you need to live your life. It's like, no, no, we just need to. There is common sense that has been thrown out the window and we just, we got to get back to common sense.

[Glenn Beck]

Here's the. We used to. We were a melting pot. Not because you had to conform, but because we believed these things are self evident. And it's a very short list. It's the Bill of Rights. That's what brought us together. Can you agree with me that man has these rights and government should never. Then you and I can disagree on anything.

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah, exactly.

[Glenn Beck]

Anything.

[Zachary Levi]

Exactly.

[Glenn Beck]

But we have to come together on these few things. And nobody's. We're going to disagree on taxes and how you should live your life and God and everything else. What set us apart was we could live as neighbors if we just said, yeah, you have the same rights I have. Nobody has special rights, and the government cannot tell either one of us what to do. The thing that I hope happens, and it's why. I mean, RFK, we've joked about it, but RFK, back in 2004, called for my execution as a trader because I said, I can see the thermometer. I think we should all be green, But I'm not sure the science actually is accurate. That was not good enough for him at the time. And he's a trader. And he actually said to me on my own show, you should be tried as a traitor. And I said, that's constitutional. That's execution. We've joked about it since. He's like, I've changed a lot.

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah, he has.

[Glenn Beck]

He has.

[Zachary Levi]

And how great is that? God gives us that ability to. As we go through our lives, we should all be evolving. We should all be changing. We should all be learning. If you're not learning and growing and changing, you're dead. You're living. Literally, just the walking dead. And.

[Glenn Beck]

Yeah, listen, but I was gonna say what I like about this is Elon Musk is one of the most brilliant men alive today. He's a Thomas Jefferson. Okay. RFK is saying things and believes things that I'm not sure are true, but I'm not sure he's wrong. You know what I mean? He studied his whole life. I'm not hiring an expert to just tell me what's true, but he'll expose what's there. All of the people that are around Donald Trump now. And it wouldn't have happened if he won in 2020.

[Zachary Levi]

I know. I agree.

[Glenn Beck]

Are all people who say this doesn't work. The Constitution works, the Bill of Rights work, but the way we're executing government doesn't work. No one's held accountable, and we have to go back now and go. I don't care if you go to. I want you to go to jail if you broke the law, and I don't care who you are, but if you were pardoned, okay, let's say he pardons everybody involved in Covid. I think that's a mistake, but I want the files exposed so no one can hide. I want to know the truth so we can never repeat these mistakes or at least not for a while.

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah, yeah. And listen. Yeah, I think that. I'm with you. I think that anyone who has been involved in lying to the American people, the people of the world, really, I mean. And I definitely think that the pandemic is full of deception. Full of deception.

[Glenn Beck]

Oh, and knowing evil deception.

[Zachary Levi]

Absolutely.

[Glenn Beck]

Yeah.

[Zachary Levi]

And I want all of those people to be held accountable. But to your point, even more important, even if for some reason those people get pardoned by Biden before he gets out would be very interesting. Like, why are you pardoning somebody that they're not?

[Glenn Beck]

Yeah, I know what's going on.

[Zachary Levi]

Also, how is he even allowed to be making any of these decisions if he was already deemed unfit to rerun as president? I don't understand. But anyway. But even more important is that the light is shown and that everything is revealed. Because without that, even if there's not prosecution of these various ringleaders, if we don't all know the truth, then we all can't come back together as people.

[Glenn Beck]

Correct.

[Zachary Levi]

Right now, because I've made some statements about my thoughts on the vaccine and that I do believe that they are linked to turbo cancers. And a friend of mine was a victim of that. I've been dragged for that. People have like, how dare you even insinuate that this is something that he did to himself? And I was like, first of all, I'm not blaming him. My friend, who I did Broadway with, he was a wonderful human being. And I believe that he trusted his bosses who trusted the government. Yes, those. That is who we must hold accountable. And if we don't ever get to the bottom of all of this, or rather we are getting. This is the ironic thing, we're actually getting to the bottom of it, but it's just not being reported. It's not being really shown. But if you, for anybody watching right now, go and Google SV40. Simian virus 40. I don't know if you're familiar with this. No.

[Glenn Beck]

Monkey virus 40.

[Zachary Levi]

Simian virus 40.

[Glenn Beck]

Okay.

