Podcrushed - Zachary Quinto

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

Zachary Quinto (Star Trek, Heroes) swings by and gets deep about growing up in the wake of his dad's passing, the moment he first found joy in musical theater, and how a real-life struggle he was experiencing ended up strengthening the audition that got him Sylar on Heroes.    Follow Podcrushed on socials:Tiktok Instagram XSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

And so it was a recipe for a very, very intense dynamic of power structures and emotional tethers that took me decades to unwind. There you go. That was 12. Okay, now 13. Welcome to Podcrushed. We're hosts. I'm Penn. I'm Nava and I'm Sophie. And I think we would have been your middle school besties. Which means we can't wait to steal your boyfriend.

Bye. That's good. Welcome to Pod Crushed. I am alone and I'm not going to make any jokes about how I'm glad that I'm doing this by myself because frankly I'm not. The interview mercifully features my intrepid and lovely co-hosts. Navakavlin and Sophie Ansari. I am alone right now for reasons

that are kind of uninteresting. They're just technical. I had to do this introduction by myself. I had these ideas of, you know, just freestyling, riffing, doing something that only people who are watching the episode on YouTube could appreciate, like

some thing, but I don't have that. I don't have it in me, nor would anybody listening enjoy that. So let's get straight to the interview we have today Zachary Quinto he and I go way back

to Margin Call a I think sometimes little known independent film we did but which got a lot of accolades which we're both very proud of you probably know him from the giant Star Trek franchise reboot

from you know a little bit back of the day with JJ Abrams and Chris Pine and all those folks you know him more recently from American Horror Story or, well, actually his newest show is called Brilliant Minds and it's out on NBC. Zachary is a brilliant mind himself.

He really is. It was such a joy to speak with him. We think you'll love this episode. Please do not go anywhere. Does anyone else ever get that nagging feeling that their dog might be bored? and do you also feel like super guilty about it? Well, one way that I combat that feeling

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Nom Nom Nom's recipes contain wholesome nutrient rich food, meat that looks like meat and veggies that look like veggies because shocker they are. Louis has been going absolutely nuts for the lamb P-Laf, I have to confess that he's never had anything like it and he cannot get enough. So he's a LAM-P-Laf guy. Keep mealtime exciting with NomNum, available at your local pet smart store or at Chewy. Learn more at trynom.com slash podcrushed, spelled try n-O-M-com slash podcrushed. Why do we do what we do? What makes life meaningful? My name is Elise Luhun and I'm the author of Oner Best Behavior and the host. of the podcast, Pulling the Thread.

I'm pulling the thread, I explore life's big questions with thought leaders who help us better understand ourselves, others, and the world around us. I hope these conversations bring you moments of resonance, hope, and growth. Listen to pulling the thread from Lemonada Media wherever you get your podcasts. Can you just paint a snapshot of 12-year-old Zach? Who is 12-year-old Zach Day to Day? Also, what was performing giving him that he needed? What did he need the outlet for?

Great. We're diving in the deep end. 12-year-old Zach, yes, I did find my way to performing actually at the age of 11. So I had just found my way into theater and at the behest of a teacher of mine who knew that I was being raised by a single mother. and saw in me, in her class, in her music class, she was a teacher. And I was at this time, my father died when I was seven, which was the single most defining event of my entire life to this day.

And particularly in those first five years after it happened, obviously, there was a complete upheaval and recalibration within my family and within myself. And this is the time at which I was just starting to recognize that I was gay as well. So there was this other layer of complexity to my self-awareness and my own awakening to self.

It was all starting to come into the four around this time. After my father died, my mom had to go to work. And so I was a textbook latchkey kid. I came home to an empty house from the time that I was in fifth grade. And I didn't have carers.

I didn't have babysitters. have anybody. I was alone at home from 2.30 in the afternoon or 3 in the afternoon until 6 when my mom went home for work. So three hours of unstructured alone time for a preteen is a really interesting recipe for creativity, but also for, I don't know, like that's unusual, right?

That's an unusual consistency in a child's life to have that kind of solitude. And in that solitude, I came very quickly to realize that it was up to me to survive and it cultivated in me a fierce independence. I became very self-sufficient, very young. I didn't rely on people to do things for me because I was taught through my experience that the people that should do those things for me, we're going to be able to. And so a lot of responsibility

fell to me. A lot of emotional responsibility felt to me in the dynamic with my mother, who when my father died, I was seven, I have an older brother, he was 14. And the death had a completely converse impact

on each of us, right? So I was seven and was pulled into the vortex of my mother's. I was already closer to her. I was still tethered to those apron strings. that a seven-year-old would be. And my brother, who was much closer with my father and was in a period of real stepping into his manhood,

was totally interrupted by the death in a different way and driven away from the mother energy and my mother specifically, and also simultaneously becoming the man of the house. And so having to deal with all the responsibilities that go with that assignation. So there was a real disparity in how the death affected both of us.

