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What’s Up, Spock? - Та самая статья

топ 100 блогов asco_31016.10.2011 He might be a famous Vulcan, but Zachary Quinto has no problem being fully human.

By Benjamin Wallace
Published Oct 16, 2011

What’s Up, Spock? - Та самая статья


Last year, when Zachary Quinto was starring in the Signature Theatre’s restaging of Angels in America, he would find himself at Cafe Mogador, near the place where he was staying in the East Village, imagining what it must have been like when, say, fifteen of the 40 people in the place were skeletal and dying. “Doing that play made me realize how lucky I was to be born when I was born and to not have to witness the decimation of an entire generation of amazingly talented and otherwise vital men.” He’s saying this on an Indian-summer morning at a café on West 12th Street, just a few blocks from another of that play’s touchstones, the now-shuttered St. Vincent’s Hospital—a place where many of those men died. Quinto, who had arrived in ambi-­seasonal Silver Lake camouflage—brown wool cap, patterned T-shirt, dark jeans, New Balance trainers, ball-chain necklace, facial scruff, and aviator sunglasses—is in a reflective mood.

Physically, the actor is most recognizable for his boldface em-dash eyebrows, which have been supporting actors in the two roles for which he is best known, his soul-searching, high-fidelity rendition of Spock in J. J. Abrams’s high-velocity rendition of Star Trek and his breakout role as psychopathic killer Sylar in Heroes. In the past two years, Quinto, 34, has been demonstrating his breadth in a series of less Comic-Con-friendly roles. There was his acclaimed stint in Angels as conflicted but self-­involved Louis Ironson, who abandons his AIDS-stricken boyfriend, Prior Walter. His role as intimacy-impaired vegan boyfriend to Anna Faris’s unlucky-in-love singleton in What’s Your Number? was less wrenching to watch.

See Also
More From Quinto's Interview on Vulture

Quinto seems to see himself in transition. He asks if he can record our conversation, for, he explains, “archival purposes … I just find that there’s something about looking back on interviews, whether for purposes of remembering what I said about something or if it’s for posterity when I’m 75 … I find that communication as an actor and person is an important part of who I am … and I’m really drawn into the psychology of those dynamics.”

For one thing, he’s willing to unambiguously talk about his sexual orientation. His eight-month role in Angels was both “the most challenging thing I’ve ever done as an actor and the most rewarding” he says. Having to inhabit that terrible lost world, if only in his mind, took a toll. “And at the same time, as a gay man, it made me feel like there’s still so much work to be done, and there’s still so many things that need to be looked at and addressed.”

Quinto has played a series of gay roles, including on Tori Spelling’s TV show So NoTORIous, and on the new FX series American Horror Story, where he plays the kinky dead owner of the haunted house, and has been outspoken about gay-rights issues. Last year, the Times, in profiling him for Angels, noted that “the blogosphere is rife with speculation about his sexuality” but that “he prefers not to feed the rumor mill with either substantiation or dismissal.” That has changed. A little while later in our conversation, speaking of the cultural bipolarity that can see gay marriage legalized in New York in the same year that yet another gay teenager, Jamey Rodemeyer, was bullied and killed himself, Quinto says, “And again, as a gay man I look at that and say there’s a hopelessness that surrounds it, but as a human being I look at it and say ‘Why? Where’s this disparity coming from, and why can’t we as a culture and society dig deeper to examine that?’ We’re terrified of facing ourselves.”

Quinto, who lives in L.A., came to town to promote his film Margin Call, a ­financial-crisis thriller in which he co-stars alongside Kevin Spacey, Stanley Tucci, and Jeremy Irons and the first feature for his production company, Before the Door Pictures, formed with two school friends from Carnegie Mellon University. With hundreds of protesters camped out in Zuccotti Park under the banner Occupy Wall Street, “the timing couldn’t be more impeccable for us to try to create a dialogue, which is exactly why we made the movie in the first place,” he


As a producer of Margin Call, which wrapped just two days before Angels began rehearsals, Quinto had a hand in everything from casting to raising the $3 million needed to make the independent film. “But my assertion has always been that if you’re going to make a movie about the financial crisis, you should do it in a fiscally responsible way, so I’m glad our budget was low.” For the seventeen-day shoot last June, the cast and crew took over the entire 42nd floor of One Penn Plaza, near Madison Square Garden, which had recently been vacated by a trading firm. To get ready for his role as Peter, a laconically intense young risk analyst who is the first to spot the rot that could bring down the massively overleveraged Wall Street bank where he works, Quinto spent time with analysts at Citibank, observing their work but also spending time with them outside the office. “It allowed me to see the humanity of their job, the ways in which their jobs affect all aspects of their lives. It was a valuable insight to me to see how rigorous that life can be, but also how alienating and lonely.”

