NEW YORK − In his new film “The Unbreakable Boy,” Zachary Levi plays a husband and father of two dealing with life: addiction, marital problems and a child with a rare disease. In real life, the actor and his partner Maggie Keating are expecting their first child together this spring.

“I like to cram for an exam,” Levi, 44, tells USA TODAY of his preparation, or perhaps lack thereof, for fatherhood. “I don’t anticipate it being something that I’m not going to be able to pick right up. I try to see the child in every single human being. I particularly love kids because they’re the best of us.”

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“The Unbreakable Boy” (in theaters Friday) is based on the true story of Scott LeRette (played by Levi in the film). LeRette and his wife Teresa (Meghann Fahy) became pregnant with their first son, Austin (Jacob Laval), after only a handful of dates. To complicate matters, both Teresa and Austin have osteogenesis imperfecta, aka brittle bone disease. Later, Austin is diagnosed with autism. The couple also welcomes a second son, Logan (Gavin Warren).

The story revolves around Austin and his journey as a child with autism, Levi says. “But around that is family: navigating marriage, navigating being a parent, navigating being the parent of a child with autism, loving oneself. Just the human condition.”

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The movie is about “radically accepting the life that you’ve been given,” Levi says. “And when you can surrender to that, the love and the peace and the joy that can flow through (you).”

For Levi’s character, this meant accepting that he was coping with alcohol. In real life, the actor suffered “a complete mental breakdown and went to lifesaving therapy” in 2017. He detailed the journey in his 2022 memoir, “Radical Love.” Levi reveals that for the role, particularly one “come to Jesus” scene with his onscreen parents (Patricia Heaton and Todd Terry), he tried to access the feelings he had of “how hard it was to forgive myself.”

“Where is the fault of it? How far back in generational trauma do you want to go?” he asks hypothetically. “Everyone’s doing the best they can with the tools and information they have at that time.”

Zachary Levi is thankful for ‘dreamy’ ‘Shazam!’ but unsure of his superhero future

Levi is best known for his title roles on TV’s “Chuck” and the “Shazam!” movies. With the DC Universe set to be rebooted by director James Gunn, Levi is unsure of if or where Billy Batson’s alter ego will fit in.

“To get to be my own superhero and wear the Spandex and play such a fun superhero with that element of being a kid inside of an adult … all of that was so dreamy,” Levi recalls. “And that we got to do it twice, twice as dreamy. If I never get to play the role again, then I will be very content with my run. But (reprising) it would be super-fun.

“Hollywood is in a weird place right now. We got nailed by the pandemic. We got nailed by these strikes. I’m just focusing on the things that are coming my way, and hoping to honor those roles.”

Has Zachary Levi’s career been hurt by his political views?

Politics is a subject that Levi doesn’t shy away from. In 2016, he asked his Twitter followers to not vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in the presidential election, claiming “neither actually cares about anything but power.” In 2024, the actor supported Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s candidacy. When Kennedy dropped out and backed Trump, Levi followed, despite potential career repercussions. During an interview on “The Rubin Report,” Levi said his agents cautioned “there will be complications” from his political stance but that they would stand by the actor.

To his knowledge, Levi says, there has been no blowback.

“I’ve tried to maintain at all times that while I may have a difference of opinion, I am still fighting for all of us,” he says. Levi endorsed Trump at a “Team Trump’s Reclaim America Tour” event in Michigan last September. The actor moderated a conversation at the rally with Kennedy and former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. Both now serve in Trump’s cabinet.

“I have no intention of wanting to divide anything any further,” he says. “Part of the problem is that a lot of people are on different ends of a spectrum and they think, ‘Because you’re on the other end of the spectrum, you don’t want what I want.’ The reality is we all kind of want the same thing. We all just think there’s a different way of getting there.”

Would Levi ever enter the political arena himself?

“It’s been very strange the amount of people that have been reaching out to me” and encouraging him to run for office, he says. “I’ve told all of them, ‘That’s not on my bingo card but I am open to whatever God’s got in store for my life.’

“That’s got to be God blowing that door wide open and throwing me through it. Because (politics is) a whole other world of wacko. Hollywood is wacko. But you know, D.C. is a whole other level of that.”