And for me, because of my proximity to my mother, it drew me into her gravitational pool and into the vortex of her emotional landscape in a way that was profoundly influential in my development and not in only good ways. And so performing for me was a place where I could go and explore all these complex emotions that I didn't know what to do with and didn't have any way to deal with in my family of origin, essentially. So I was definitely a people pleaser. You know, I was taught by my mom that because I was responsible for her emotional well-being because my mother took all of the energy that she would normally channel into.

a partner and in the absence of my father she never dated again she never remarried ever again um and she took all of that emotional energy and focused it on me wow and so it was a recipe for a very very intense mother complex dynamic of um power structures and emotional tethers that took me decades to unwind there you go that was 12 yeah okay now 13 All right. Was there anyone who then stepped into like a mentor role or like a fatherly figure role for you, be it your brother or coaches or teachers, anyone like that? Teachers, they weren't always necessarily father figures.

My first acting teacher, Jill Wadsworth is her name, and we're still in touch and close. And she was probably at that time in my life around 12. she was probably the most influential because I found my way into performing then I found my way into class and she was my acting teacher and so she was my acting teacher

for about five years until I went to college six years so we forged a really deep connection and she was the person to this day that I credit with teaching me that being a good person is every bit as important if not more important than being a good

And so I came into that world with a lot of feelings that I didn't know how to channel. And so I channeled them into ambition. I channeled them into wanting to be the best. And one of the other byproducts of my father's death was it generated in me an incredible self-determination and self-will to survive. You know, and that surviving instinct then evolved into a thriving instinct. And then that thriving instinct evolved into a winning instinct. And I really started to understand the dynamics of success from probably an earlier age than I would have. My father

not died. And so she, Jill, was the person who instilled in me a kind of ballast for what is most important and how to pursue what is most important and then eventually how to pursue both things. There were a lot of women in my life. I mean, I've been very lucky because they had a complicated but wonderful mother, but complicated. And I was fortunate to have her surrounded by other women who were less complicated, but just as if not more wonderful. And so there was a real nice kind of balance in that dynamic. But I was raised, there was a very pronounced feminine influence on my upbringing.

My mother and her friends, my mother's mother, and my mother has two sisters. And so there was a lot of single women in my life growing up. My aunts were both single women. My grandmother was a widow. My mother was a widow. There was a lot of single women for whom I was the guy, you know, I was the little guy. And so I learned that dynamic. So I feel like I've had a rich lineage of relationships with women in my life and older women.

I am curious how all of this affected your faith. Your father obviously died when you were a young age. I don't know if you'd already had kind of a belief in God. I researched you and I understand that you were a religious growing up. And I'm curious sort of how the passing of your father influenced your feelings about God and afterlife. You know, are you taking care of? Are you abandoned? Like sometimes that can feel really personal.

And I'm just curious how it landed for you. You know, I've been really reconnected. Both of my parents have passed. And so I've been really holding them in my experience lately in deeply profound ways. And so faith is something that I was raised very Catholic and my mother was very Irish Catholic and her religion was a huge part of her life up until the end of it. And so it was a huge part of mine through the years in which I was under her supervision. So I was very active in the church. I was an altar boy.

I was a reader at Mass. I was in the choir. I was a canter. I was a Eucharistic minister. I mean, I did everything that you could do in the church as a layperson. I did it. I went to an all-boys private Catholic high school. I went to Mass in the mornings before school.

I would go to the little like the chapel that was attached to my school where the brothers, who were our teachers, lived and went to church in the morning. I was like really in it until the singular moment when I no longer had to be and then I never was again. I just did it until I graduated high school

and went to college and I never went to church again. So as a person who grew up with absolutely no connection to religion or the church, I wonder about that feeling of that reverence and awe and mysticism which has no place in, let's say,

most people's experience with institutions religion but it has place in the experience of life right just like like like that inexplicable divinity or whatever you might want to call it whatever you know i think of when i first brought my two-year-old into a church just kind of like by chance in london when i was shooting and his and he just naturally went wow you know like that the the reverence so i'm wondering about that environment and what that, you know, because obviously the Catholic Church has had some problems in its organization, right? And it's threaded through with that. People often, my own family, generations previous before mine, they're wounded by the Catholic Church.

