Zachary Levi grew up loving California.

Then he watched it fall apart around him.

And now the “Chuck” star just delivered a gut-punch verdict on the Golden State that Sacramento Democrats are not going to enjoy.

Levi’s Blunt Verdict On The State He Left Behind

Zachary Levi is not exactly known as a political bomb-thrower. But sit him down next to his “The Fix” co-star Liam Neeson and ask him about home, and the 45-year-old actor does not hold back.

Zachary Levi isn’t holding back about why he packed up and left his home state of California for Texas. In 2017, the actor sold his home in Los Angeles and bought a ranch outside Austin.

And when Fox News Digital caught up with him alongside Neeson to promote his new film, Levi didn’t reach for diplomatic language.

“I grew up in California. I love California. It is a failed state,” he said.

Then he twisted the knife a little further.

“It is literally and figuratively on fire.”

That’s not a line from some anonymous conservative pundit on cable news. That’s a working actor who built his entire career in the California entertainment machine, standing next to another A-lister, saying the state he was raised in has collapsed.

Levi is currently starring opposite Neeson in Guy Moshe’s new action-thriller “The Fix.” The film follows a group of disgraced former CIA operatives, and the story unfolds in the chaotic wake of the 2021 US military withdrawal from Afghanistan before the team embarks on a rogue, high-risk mission in Tehran, seeking both a life-changing score and a chance at personal redemption.

Why He Bought 75 Acres Outside Austin

But Levi’s disgust with California wasn’t just about politics, wildfires, or the cost of living. He’s actually building something to replace the Hollywood system he left behind.

“We look at the regular world around us and we see it burning and we’re like, ‘Can we do this better? I feel like we can do this better,'” Levi said.

That frustration didn’t just push him toward Texas. It pushed him toward a specific piece of Texas.

“So that all culminated in nine years ago, me finding 75 acres outside of Austin, Texas to buy, to develop, to turn into this magical kind of idea. That’s why I left,” he explained.

That idea has a name now. Levi is fulfilling his vision by building Wyldwood Studios, a $100 million film and lifestyle campus on his 75-acre property in Bastrop County outside Austin.

And according to separate reporting, Levi said he had felt compelled by God to create a better version of Hollywood after seeing how broken the industry was, with a vision involving a studio owned and operated by artists, without middlemen, along with a community where people could live and children could attend school.

That’s not a man dabbling in a vacation property. That’s a man building an entire alternative to the industry town he grew up idolizing.

Levi isn’t the first industry name to make this exact move, either. Fox News noted that Taylor Sheridan has taken his own swipe at Los Angeles after building his television empire from Texas, and actress Adrianne Palicki, star of “Friday Night Lights,” has said Texas gave her something Hollywood couldn’t. Even Kirk Cameron got in on the trend, praising Nashville’s values after ditching California over cost of living and politics, according to Fox News Digital’s reporting.

What This Says About The State Of Hollywood And California

None of this is happening in a vacuum. For years now, California has bled residents, small businesses, and yes, even Hollywood names, to states with lower taxes, fewer regulations, and a political culture that doesn’t treat every conservative-leaning American like a threat.

Levi didn’t offer a policy paper on why California collapsed. He didn’t need to. Anyone who’s watched the state’s handling of wildfire prevention, its skyrocketing cost of living, and its one-party rule in Sacramento already knows the story.

But it’s worth noting how blunt his language was. “Failed state” isn’t a phrase actors usually reach for when they’re trying to stay in the good graces of an industry built almost entirely around Los Angeles studios and progressive politics.

And “literally and figuratively on fire” isn’t just a clever turn of phrase from a guy trying to sell a movie. California has spent years watching its hillsides burn while its leadership focused on culture-war priorities instead of basic competence in forest management and infrastructure.

This is also part of a bigger pattern worth watching. Hollywood has spent the better part of a decade lecturing the rest of the country about its values while its own home base crumbles under the weight of homelessness, crime, and regulatory overreach. Levi’s decision to build Wyldwood Studios in Bastrop County isn’t just a real estate story. It’s a statement about where he thinks the entertainment industry’s future actually lives.

Texas has spent years positioning itself as the antidote to California-style governance, with lower taxes, fewer mandates, and a political culture far friendlier to people who don’t toe the progressive line. Every time another recognizable name packs up and heads to the Lone Star State, it reinforces the idea that California’s decline isn’t some right-wing talking point. It’s something even the people who grew up loving the place can see with their own eyes.

Levi says he still loves California. That much is clear from how he phrased it. But love didn’t stop him from leaving, and it isn’t stopping the rest of Hollywood’s quiet migration east, either. Whether Sacramento Democrats ever take note of why is a different question entirely, and one they don’t seem particularly interested in answering.

Sources: Fox News Digital, “Zachary Levi calls California a ‘failed state’ that is ‘literally and figuratively on fire’ after Texas move”; The Objectivist