While here for the premiere, he’s hoping to go visit the Wall Street protesters (his Margin co-star Penn Badgley has been photographed there). “As a left-leaning Democrat, I feel a sense of resonance with their position,” he says. “But as a citizen of this country, I feel deeply unsettled that people are rising up in movements against each other. It feels like we’re missing the mark … The bottom line is we’re all fucked, and we’re all in this together.” And in fact, though a screening of the movie in Zuccotti Park might seem like a no-brainer, one of the film’s achievements is its avoidance of facile moralizing. “I don’t know that it would satisfy the people down there,” Quinto says. “The point of this movie is not to judge or to vilify or to place blame on any one company or individual. It’s really to examine the emotional impact that the decisions these people had to make along the way had on them.”


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Zachary Quinto on His Financial Crisis Movie Margin Call, Playing the Villain, and Occupy Wall Street

  • 10/16/11 at 08:40 AM
What’s Up, Spock? - Та самая статья Zachary Quinto.

Zachary Quinto.Photo: Patrick McMullan

Playing serial killer Sylar on Heroes and Spock in Star Trek, Zachary Quinto invested two potentially soulless roles with head-turning depth. This week sees the premiere of Margin Call, an independent thriller about the financial crisis that he stars in and co-produced. Benjamin Wallace talked to him about being mistaken for a villain, coming back to the city where he memorably starred in a revival of Angels in America, and the serendipitous timing of a fi-cri movie dropping at the same time as the Occupy Wall Street protest movement.

Do you think you'll pay a visit to Occupy Wall Street while you’re here in New York?
Yeah, for sure. I'm really interested in going to the 9/11 Memorial, which I haven't been to yet since it opened, and I'm really interested in going down to the protests, so I'll probably tie those into one visit at some point this week.

For a role like this role, how did you prepare? Did you meet with some Wall Street guys?
Yeah, I spent a couple afternoons with some guys at Citibank. I spent days on their desks, listening to their conversations, listening in on trading calls, getting to know them, having lunch with them, which was actually the most interesting part of it for me because it allowed me to see a little bit more of the humanity of their job. I think, for me, a real big factor of this film is the exploration of humanity and not so much the reliance on the minutiae or the details of the incredibly complex financial models everybody's working with. For me to be exposed to these guys and their personalities, their camaraderie and their relationships, to see the ways in which their jobs affect every aspect of their lives, because they're so all-consumed by the responsibilities, it was a pretty valuable insight for me.

Had the guys who you were hanging out with at Citibank been affected by the crisis?
Well,they were still there, you know what I mean? They were survivors. Many of the people that we spoke to knew scores of friends who had lost their jobs along the way, but the guys that I hung out with obviously were able to avoid that fate.

Do you remember where you were during the meltdown?
I was in L.A. And I just remember the onset of bleakness that descended around everyone. I wasn't really personally affected by it, so my relationship to it was much more filtered through the media and through friends and through a general sense of despair that seems to be lingering even now.

You weren't on any projects that got cut back because of the economy or anything like that?
I think in one way or another, most projects that any of us have been involved in over the last few years have been modified, scaled back, because of the economy, because of the corporatization of studios, but I wasn't on anything specific that suffered as a result of the financial crisis. We started raising money for Margin Call in the pretty immediate aftermath of it, so we experienced a certain amount of challenge and resistance in trying to raise $3 million for a tiny, little independent movie. But my assertion is always that if you're gonna make a movie about the financial crisis, you should do it in a fiscally responsible way. So I'm glad our budget was low and we were able to find somebody who believed in the story enough to finance it.

