Zachary Quinto was an unknown actor to me until Lepidus, Tacos Rule, my sister, and others told me how much I needed to watch the series Heroes. He plays the psychotic Sylar in Heroes and while the character was supposedly only supposed to be in for a few episodes, the fan reaction to the character ensured that he remained on the show. He talked about how the role changes how people view him as a person, but as an actor, he’s able to divorce himself from the character of Sylar (though he did have one moment in season 2 where his character commits a brutal murder, and Zachary needed to take a break after that).
While fans were clearly hungry for Heroes stuff, there was an equal hunger for the new Star Trek movie, coming out next summer. For those who don’t know, the new J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie features the original TV series crew going back before the TV series time line-wise. Because of his role as Sylar, that opened the door for him to be cast in the role of Spock. Zachary talked about being Spock, but was very careful to not give away one single plot point.
Zachary talked a bit about his theater background and his desire to continue doing some of that work. He wants to do more stuff other than science fiction though. I think something the surprised the audience somewhat is the very real threat of an actor’s strike. Apparently, the studios are currently not ramping up production on stuff not already on the docket due to the potential of a strike. The Internet and digital distribution of works is a sticking point in the union’s craw, just as it was for the writers. He felt that with Hollywood still recovering from the writers strike, he didn’t feel it would survive an actors strike.
I found Zachary’s delivery style to be a bit dull. Do I think he was bored or didn’t want to be there? No. Its just the way he speaks tended to be a bit monotonous to me for some reason. I don’t have to worry about him reading this, because he apparently avoids reading about himself or his projects on the Internet.