[Zachary Levi]

Simian virus 40 was basically, with any inoculations, vaccines right there. There's DNA and things involved. And the original polio vaccine they were developing, they put simian virus 40 into that vaccine. I can't remember the name of the doctor, but he very famously, in front of an auditorium, he injected two of his grandchildren with this vaccine to prove its safety. His granddaughter died of cancer within like six months. His grandson ended up getting so sick that he lost limbs. I mean, it was horrible. The government has known and the pharmaceutical industry has known that SV40 as a DNA creates these cancers creates turbo cancers. It's very well documented. And for some reason Pfizer decided to use it as its vector of DNA in its vaccines to then replicate the rna.

[Glenn Beck]

Oh my gosh.

[Zachary Levi]

Oh yeah, dude, it's. I mean, you know, and again, people would look at me and they go conspiracy theorist and blah, blah, blah. It's like, you know what, fine, if you don't want to go and just simply Google and do and listen. Sometimes it's difficult because there's so much stuff out there. Correct.

[Glenn Beck]

But go to the original source. There's so much original source stuff out there. I mean, we were eight months into Covid and I did a, I think it was like a two day special showing. No, wait, here's the document that, where they're talking about all this stuff. Here's the document from Pfizer that's saying all this stuff and people choose not to believe. And it's. You can only deny the truth for so long before everything caves in on you.

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah, well, it's cognitive dissonance. I mean, it's very difficult for people. And I understand this, we all struggle with this on some level. But, but it's very difficult to hold two seemingly very oppositional viewpoints in tension together. And in this case it's, I can both live a happy, healthy life. I can work, I can have a family, I can go on vacations, I can do all of these things and I'm good and I'm safe and all of that. And also there is so much corruption at the top of our government and various industries that they absolutely know that they are harming us and making money off of that. These are both true things in my opinion. And I think for a lot of people, they're like, no, cannot believe that, will not believe that. Because if I believe that, it would shatter a lot of what they are pinning their happiness on.

[Glenn Beck]

That's what I was talking about when I said you're afraid to look inside because you don't know what's there. You're afraid to shatter this life because it's all, you know. You know, if you recognize this stuff, a lot of this is going to change in your life. And that's terrifying. People don't like change and that terrifies them. And so they build up this. I'm not even going to look at it. At best they'll say it's too big, I can't do anything about it. I don't care. Well, you do, actually. You're just protecting this because you're human. And you're afraid it's okay.

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah. When it comes to therapy, I think we're definitely terrified of the change that will come through because we have, you know, we think we like ourselves and like, I don't want to lose all the good parts of me. When I went to therapy, I was definitely afraid that somehow, yeah, I'm going to have to let go of all that is good about me.

[Glenn Beck]

And your good parts get better.

[Zachary Levi]

Exactly, exactly. It just amplifies the better version of you and you get to kind of just strip away all of this baggage and all of these things that have been holding you back and slowing you down and putting you in bad moods because you don't realize you're being triggered by a trauma that you didn't even realize you had.

[Glenn Beck]

Right.

[Zachary Levi]

And so therapy can be so amazing and life changing and life saving and yes, to your point, the same. When it comes to these like big concepts in the world, it's like, no, I have an idea of who I am and what the world is and I don't want that to change. It's terrifying to go down that road and allow it to. And so, so that's why we need it all exposed.

[Glenn Beck]

I used to be flag waving Uncle Sam. I hate Uncle Sam. He's wearing striped pants for a reason. He should be in jail. He should not be trusted. But I used to love all of that stuff. And I remember reading a book, probably 2003, and I stopped about a chapter in, and I thought, I have to call the author and talk to him myself to make sure he's sane and he's level headed and he's not a crazy conspiracy guy. Because I knew if I read any more of this, it's going to begin to unravel everything I believe. But instead of it just unraveling everything I believed, it forced me then to say, wow, we did all of these horrible things. How did we also do all of these things? So I came to this place. Where is America a good country or a bad country? The answer is yes, we're both. But we should be learning from this column and pushing this column up instead of just giving up on it.

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah, it's really unfortunate. It's really unfortunate that. It's really unfortunate that the people I think are. That are actually most patriotic about the United States, at least now, are also the ones most willing to recognize how corrupted it is. You know, I mean, my mom, God bless her, I mean, she, she did a lot of good. Even throughout, whatever the traumas and all that were she did a lot of good in bringing me and my sisters up. And one of those things that she and my dad both instilled in us was a healthy level of distrust of the government because they knew. They knew that even for all of the great things that the United States has been, still, is, represents, does in the world, all of those things there is deep, deep, deep, deep, deep corruption and the deep state and all of these things that are pulling strings and coups. I mean, what's happening in Syria right now, it's like.

