Zachary Quinto on being Mr Spock
Star Trek’s famous voiceover ponderously declared that the Enterprise and its crew were boldly going where no man (feminism not having reached the 23rd century) had gone before.
In the new movie by Alias/Lost creator JJ Abrams, the stars are going where others have gone before, being the younger incarnations of the original series characters.
And because, like in Lost, Abrams plays fast and loose with time, they actually get to share the screen with one of those pioneering spacemen.
With his thick dark brows, thatch of hair and penetrating, some might say unnerving, gaze, Zachary Quinto, the villain of Heroes, certainly had the right physical credentials to play the half-human half-Vulcan Spock.
He started saying as much when reporters started probing him about future parts and before he knew it the 32-year-old half-Irish half-Italian Pennsylvanian had talked himself into a job.
“It was a sort of unintentional campaign,” he says. “I was doing press for Heroes. A journalist from my hometown newspaper asked me if there was any other role I would be interested in and I mentioned how much I would enjoy playing Spock. The article got syndicated and other journalists started asking me. It all happened very organically.”
Spock’s look is one of the most distinctive in the sci-fi canon, his pointy ears even more iconic than those of Tolkien’s elves.
“It was certainly a momentous occasion when I put the ears on for the first time,” says Quinto. “Once they were on I didn’t know they were there, but it could be tedious because it required me to show up to work two hours before anybody else.
“I didn’t really anticipate how impactful the physical alterations would be. Having no eyebrows (he shaved his own off) and having my hair in this horrible bowl cut really alienated me from myself and other people.
“I think it actually served my relationship to the character because alienation is something he struggles with greatly.”
There were others with whom he could share his pain, notably Leonard Nimoy, who, through the medium of cunning plot devices, returns to play old Spock.
“I first encountered him in an elevator in San Diego when we travelled there to announce I would be playing the role,” recalls Quinto.
“We hadn’t been formally introduced and the elevator went up really slowly, then the doors opened and he just looked at me and said ‘You have no idea what you are in for’ and just walked out. I was like ‘Wait, come back’.”
Quinto might have begun to suspect just how intense the fans’ focus would be when he began filming, and sneak shots of him walking from his trailer to the set were all over the internet by the end of the first day.
After that Abrams insisted he wear a floor length hooded fireman’s jacket and be driven about in a golf cart covered in black tarp.
Nimoy has never successfully managed to shake off his association with the logically minded Vulcan. However, Quinto believes he can sidestep the
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