Zachary Levi Compares ‘Harold and the Purple Crayon’ Challenges to ‘Shazam’ (Exclusive)

Zachary Levi is dishing on his new “Harold and the Purple Crayon” movie, which is based on the beloved children’s book.

“Extra” spoke with Levi, who dished on the physical challenges of his role and how they compared to his superhero gig in “Shazam.”

“Harold and the Purple Crayon” is a “pretty physical movie,” but Zachary noted that “Shazam” was “demanding physically” since he had to gain muscle.

Levi revealed that he’s “literally lost 20 pounds” since playing Shazam, but he feels the “weight” of taking on the role of a beloved character like Harold in the live action movie.

He explained, “It means nobody else gets to do it, like you’ve taken that slot now… so I take it all very seriously.”

Zachary felt connected to Harold with his boundless optimism, saying, “I just felt him. I tend to have a kid in me that I’ve fostered and want to hold on to my whole life. That’s probably why I played Shazam.”

As for how playing Harold was difficult, he explained, “I’m running around, drawing all of these things, you know in three dimensions, in real life, and that was a really interesting challenge. I love using my imagination, but I’ve done plenty of green screen, literally fighting dragons that aren’t really there and whatever. But to be able to imagine, you know, a tandem bike that’s not there and obviously I'm looking at the real thing, what’s about to pop up and I go, ‘Okay, and these are the lines.’ And then I just have to use muscle memory to remember all of the lines of that, all the lines of the plane and all that stuff. So, it was physical in that regard but very different, and that was just a really fun challenge."

Imagination has been in Levi’s life since he was a kid.

Zachary pointed out that his past roles and his love of video games “spurred more and more imagination,” which helped him for “Harold and the Purple Crayon," which instills strong messages about creativity, imagination, optimism, and believing in oneself.

According to Levi, the movie is important to the world right now, explaining, “Purple is a color of unity, it is neither red nor blue. It is bringing people together, politically and otherwise… I think that’s important right now. I think we really need to be leaning into that right now more than ever before.”

Zachary also talked about his upcoming rock-climbing action thriller “Free Fall," which centers on the relationship between a father and daughter.

He shared, “We’re doing last bits of creative editing on the script and getting it all together, but it’s a really cool piece. It’s very simple, it's just a father-daughter, rock-climbing kind of survival movie. That's the backdrop, the rock-climbing. The story's really about their relationship and how they are missing each other and need to find each other again and growing in and of themselves."

He continued, "I've already been doing my rock-climbing training and stuff, which has been a lot of fun, and we're gonna shoot it in New Zealand, which I'm really excited about."