[Glenn Beck]

I know, it's crazy. What's happening in Ukraine? What's happening in Ukraine?

[Zachary Levi]

We're sending billions of more dollars for what? Well, so that BlackRock and Vanguard and State street and Halliburton and everybody can go destroy it all and then rebuild and own the farmland and own it all, man. And it's right there. It's happening right in front of our face. And so it does. It puts us in a very weird position because it's like, well, I want to be proud of my country and I want to be patriotic, because I really do, and I am. But I think at this point in human history, in American history, to actually want to love your country and be patriotic about it is to want to dismantle what is happening right now.

[Glenn Beck]

That's what our founders said.

[Zachary Levi]

Absolutely.

[Glenn Beck]

That's what our founders said. When you were talking about the guy in Guantanamo, you know, it drove me nuts when what kind of country can say, we don't torture. We do not torture people. Now, I'm going to put you on a ghost plane and send you over to Egypt, who will torture the crap out of you.

[Zachary Levi]

But that wasn't us.

[Glenn Beck]

But that's not us. That's. No, no, that's not us. If you believe that torture is right. I don't. But if you believe that torture is right, we should have that discussion and it should be out. And this is who we are. There is nothing in the shadow over here. This is what we believe. This is how we live big things. That's not that hard.

[Zachary Levi]

No. And more than that, as people that believe in spirituality and energy and morality and as it pertains to all of that, if we or any country, I think, wants to be right, be in alignment with good and God, you cannot be walking in deception. You cannot be walking in these clandestine, you know, oh, putting on this show. But we're doing this thing over here. No. Cannot serve two masters of integrity. We have to be. We have to be transparent. We have to be authentic. If we Feel like we need to do certain things that are going to be difficult things to do in order to protect something that is of extreme value. Liberty, freedom, all of these things. Obviously, you know, it's not always easy. This is not a clean fight all of the time. No, understood. But we have been operating again. And by we.

[Glenn Beck]

The government.

[Zachary Levi]

The government, and not even the full government.

[Glenn Beck]

Right.

[Zachary Levi]

This is actually one of the things that blows my mind. And that I think also kind of keeps everybody confused because I think a lot of people who vote Republican think, well, every Republican is great. And every Democrat, oh my gosh. And every. And people who vote Democrats, that's feel the same way. And I try to talk to everybody and I go, hey, listen, there is a duopoly of power and it is a sect of both Republicans and Democrats that sit at the top of whatever all that pile is. And they influence both of their parties greatly. But a lot of the party under them are not affiliated with. Are not actually a part. They might get manipulated by them, but they're not a part of that corruption.

[Glenn Beck]

And some of them may want to go in there, certainly. But it's this controlling that octopus of the administrative state that no one has voted for. No one knows who they are. That's what's actually happening. The rest, I mean, all the world is but a stage. I've heard that in my mind for the last 10 years. Everything I watch I like. Huh? Oh, yeah, that's what's happening. No arguing, Trump, Biden, Trump Biden, Trump, Biden, or all of these. We're not even talking about the real issues. None of it.

[Zachary Levi]

They've got us all. I mean, it's a really clever scheme. It's brilliant. They just keep us all fighting about things that aren't the actual thing we ought to be really fighting about, which would mean holding them accountable. If we're all distracted talking about trans rights, if we're all distracted talking about dei, we're all distracted talking about whatever. If we're all thinking, oh, this is Democrat versus Republican or conservative versus Liberal, then we're all lost in the game that they want us playing.

[Glenn Beck]

We are not talking about. I am almost out of time and I have something I really want to talk to you about. But if you'll come back, I really want to talk to you about AI. Because, you know, AI, I have been. I've met with Ray Kurzweil several times. You know who he is? Okay, yeah, so. And I think he is. I think he is a genius. And he is scary as Hell, he has enough Evil Scientists in him to scare the bejesus out of me. And I've said that to his face.

[Zachary Levi]

Sure.

[Glenn Beck]

But if we're bogged down on all of these things, we're not talking about what's just in front of us with AI. And it is game changing in the next two years.

[Zachary Levi]

Four years, Two years. Yeah, yeah, Listen, I mean, definitely, I would love to come back and we can talk more about it. But suffice to say, for now. And I really don't like. I'm a. I think a realistic optimist. Like, I don't like to just be dour.

[Glenn Beck]

Yeah, yeah, right.

