IN CONVERSATION WITH ZACHARY QUINTO

interview by JANA LETONJA

Zachary Quinto can currently be seen starring as Dr. Oliver Wolf in the highly anticipated series ‘Brilliant Minds’ for NBC. Zachary will also return to Broadway in ‘Cult of Love’ alongside Shailene Woodley and Barbie Ferreira, at the Helen Hayes Theater with the opening night on 12th December.

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Zachary, you’re starring on NBC’s ‘Brilliant Minds’. How did you prepare to portray Dr. Oliver Wolf, a character inspired by the legendary Dr. Oliver Sacks?

Well, the good news is that there is a tremendous amount of source material. Oliver Sacks was not only a renown physician, but also an incredibly accomplished writer, and so I got to read many things that he wrote, including his wonderful memoir called ‘On the Move’, essays, articles and obviously his case studies. It was incredibly helpful to be able to dive into his body of work as a writer and understand his impact.

What drew you to this role, and what is the most challenging or rewarding aspect of embodying such a complex figure?

I think you answered your own question. The complexity of the character is so fascinating, Oliver Sacks, the real life person whom the character is based on. He was just endlessly interesting and so curious and so committed to understanding the human brain and consciousness as much as they possibly could. It was a life long pursuit for him, and I am so inspired by that degree of investment in knowledge, and more important than knowledge is understanding. What's the most challenging part of it? I mean, it's challenging in the sense that making a TV show is hard work, but I enjoy that and I love the people that I work with, and so I don't see it as particularly challenging. It's a very unique situation to be playing a character that is based on a real person, but the character itself is a fictional creation. And so it's actually kind of this wonderful hybrid of being able to draw from the real life of Oliver Sacks, but apply it to the character who is an extension of my imagination and of my collaboration with Michael Grassi, our showrunner, the writers and all the people that work on the show.

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Do you have a personal favorite episode from this season? What can the viewers expect from the remaining episodes?

It's difficult for me to separate them out, especially because now it's quite a few months since we filmed them. So for me, it's like I have favorite memories of the different stories that we told, but I can't say that I have a favorite episode because I enjoyed the culmination of all of them. I think when the season comes to the close, audiences can really expect the stories to get more personal and some major revelations about why Oliver Wolf is the way he is and why he’s become who he’s become. 

You’re also making an exciting return to Broadway in ‘Cult of Love’. What excites you most about this production, and how is it working with the cast? 

Oh, it's an absolute joy. I’ve always loved doing theater, but I particularly love working with such a tight knit company, the friends we’ve become. And I think most exciting is that it's a new American play. Most of my life, theater journey has been classic American plays that are seminole works in many cases, but have been around for many decades. To work on something new and something that's still evolving and emerging from itself as we now perform it for people and share it with the world has been incredibly exciting and special, and I am having an incredible time right now with this experience.

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What makes ‘Cult of Love’ so special amongst all of your stage work? How does it differ or compare?

It's a new play, which I think is really thrilling. I also think there is, as any important play should have, something incredibly universal about the story even though it's told through a very specific lens and through the experience of a very specific group of people. I do think that there is a humanity to it and a seeking about the play that is really universal and really relatable no matter what your background is or what your family looks like, or what your religious beliefs are, political views, or whatever. I think there's something about this play that really strikes a chord and is very human, and that's something that feels really special about it as well.

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Your work spans theater, television, and film, often switching between drama, science fiction, and dark comedy. How do you adapt to such a wide range of genres and mediums?

I just go where the work is interesting and then I figure it out with the people that I'm working with. I've been lucky to be able to do that. I think the fact that I started in theater and trained in the theater prepared me for a wider range of experience. I think it's easier to go from that medium, from the theater to film and television, because it's about making it smaller and internalizing it. If you can fill a theater with your voice and your presence, and you know the role your are playing, then you can certainly fill a TV screen. Like, there's something about the foundation of the technique that I acquired through my training that I feel allows me to move between mediums more easily.

With films like ‘Margin Call’ under your belt as a producer, what drew you to the world of production, and how do you choose which stories to tell?

I started my production company at a time when I recognized that I could have other opportunities, that I could self generate as a result of some of the work that I have been doing. I wanted to take more of a hand in the stories that I'm putting out there, as well as the stories that I'm a part of collaboratively. It's been a real process starting my production company in 2008 and a lot has changed since then. I am sensitive to stories that I feel resonate and ask questions of an audience that I think are worth asking. Also important is understanding where the marketplace is in the business side of it. It's constantly changing, evolving. You know for sure we're in a time of great uncertainty, so I think being adaptable and being able to evolve has been the most important aspect of it for me. 

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How does your experience as a producer influence your approach to acting projects?

I think I have a strong sense of whether or not the producing team behind a project is going to be effective and going to be collaborative. I kind of know how the sausage is made by my experience as a producer and so I think I can see at least generally whether or not there's a cohesive team behind any project that I'm considering as an actor. I also think I have more patience and more understanding for the process, and so I'm able to kind of step into that. I can communicate differently because I know how things unfold generally speaking, and so it just makes me a little bit more aware of the whole village that it takes to make any kind of worthy content.

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With such a diverse and demanding career, how do you stay grounded and find balance in your life?

Meditation. Primarily among other tools and techniques, but my meditation practice is very important to me. In that regard, it keeps me certainly more grounded than I would be otherwise, and I feel like it allows me to maintain a more balanced perspective, more consistency in my personal life and my professional life, and my creative experience as well. I think that's probably the single most effective commitment I've made to my own well-being.

Besides ‘Brilliant Minds’ and ‘Cult of Love’, what can you share with us about your other upcoming projects?

I'm really deeply immersed in ‘Cult of Love’. We have the end of the run in February, and then I'm waiting to find out if there's a future for ‘Brilliant Minds’, so I can't really do much else until I know that. I'm really so deeply fulfilled right now by my work and my life that I really am not at any kind of space of anxiety about it at all. I'm really hopeful we get to keep making ‘Brilliant Minds’, but I've got a lot of other life projects that I am interested in and focused on as well. So, if there's an acting job, great, and if there’s not, than I have plenty of other places to channel my energy so we'll see how it all unfolds.

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TEAM CREDITS:
talent ZACHARY QUINTO
photography WILLIAM FERCHICHI
styling BRIAN MELLER at THE WALL GROUP
grooming JENNY SAUCE at THE WALL GROUP
photography assistant HYNING GAN
styling assistants FIONA GOAD & CARMA FLORES
editor TIMI LETONJA
interview JANA LETONJA
cover design ARTHUR ROELOFFZEN