Zachary Quinto

THE BEST VILLAIN ON TV AND THE MOST LOGICAL GUY IN STAR TREK DISCUSSES EVIL, MISTER ROGERS, CARL JUNG, CROSSWORD PUZZLES AND WHY HE'S CALLED REX AT STARBUCKS

Q1

L PLAYBOY: You grew up in Pittsburgh, hometown of Mister Rogers, who famously told kids, "You're okay just the way you ' are." Would he apply that to Heroes' Sylar, the best villain on TV, and want him as a neighbor?

QUIN1O: I don't think Mister Rogers's far-reaching assertion reaches so far as to include maniacally bloodthirsty superpow-ered psychopaths. He was talking to and about children who were struggling with what it means to be fat, dyslexic or myopic. If Sylar were Rogers's neighbor, the Neighborhood of Make-Believe would have a whole different element. I can just imagine Trol­ley being impeded on the tracks by the severed heads of Daniel Striped Tiger or Lady Elaine Fairchilde as he tries to pass by the castle of King Friday and Queen Sara-not a pleasant image.

Q2

PLAYBOY: Is there real evil in the world? quint n Absolutely. I'm a huge fan of Carl Jung. I think shades of the Shadow exist in each individual. If you're not aware and willing to look at that part of yourself, your unconscious, your Shadow, then the shit we don't want to look at manifests itself as dysfunctional relationships, addiction, aggression and bad choices. That adds up and can create personal discord and dis­harmony, which then affect relationships, then society, then the world. Is Dick Cheney aware of his Shadow? I don't think so. I think he believqs in what he's doing That's what's so creepy about It.

PLAYBOY: Must Sylar use only his index finger when opening a brainpan? Didn't his mom teach him it's not polite to point? rjiiiNTo. I can also use the middle finger-and either hand, de­pending on camera angles. The adage for me is, When you point at somebody else, three fingers point back at you.

Q4

PLAYBOY: Did you ever sport a unibrow? What's your eyebrow-care routine?

QUINTO: I lost the unibrow in college when I was preparing to go into the acting marketplace. My eyebrows do require some attention. I had to shave three quarters off each to play Spock. I don't know if they're my favorite feature, but they're certainly my defining characteristic. My older brother and I refer to our­selves as the Brow Brothers sometimes.

Q5

PLAYBOY: We all had to suffer through "Save the cheerleader, save the world." Now it's your turn to fill in the blank. Save the...? QUINTO: Save the bullshit. I don't want it.

QG

PLAYBOY: You sang and danced in high school. Did that make you an object of scorn or praise?

QUINTO: I was always an actor who could also sing or move; I wouldn't say dance so much. In high school the drama program was an after-school, let's-get-together-and-put-on-a-show kind of thing. Since the play was always a musical, that's what I had to do. I also studied acting outside of school. Toward the end of my junior year kids started to realize I had perseverance and had already decided what I wanted to be. Lots of them hadn't even thought about it, and that created unexpected re­spect, which surprised me. It was gratifying.

PLAYBOY: You're half Irish, half Italian. Under which circum­stances does one side win out over the other? QUINTO: The Italian side comes in handy when I lose my temper-/? I lose my temper-because I can blame it on my fiery

roots. I suppose the Irish side comes in handy when I sidle up to a bottle of Jameson, which is not often, [laughs] The Irish side cer­tainly came in handy when I went to Ireland the summer between my junior and senior years in college. I lived in Calway. I waited tables in a coffee shop from eight at night until four in the morn­ing. I did a play there. The people of Ireland are amazing.

Q8

PLAYBOY: So many know you as Sylar, and soon people will know you as the young Spock in the new Star Trek movie. When you go into Starbucks, do you ever feel forced to use a phony coffee name in order to retain whatever shards of anonymity you have left? QUINTO: Sometimes I'll use Rex. It's easy, it's quick. It's three letters, and you can't misspell it. Then I just have to remember the coffee's for me when they shout "Double latte for Rex."

Q9

PLAYBOY: Spock employs the mind meld and neck nerve pinch. When have you wanted to use either in real life? QUINTO: | was in New York recently, in the audience at a few Broadway shows, and I really wanted to bust out the nerve pinch on some people around me, just to put them to sleep and shut them up. As an actor who comes from the theater, I realized I might have inflated ideas of who we do theater for. The disre­gard brought my delusions of grandeur crashing down. I take theater seriously, and I was fascinated and repulsed at people's casual, cavalier attitudes and behaviors in the audience. Open­ing candy packages, screaming and talking in the middle of the show-it was really alarming. I was galled by the nerve.