[Zachary Levi]

And dire about things. But as far as I can tell, we are very close. Within two years, two to five years max of the entire face of this planet being unrecognizable when it comes to how it's going to infiltrate every single industry and workforce. Like, I don't think people realize that we're on the precipice of massive layoffs. Like, massive layoffs.

[Glenn Beck]

Massive. People have no idea that by 2030 there could be 10 people that are actually gathering all of the wealth, making all of the decisions. And the rest of it is a hellscape run by and guarded by AI, where you don't move. Now, that's a horrible thing to think of.

[Zachary Levi]

But we have to.

[Glenn Beck]

But we have to.

[Zachary Levi]

We have to. We cannot go. We cannot do this.

[Glenn Beck]

Yeah, we can't.

[Zachary Levi]

We cannot do this.

[Glenn Beck]

Look, this is a miracle, but it is also destroying humanity. It's destroying our children. We are. We just did the biggest human experiment ever. Just like, here, buy one of these. Have your kids on it. We just. We know now that's not good. And we're about to get something a trillion times more powerful than this could ever be. And we're all gonna interact with it and we're not gonna talk about it. It's terrifying.

[Zachary Levi]

Well, and I will say just before we take off here, but, you know, I do think that the entertainment industry is going to be a canary in the coal mine, because anything that we're recording, audio, video, anything that all goes through a computer and Nvidia graphics are now photorealistic. So I think in just a few years, you'll be able to go to whatever Disney plus and for $10 more per month or whatever it is, you get to go to their creator section and you get to literally type in any of their assets, any character from any movies of anything that Disney owns. So it's like, I want Captain America and Indiana Jones and Flynn Rider from Tangled or whatever it is. And I want them on a, you know, a treasure hunt on Mars that feels like it was directed by Steven Spielberg. Enter. And then you will get a one of one. You will sit at home and you will get a one of one movie that nobody's ever seen and then you can share that with your friends and they'll be making movies and they'll share them with you and all of these things. Well then who goes to movie theaters anymore? Who goes and rents or anything? A human made movie. You don't need to, you won't have to.

[Glenn Beck]

And who actually profits off of that? Disney. Yeah, that's it.

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah, they'll probably be some. I would hope there's still some royalties that go to whoever created any of that particular ip, but who knows what that will ultimately all look like. Right, Right. And again, that's just one example.

[Glenn Beck]

I know, I know.

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah.

[Glenn Beck]

All right. More with Zachary Levi in a second. First, let me tell you about Homestead. This is a film that's out from Angel Studios coming to theaters on December 20th. I think it's really good. I watched it about a week ago. It's what happens to a nation when Los Angeles is devastated in a nuclear attack. It is amazing. It follows an ex Green Beret who joins a prepper compound. It is jam packed with heart pounding tension, moral dilemmas and a story that cuts to the core of what it means to actually survive. It explores the humanity behind the apocalypse. It's going to keep you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. You're going to love it. It's an action movie. It's a love story and a story about community. How we have to lean on each other in times of crisis and chaos. I highly recommend you see it pre order your tickets now and get a chance to win a $300,000 giveaway which includes one Bitcoin fully furnished tiny home from Box House and a custom Polaris OHV by Sparks Motors and everything else you'd need to start your own homestead. You can pre order those [e-mail] beck that's angel.com beck and we'll see you in the theaters this Christmas season.

[Zachary Levi]

This episode is brought to you by Amazon.

[Glenn Beck]

The holidays are here and you know what that means. It's time to get your friends and.

[Zachary Levi]

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[Glenn Beck]

Here'S what I really want to talk to you about, because this is at this season, the holiday season. I wanted to take the journey with you on life's worth living. It's great, but you are going to be a father. Five years ago, what would you have said to you five years ago, you're going to be a dad, it's going to be okay. And would you have believed it?

