From "Chuck" to "Chipmunks" - Inscris-toi gratuitement et surfe sans pub !
| TV nerd Zachary Levi squeaks out a role opposite musical rodents. By Brian Truitt Worry? Nervous? Those aren't really words in Zachary Levi's vocabulary. This is the man who coolly aced an audition for the movie Alvin and the "Chipmunks: The Squeakquel" on a lunch break from his day job, starring as the geektastic title super-spy on the NBC action comedy "Chuck." (In fact, he was still wearing Chuck Bartowski's black slacks and spiffy Chuck Taylors when he met with "Chipmunks" director Betty Thomas.) "It is kinda beneficial sometimes when you don't have time to sit and think about stuff," Levi says. "I'm not a big worrier anyway, but it certainly makes for a good story later." The 29-year-old actor's breakthrough came on the small screen with "Chuck" (which begins its third season Jan. 10), but now he's dabbling in big-screen family fare with the "Chipmunks" sequel, in theaters Dec. 23. He plays Toby Seville, the slacker nephew of Jason Lee's Dave Seville who takes care of Alvin, Simon and Theodore as the three musical rodents aim to raise money for their school's music program. His two characters share one of Levi's great loves: video games. He says he wrapped filming on an episode of "Chuck" he directed in November just in time for the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. "I really do love video games more than I probably should, being nearly 30," he says, laughing. "But it's my generation. I grew up with Nintendo and Sega Genesis. It's funny, I got to a place -- I was about 21 or so -- and I was like, 'I've gotta grow up and put the video games down.' And then Xbox came out, and I got sucked right back in again, man." Still, Levi is no couch potato. He owns two motorcycles and lives for "anything that gets your heart going and kind of puts you out of your comfort zone." A trip to Costa Rica with friends a year ago involved racing on all-terrain vehicles, jumping into a water hole in a rain forest and ziplining hundreds of feet in the air. Of course, that's old hat for someone who loves sky diving. "Jumping out of a plane is one of the coolest things," Levi says. As much as he adores being up in the air, Levi remains down to earth. In fact, he says he's a lot like the character "Chuck" and holds him close to his heart, even if that means being a poster boy for geeks. "If you can let people feel like 'It's OK to be me,' it's a fun position to be in and one that I don't take lightly but also quite enjoy," Levi says. "I like being able to represent my fellow nerds." |