I was a Heroes watcher, so I want to ask: When your breakout role is such a strongly-defined villain, have you made any conscious effort to diversify so as not to be typecast?
I always make an effort to do that; that's just an ongoing process. If another villainous character comes along that has dimensions, I certainly wouldn't pass up the opportunity just because I've done it in a different context.

Right. How much do you encounter projection personally based on the roles you've played?
Tons and tons and tons. I think because both of the characters I've become most associated with tend to be pretty iconic in nature, archetypal, there's a lot of expectation that comes from people. Those projections are really just — they have nothing to do with me, so it's been an interesting road to navigate. I was on TV for four years and I was coming into peoples' homes, so there's a familiarity that people tend to have, which can sometimes be jarring or borderline off-putting to me because I'm not really — I'm a pretty low-key person in general, so sometimes I get jolted out of my own path or my own thoughts by someone on the street.

You lived here when you did the play Angels in America, right?
I was here for a year. We did Margin Call, I wrapped Margin Call, I started rehearsals for Angels in America two days later. It was incredible. It was the most challenging thing I've ever done as an actor. And the most rewarding, hands-down. I had not been on stage in six years and so for me to do my first play in New York and to have it be this epic masterwork that, you know, went right to the heart of so many matters that were and still are circulating both in society and in my life personally, it was an enormously rewarding and terrifying journey for sure.

What was terrifying?
Just the sheer scale of the play to begin with. And then I just think revisiting that work and revisiting the themes of that work at a time when the political and social climate of the country is shifting so dramatically and so irreversibly, to really come up against the echoes of that hatred and that bigotry and that fear that still exists in our culture, just in a different context now — you know, I feel it was just a really interesting exploration for me.

Doing that play made me realize how fortunate I am to have been born when I was born. And to not have to witness the decimation of an entire generation of amazingly talented and otherwise vital men. And at the same time, as a gay man, it made me feel like I — there's still so much work to be done. There's still so many things that need to be looked at and addressed. The undercurrent of that fear and that, you know, insidiousness still is swarming. It's still all around us. To revisit that world at all, it took a toll on me. It definitely was an incredible experience but it was really daunting at times.

What do you think is gonna happen with Occupy Wall Street? Do you think it’s gonna fizzle or grow week-by-week?
As a left-leaning Democrat, I feel a sense of resonance with their position, but as a citizen of this country, I feel deeply unsettled that people are rising up in movements against one another. It feels like we’re missing the mark. I just think it’s all broken. I think our financial system, so many aspects of our social connections, seem fractured. And I think it’s a really tenuous time for our country. I don’t know what will happen going into this election year. It seems like the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street — there’s such tremendous disparity right now. It’s like, you have the legalization of gay marriage in the state of New York and three months later you have Jamey Rodemeyer killing himself, yet another gay teenager bullied into taking his own life. And, you know, again, as a gay man, I look at that and say there’s a hopelessness that surrounds it. But as a human being, I look at it and say, “Why? Where is this disparity coming from and why can’t we as a culture, as a society, dig deeper to examine it?” We’re terrified of facing ourselves, we’re terrified of what we’ll find and so, instead, we seem to waste time and energy with small-mindedness and intolerance and with bigotry and with hatred and with fear. And those things are just gonna — no matter if it’s Occupy Wall Street or any other social or political or financial issue, we’re hurdling towards something that is really scary to me. And I feel like Occupy Wall Street is indicative of that. But also it’s potentially valuable as a platform for people to really look at these issues. But it just feels like another opportunity for intense divisiveness and, you know, it feels like potentially another receptacle for right-wing Republicans and neo-conservatives to just undermine and invalidate and get absorbed in the quagmire of idealistic, ideological debates. The bottom line is, we’re all fucked, you know what I mean?

You guys should do a screening in Zuchotti Park.
Totally. Could you imagine? The thing is, though, I don’t know that our movie would satisfy the people enough who are down there.

It’s not demonizing enough.
It’s not. The point of this movie isn’t to judge or vilify or place blame on any one particular company or individual. It’s really to examine the emotional impact that the decisions that these people had to make along the way had on them. And it’s at the same time not lionizing or celebrating any particular institution or individual, either. There’s an ambiguity to the nature of this film that hangs over it in a good way, for me, and that’s partly why I wanted to make it.

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