Q10

PLAYBOY: What about the mind meld? Whom would you choose? QUINTO: With anyone, dead or alive? Carl Jung. The danger with the mind meld is that certain illusions are necessary in life. So if you meld, you have to be prepared for the whole experience because you will get into and see things you wouldn't expect or necessarily desire. You don't want to mind meld with somebody you consider infallible, because invariably you will be disap­pointed. That said, if Barack Obama had any time, I would love to know his experience. Star Trek director J.J. Abrams would also be a good candidate because how do you do what he does and stay as cool as he is?

Q11

PLAYBOY: There are both Spock and Sylar dolls. Do you hide or display yours?

QUINTO: [Clears throat] We, uh, like to call them action figures, by the way. I don't have the Spock figure yet. The Sylar action fig­ure is perched atop the filing cabinet in my office. His head turns, and he has a baseball cap that comes off. You can take off one of his hands and plug in a glass hand. It's just plastic-no light ray is involved. I'll be interested to compare the two figures.

Q12

PLAYBOY: How deep are you into the online slash fiction that cel­ebrates Spock and Kirk as lovers? Does a bromance make sense? QUINTO: I know it exists, but I haven't seen any of it. I under­stand it's written mostly by women, right? Is it the same thing as guys who like to watch the ladies get it on? Heroes, to a cer­tain extent, and Star Trek, obviously, have this mythology that becomes absorbed, mutated and reconsidered. But for me, both the show and the movie are simply and directly about the work. So I spend almost no time concerning myself or even

2© ZACHARYQUINTO

familiarizing myself with the periphery. With Star Trek, that goes for slash fiction or fan reactions or all the online stuff.

Q13

PLAYBOY: In the extremely rare circumstance that Trekkers won't like your turn as Spock, have you already chosen a hiding place? QUINTO: | don't want to sound callous if I say I don't care, but I don't care, [laughs] I feel I brought the character as much heart and respect for Leonard Nimoy and the journey of the franchise as I could. I've done it with regard for them, and that's all I can do.

Q14

PLAYBOY: Have you spent much time with Nimoy? QUINTO: Leonard is actually the same age my father would have been if he were still alive. He died when I was seven. Through getting to know Leonard, I've discovered aspects of myself that I might not have found otherwise-and that I didn't have from a relationship with my father. But the great thing about Leonard is that he's just himself. I'm sure he doesn't think he is somebody to give advice. For me, it's about seeing the sum of his life, really. If I can live a life half as realized as his-well, maybe three quarters as realized and fulfilled—then I would be really happy.

Q15

PLAYBOY: Both Spock and Sylar are brain-centered characters. What physical activities do you do to balance things out? QUINTO: I hike. I run in the spring and summer. I practice anu-sara yoga, a variation on hatha yoga. It's a vinyasa flow series and is unique in that it has a specific set of tenets both physi­cally and spiritually, and they complement one another. Some­times at work I will bust out a move between takes.

Q16

PLAYBOY: We hear you and your Heroes co-star Kristen Bell are crossword-puzzle buddies. Who's better? QUINTO: I really respect Kristen. She's incredibly talented. That said, I don't like to gloat, but I've helped her out a couple of times with some tough clues.

Q17

PLAYBOY: Would you rather be invisible or fly? QUINTO: Invisible, because I hate to wait in line.

Q18 PLAYBOY: Which of the other (concluded on page 96.)

ZACHARYQUINTO

(continued from page 80) Heroes characters would you like to switch places with?

QUINTO: If the question has nothing to do with the actors and is only about the char­acters, then I'd say Greg Grunberg's char­acter, Matt Parkman. It's fascinating not only to understand what people are think­ing but to have some power over it. That would be really fun.

Q19

PLAYBOY: You've been in Hollywood for almost 10 years. What do you know now that you wish you knew when you arrived? QUINTO: I wish I knew not to try so hard. Part of my experience has been realizing that the combination of authenticity and perseverance goes much further than try­ing to give people what you think they want. If I had known that, I would have saved myself some heartache.

Q20

PLAYBOY: Before Heroes you worked a lot in episodic TV, including Six Feet Under, CSI, Charmed and Touched by an Angel. What role would you like to have left on the cutting-room floor? QUINTO: I did an episode of That's Life, which starred Paul Sorvino and Ellen Burstyn. I played a mascot—a chicken. In a pep-rally scene, the lower half of the costume intentionally becomes dis­engaged and falls down. I had on funny boxer shorts. It was humiliating because we had to do it over and over again. After work I went to a dinner party at a friend's house, poured a big glass of wine, settled in and said, "You know what? Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do." Most of that performance probably did end up on the cutting-room floor, but for what it did to me in that moment, I could have done without it.