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah, I think so. I mean, listen, I've cried a lot of tears and spent a lot of time on my knees pleading with God, when will that happen for me, ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be a dad. I've known it and I really do think I always knew I was going to be an actor too. Not just that I wanted to be an actor, which I did, but I knew I was going to be. Like weird things that I think that like, almost like our soul has a mission. Select screen like a video game before it comes down and inhabits our body. And it's like your mission, should you choose to accept it, will be, you're gonna be an actor, you're gonna do this, you're gonna be a dad, right? So it's like in your DNA, you know what you're supposed to be or some of those guideposts. And so I've just always known it and I've always wanted it and I've always been Uncle Zach to all of my friends, kids, and to my actual nephews now. And people my whole life would be like, you're such a, like, you'd be such a great dad. Why aren't you a dad? And I'd be like, it just hasn't been the right time. And I'm. And ultimately I was not the right person and to attract the right person who was at the right point in their life. And now my girlfriend Maggie and I are embarking on this wonderful journey together and I am so pumped to be a dad. But because I always knew it in my DNA, I don't think that I would be surprised had I been able to talk to myself five years ago. But I would have been relieved because I definitely was like, oh, man, I'm 44 now. My dad was 34 when I was born and I remember him being 44 and I was 10 and we would be playing ball, playing catch. And granted, my dad didn't. He wasn't a super athletic guy, didn't really take care of himself all that much. But I remember we'd be playing catch, and I'd get an errant ball by him or something, and then. And he would turn around and kind of go trudge to get the ball. And I would feel horrible. Like, it was. It was a really weird internalized kind of trauma. I felt like I was putting him out. I felt like I was making him work extra hard. And that internalized in me. And I was like, I don't ever want to be an older dad to my younger kids. Yeah. And so I'm already 10 years beyond that. But I've also taken care of myself, and I am, you know, reasonably athletic, and I can't wait to play ball with my kid when I'm now 54. And he's. But I'm just so pumped about it, man. I think that being. And you can speak to this, but I know. I know that. I know that in the same way that everything that we go through in our life, every hardship, anything that is difficult, that is a challenge. It makes us a better version of ourselves. And there is nothing that will challenge you and reward you like being a parent. And I can't wait to become the man I'm supposed to be because of that.

[Glenn Beck]

There is nothing more that will challenge you than being a parent. And I'm 60, and it's weird to be 60, and my youngest is 18. And I regret so much of my life working so hard and being away from my kids, because, unlike you, I didn't always want to be a dad. And I had children and fell in love with my children, but I still was then building my career at the same time, and I specifically made choices. And now, thank God, I'm close to all my children, and we're all close. But now I Wish I had 10, because there's nothing I want more than just to be surrounded by my family. That's when I'm absolutely the happiest, when everybody in the family is home and we're all joking with each other and having fun or talking or whatever it is. That's the meaning of life. That is the meaning of life. So let me ask you one question, because we've had a debate.

[Zachary Levi]

Okay.

[Glenn Beck]

We had a debate on this. You said, I want to get the exact wording right. You said on Bill Maher that you were ready to lock it down with your girlfriend.

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah.

[Glenn Beck]

What does that mean?

[Zachary Levi]

Well, I mean, marry her at some point. I mean.

[Glenn Beck]

Whoa, whoa, wait, wait. Lock it down? Marry her at some point?

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah. What do you mean? Well, listen, I was married very briefly once before and it was a very difficult time in my life, and I learned a lot from that. But it also. I don't know, I think it definitely made me just how getting married legally, technically, all of the things that become intertwined and then the mess that it was to untwine all of that stuff or whatever. Not that I have any intention or desire to do that with Maggie, but also just this concept that the government is involved in your marriage. So all of those things, I just have some apprehension to. But to commit to somebody for the rest of my life and build a family with them, I have no apprehension about. Like, when we first met, I knew. Like, I knew pretty much right away. I was like, I think this is the girl I'm gonna marry and I'm gonna have family with and have kids with. And she felt the same way. But we also didn't feel like it had to be done in that particular order because we trusted each other and we continue to trust each other and we continue to journey down this road together. So, yeah, I don't know. I. Listen, what I don't want to do is like, oh, crap, a shotgun wedding.

[Glenn Beck]

Because she's not suggesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were just debating lock it down. Never heard that before. What does that mean? I'm gonna lock it down. It's why I've always been for gay marriage. I don't really care, and I don't think the government should be involved. I don't care if a tree marries the two people. I don't. I really. Whatever your deal, a Tolkien ends or something like that.

[Zachary Levi]

Lumbering down, you hobbits.

[Glenn Beck]

I pronounce you man and wife, but it doesn't matter. But the commitment. I have to tell you, first wife didn't work out well. I married early. Didn't work out well. Not a good human being. I think we already covered that with me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My wife now it is when it is right and you are. And it does not need a ceremony. When you are like, there is no out for us. There is no out. We believe in eternal marriage forever. We're going to be together. You start to see people, you start to see the other person different. And you're like, okay, okay. If we're gonna be together forever, I gotta tell you, this is driving me nuts.

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah.

[Glenn Beck]

You know what I mean? That's such a great.

[Zachary Levi]

That's iron. Sharpening iron.

