Zachary Levi Saddles Up for ‘Angel and the Badman’ — But Who’s Really the Badman?

Zachary Levi, Meg Fraser, Neal McDonough and director Julio Quintana talk John Wayne, redemption, romance and reinventing a classic Western for a new generation.

What happens when you take a classic John Wayne Western, saddle it up for 2026 and start questioning exactly who deserves to be called the angel — and who deserves to be called the badman?

You get the new “Angel and the Badman.”

And for Zachary Levi, that also means stepping into some mighty big cowboy boots.

Levi takes on the role of Quirt Evans, the gunslinger famously played by John Wayne in the 1947 original. But director Julio Quintana isn’t interested in simply dusting off an old Western and recreating it.

This time, the story is asking some surprisingly contemporary questions about masculinity, redemption, morality and whether love can actually inspire someone to become a better person.

I sat down with Levi, Meg Fraser, Neal McDonough and Quintana to talk about bringing “Angel and the Badman” back to the screen — and whether the labels “angel” and “badman” are really as simple as they sound.

🎥 WATCH: MY ‘ANGEL AND THE BADMAN’ CAST INTERVIEW

Manny the Movie Guy talks with Zachary Levi, Meg Fraser, Neal McDonough and director Julio Quintana about “Angel and the Badman.”

Zachary Levi Steps Into John Wayne’s Boots

Let’s address the cowboy in the room.

John Wayne.

Wayne played Quirt Evans in the original 1947 “Angel and the Badman,” so Levi knew there was some serious Western history attached to the role.

Naturally, I wanted to know whether stepping into The Duke’s mighty boots made him even a little nervous.

But the more interesting question isn’t whether Levi can imitate John Wayne.

It’s what he can do differently.

His Quirt is caught between two identities: the man he has been and the man he might still become.

And that conflict becomes the beating heart beneath all the horses, guns and gorgeous Western landscapes.

Because maybe this isn’t really a movie about a bad man.

Maybe it’s about whether a man who’s done bad things can decide he doesn’t want to be that man anymore.

The Angel Isn’t Here to Save Him

Then there’s Meg Fraser as Penny Jean, the supposed “angel” of the title.

Except she’s much more complicated than that.

And that led us into something I’ve always found fascinating — and occasionally troubling — about romantic stories involving dangerous men:

“I can change him.”

It’s a fantasy movies have been selling us forever.

But there’s a big difference between believing someone is capable of changing and making a woman responsible for changing him.

So I asked Fraser how she makes Penny Jean someone who can see the possibility of goodness in Quirt without turning her into the woman whose job is to save him.

Because ultimately, if Quirt changes, Quirt has to choose it.

And Then There’s Neal McDonough…

Here’s my problem with Neal McDonough:

The man walks onscreen and I immediately think:

Can I trust you?

😂

McDonough plays Laredo, and our conversation led to one of the questions about Westerns that interests me most.

The genre traditionally gave us clearly defined heroes and villains. White hats. Black hats. Good guys. Bad guys.

But real people aren’t nearly that cooperative.

So I asked McDonough:

Is the man who believes he’s absolutely right sometimes more dangerous than the man who already knows he’s bad?

Now that’s where a Western gets interesting.

So Who Is the Angel — and Who Is the Badman?

Director Julio Quintana inherited a title that appears to tell us exactly how we’re supposed to understand these characters.

There’s an angel.

There’s a badman.

Case closed.

Except maybe it isn’t.

Strip away the Western iconography and “Angel and the Badman” becomes a story about people deciding who they want to be — and about the possibility that love doesn’t magically change another person.

It can make that person want to change themselves.

And that’s a very different proposition.

So I asked Quintana whether, by the end of his movie, he wants us questioning which character is really the angel and which is really the badman.

Or whether any of us is completely one or the other.

That’s why revisiting a movie from 1947 can still be worthwhile.

You don’t remake it simply because audiences remember the title.

You find the question buried inside it that still matters today.

And apparently you add horses.

Lots of horses.

Before I let everybody ride off into the sunset, I gave Levi, Fraser, McDonough and Quintana one final challenge:

In one word, why should audiences saddle up for “Angel and the Badman”?

Watch our full interview above to hear their answers.