Zachary Quinto as Spock in the 2009 “Star Trek” movie.
By DAVID ROONEY
Published: October 21, 2010
IN a contemporary nightmare on YouTube titled “Zachary Quinto Cannot Escape the Swarm of Fans,” a mob of unrelenting Klingons outside a Hollywood event crowd in on the unnerved Mr. Quinto, shoving cameras and photographs in his face, demanding autographs as he struggles to navigate the two blocks to his car.
Such scenes are an inevitable hazard of the popularity he acquired over three seasons as the power-crazed watchmaker turned serial killer, Sylar, on NBC’s “Heroes” and as the intensely introspective Spock in the J. J. Abrams “Star Trek” reboot.
Yet all that seems a galaxy away as he eats breakfast at an unfancy diner on a quiet Midtown block of 11th Avenue, his only camouflage a baseball cap. When he pays the check, and a waiter shyly admits he’s a fan, Mr. Quinto graciously accepts the compliment before heading around the corner to a full day of rehearsals and a preview performance of “Angels in America.”
New York theater has possibly never been a greater magnet for stars of film and television than in recent seasons, but for a young actor whose career is in the crucial ascent phase, joining the ensemble of an Off Broadway revival seems an unconventional move. However, Mr. Quinto, 33, views “Angels,” the Tony Kushner diptych, as a strategic step in his methodical plan.
“This is hopefully a declaration of my intention to have theater be a much more significant part of my career from this point forward,” he said. “I look at the work that I’ve done so far as an investment to that end.”
Mr. Quinto plays Louis Ironson in the Signature Theater Company’s production of “Angels,” which opens Thursday at the Peter Norton Space. The role is in many ways the most challenging in the two plays, “Millennium Approaches” and “Perestroika.”
Louis abandons his lover, who has AIDS, at his time of greatest need and tends to avoid emotional exposure by hiding behind angry political screeds. Yet Mr. Quinto pierces the sympathetic core of a character tormented by his own failings and by the existential agonies of living in Ronald Reagan’s America.
“As I wrestle with how Louis behaves, and I get to know and understand the character more, I see in so many ways how he really is one of the most human representations in this ensemble,” he said.
One key scene in “Millennium Approaches,” in which Louis disgorges a sprawling coffee-shop rant about democracy, liberalism, tolerance, race, power and human rights is probably the hardest stretch of the two plays for an actor. Mr. Quinto not only makes the speech a spontaneous tirade, he also subtly communicates the Beckettian way in which Louis keeps talking in order to avoid facing his fears.
“He’s a very smart and thoughtful reader of text,” Mr. Kushner said. “He’s been ferociously committed to the thing since the first audition. Zach is a very tough Louis — impassioned and sharply aggressive, with a very intense sensuality.”
Michael Greif, who directed the production, agreed that Mr. Quinto is a natural stage animal. “He starts with the most extraordinary instrument for a stage actor, that incredibly expressive voice,” he said. “But he also has this physical dexterity. He expresses everything fully through his body.”
The integrity Mr. Quinto brings to his roles makes him equally convincing as a frightened lover poisoned by self-loathing, a chilling psychopath or an orphaned alien.
“My point of entry for a lot of characters tends to be their shadow,” he said. “I’m a big believer in the notion that our greatest potential lies in our darkest parts. To a certain extent it’s only in facing those parts of ourselves that we can truly grow, and I think that’s true of all of the characters I’ve played, certainly in the past few years.”
While “Angels” is Mr. Quinto’s first New York stage experience, he regards it as a homecoming. Theater has been part of his life since his childhood in Pittsburgh, providing a refuge when, at the age of 7, he lost his father to cancer. “That was obviously a profound disruption in my upbringing, and theater became a place for me to go where my mother knew I was safe and taken care of,” he said.
An elementary school teacher encouraged him to audition for a performing group affiliated with the Civic Light Opera, and he made his professional debut in 1988 as a Munchkin in “The Wizard of Oz.” (“At that time I hadn’t quite hit my growth spurt,” he said.) His subsequent studies at the School of Drama at Carnegie Mellon University pointed toward the New York stage, but Mr. Quinto opted instead to detour via Los Angeles.
“When I got out of the program at Carnegie, it was such a different climate in the real world,” he said. “I saw how many productions were cast with actors who were on hiatus from TV shows or in between movies, and so I identified the value of making my initial investment in Los Angeles rather than New York.”
During the 11 years since then Mr. Quinto steadily built up his television credits. He graduated from guest roles to playing a counterterrorism computer analyst on “24” and then dispensed quips from beneath boy-band hair as Tori Spelling’s gay buddy on her self-satirizing series “so noTORIous.” His breakout role came in “Heroes” as the coldest of killers, who accumulates superpowers by literally stealing them from the skulls of his victims.
But it was his work as Spock that cemented Mr. Quinto’s reputation as an actor of acute intelligence and charisma. He brought out the Shakespearean dimensions of the “Star Trek” universe, lending weight to the brains-brawn dynamic with Chris Pine’s Kirk and soulful vulnerability to Spock’s blossoming romance with Uhura, played by Zoë Saldana.
“An enormous amount of discussion went into the emotional life of a character who is so often perceived as unemotional,” Mr. Abrams said in a phone interview. “Zachary was the first person we cast, and he appreciated the opportunity to take something so galvanized in public consciousness and say without fear, ‘Let’s do it again our way.’ ”
Mr. Quinto is booked to shoot the “Star Trek” sequel next summer. But he intends to establish a second home in New York while pursuing a diversified career in which film, television and theater will all be part of the equation, along with producing.
Shooting wrapped in July on “Margin Call,” the first feature from his production company, Before the Door Pictures. Mr. Quinto appears in the drama, about the 2008 collapse of the financial institutions, alongside Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Stanley Tucci and Demi Moore.
While Mr. Quinto accepts the occasional fan ambush as part of the movie and television stardom package, he chooses to keep his distance from what he regards as mindless celebrity-gossip culture. “I’m grateful that celebrity or notoriety wasn’t thrust upon me when I was in my 20s, because I think I would have buckled under the weight of it, as so many people do,” he said. “But I’ve come to realize through experience that ultimately I really do have a lot of power in terms of the way I relate to the public or to people outside of my intimate circle of friends and family. Boundaries are very important to me.”
Despite Mr. Quinto’s efforts to keep his private life private, the blogosphere is rife with speculation about his sexuality, no doubt fueled by his support for gay rights and organizations like the Trevor Project. He prefers not to feed that rumor mill with either substantiation or dismissal. He speaks passionately about gay marriage, about “don’t ask, don’t tell” and about the recent wave of gay bullying and suicides.
“The fact that these things are such hot-button issues right now, socially and politically, I would much rather talk about that than talk about who I sleep with,” Mr. Quinto said. “I would love to be a voice in this maelstrom of chaos and obsessive celebrity infatuation that says, ‘Let’s talk about something that matters,’ ” he added.
That sense of social accountability is a quality Mr. Quinto shares with Louis, who rails against the hatred lurking beneath the surface of so-called tolerance. “To return to the theater is one thing,” he said. “But to return to the theater doing a play of this import and resonance — it’s beyond thrilling.”
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