[Glenn Beck]

Yeah.

[Zachary Levi]

If we just have a, you know, pull a rip cord anytime we want to. You're never going through the most uncomfortable times you're never getting ground down to become the better you. Yeah, like that's why with a kid, you know, it's forever. It's like that's my responsibility. So they're gonna grind you down. I mean, obviously there's some people that skip out on their kids lives or whatever, that's not a given. But most people, I think, I hope, see that as like, this is my responsibility for the rest of my life. I have got to be investing in this child and giving them some kind of parenting or whatever it is with relationships. It's a lot easier for people to pour that rip cord. But I don't want to do that. I want to know what it means to be my best me. And that requires being in a committed relationship. And I think ultimately there's something about children. If you don't ever have children, there's a level of unlock that you're not getting to because not fur babies. There's nothing else that can replace, oh my God. I have created or adopted this life into my responsibility, into the rest of my life and to infuse and to give them love and give them direction and want. You know, I can't wait. One of the things I can't wait to do is be able to love my children so much that I'm breaking the generational trauma that has come down through my line. You know what I mean?

[Glenn Beck]

Yes.

[Zachary Levi]

Because they deserve that and my parents deserve that and they didn't get it. And I got a half life of that. And now because I've been able to be fortunate and blessed enough to have done the work that I've done on myself and continue to, now I can hand off to my children an even better starting point.

[Glenn Beck]

We have a theory in my family that the abuse on my father's side started because my great great grandfather and great great uncle were in Andersonville, the notorious Civil War prison. And they came, only one came home. And the writings of the sisters and the wife after that he was never the same. And it wasn't good. Somehow or another, and we think that that family trauma started way back then. And that's been my goal my whole life with my kids, is we gotta break this. That's, that's the thing that really stopped me from committing suicide was no, I know what it did to me. Yeah, I'm not doing that. We're breaking this. And it's fantastic, it's powerful. Oh, it's so good, so great.

[Zachary Levi]

And that ultimately with every single life, and this is why mental health to me is the thing I champion the most. I have A Mental Health 501C3 called NerdHQ. NerdHQ.org, go check it out, donate, whatever, explain it. Well, basically it was an event that I did for many years during San Diego Comic Con that was we did celebrity panels and photos and signings and it was all for charity. It was for Operation Smile, who I was an ambassador for that does cleft lip and palate surgeries. And we raised two and a half million dollars over seven years. And we had dance parties every night. It was wonderful, built a wonderful community. I had to shutter that as a for business operation. We never really, we were always like break even. But we raised a lot of money for nonprofit. And I was like, you know what? Right around the time I had my mental breakdown, went to therapy, saved my life. Mental health was like, this is the most important thing I can be fighting for. And I want to turn nerdhq into a 501C3 that is just constantly raising money in every way, shape and form we can to help pay for people's therapy who can't afford it. I think that, you know, for a long time there was so much stigma around mental illness and mental health, that was the barrier of entry. We needed to get people to destigmatize that, to recognize, no, it's good, it's healthy. You want to go and work on yourself, it doesn't make you crazy. Everyone's dealing with it on some level. Mental health is like dental health. We've all got a cavity here or there, right? Hopefully not, but maybe we do. And you want to go address that as soon as possible. If you don't, it festers, it rots, it becomes a full blown root canal later on. I'm trying to help people get to those cavities as soon as they can, and if not, then even if they need a root canal. But the problem is that most people now more and more people are making less and less money. They don't have the extra cash to go blow 200, $250 on a therapy session. And so if I do nothing else in this world, I want to be able to help people heal. If we can help heal everybody's hearts and minds, if we can do that as parents, as fathers of breaking the generational trauma. And then we can also help other people in whatever their journeys are. All that does is keep raising the vibrational energy of this world into more love, into more light. And that is where God wants us to take it. That's what we want to do. So that's what I want to do with NerdHQ. And we're still going to do events and all that stuff to raise money and bring people joy, but the baseline of it all is go and donate. Help us out. We're just going to keep paying for people's therapy. That's what we're going to do.

[Glenn Beck]

What a pleasure.

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah.

[Glenn Beck]

I can check number three off of my list.

[Zachary Levi]

We've got to get you Pratt and Denzel.

[Glenn Beck]

Yeah. Then I guess I'm done.

[Zachary Levi]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Glenn Beck]

Thank you.

[Zachary Levi]

Thank you so much, Glenn. Appreciate it.

[Glenn Beck]

Just a reminder, I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend so it can be discovered by other people.