So, you know, we all kind of know that story. But I'm wondering about, like, you know, some kind of essence of what did it hold for you? That's a really good question. I mean, I think my religious upbringing definitely instilled in me. a moral structure i do think that i can say it probably had something to do with me understanding fundamentally the principles and concepts of jesus you know of christianity um in in their best versions right if i look at it in terms of the positive influence that had in my life i do think it gave me some structure i do think there was something about the pageantry of the church which spoke to

my creative side and my theatricality, you know, there is something quite fabulous about the ceremonial aspect of the Catholic religion in particular. And so I think there was something that drew me in from that portal, which was the portal of a seeker, you know, somebody who would come to be a seeker within myself. And so I think it helped me understand a sense of mystery, but it wasn't the right outlet for me to really excavate that. It wasn't really the right place for me for many reasons. But I did not have negative experiences of the church. I was not exposed to abuse or impropriety or anything inappropriate. And I did have priests in my life who were, I could look at them and say, this is a good person. This is a person who wants to serve.

his parish and the people that come to him with needs and problems and my mother was one of them my my mother definitely turned to the priests in our church for counsel and for comfort and for guidance and so I saw that relationship and you know when my mother was dying I reached out to the priest from my childhood who I hadn't spoken to in 25 years probably to say you know my mother's going to die and I know that it would mean a great deal if you would say her mass at her funeral. And he did. I knew that would be important to my mother, and so it was important to me. So I have no animosity toward the church, and I have no regrets for even the parts of it that wounded me. Because the parts of it that wounded me, which I think had to do

with my own self-acceptance, my identity as a gay man, obviously was deeply, deeply corrupt. by my Catholic upbringing, the shame, the denial, the guilt, the rejection of self, the hatred, that was something that I'm still reckoning with. So for that, I say, shame on the Catholic Church for the hypocrisy of the institution. That I say across the board. That is absolutely and irrevocably, undeniably, a failing of the institution. and the people who are in charge of that institution for generations. And there is no ambiguity about that statement

in me whatsoever. The tenets, and that's true of the movement that we're seeing all across the country, what people are doing in the name of Jesus Christ is an abomination. And so that to me, I feel, is irrefutable.

However, the principles, the spiritual beliefs, the teachings of Jesus Christ, if you really look at the spirit of generosity that he embodied, the spirit of forgiveness and acceptance, both of self and

of others, that is the principle of the church that I believe holds power and light. And that is the spirit of the church that I believe I carry with me in my life, which is radically evolved from being a singularly indoctrinated

Catholic, into a widely, vastly unexpected network of spiritual awareness within myself. And I have to say that I might not have found myself on that path if there hadn't been such deep conflict within me as a result of being raised Catholic. And so I'm out a place in my life now where I say,

no matter what has happened to me, I'm grateful for it. It's a gift that's allowed me to arrive at the place that I am today. And the place that I am today is the single most fulfilled and grateful and challenged and rewarded that I've ever been in my life. And I would never be here if it weren't for all of those experiences. So I have gratitude for the Catholic Church, and I also have a lot of notes. Well, like I said, we're recording, so we got them all. That was beautifully said.

No, really, thank you. Really beautifully said. Stick around. We'll be right back. All right. So let's just, let's just real talk as they say for a second. That's a little bit of an aged thing to say now. That dates me, doesn't it? But no, real talk. How important is your health to you? You know, on like a one to ten. And I don't mean the in the sense of vanity. I mean in the sense of like you want your day to go well, right? You want to be less stressed. You don't want it as sick. when you have responsibilities um i know myself i'm a householder i have uh i have two children and two more on the way um a spouse a pet you know a job that sometimes has its demands so i really want to feel like when i'm not getting the sleep and i'm not getting nutrition when my eating's down i want to know that i'm that i'm being held down some other way physically you know my family

holds me down emotionally spiritually but i need something to hold me down physically right and so honestly I turned to symbiotica, these vitamins and these beautiful little packets that they taste delicious. And I'm telling you, even before I started doing ads for these guys, it was a product that I really, really liked and enjoyed and could see the differences with. The three that I use, I use the, what is it called, liposomal vitamin C, and it tastes delicious, like really, really good. Comes out in the packet, you put it right in your mouth.

Some people don't do that. I do it. I think it tastes great. I use the liposomal glutathione as well in the morning. Really good for gut health and although I don't need it, you know, anti-aging. And then I also use the magnesium L3 and 8, which is really good for, I think, mood and stress. I sometimes use it in the morning, sometimes use it at night. All three of these things taste incredible. Honestly, you don't even need to mix it with water. And yeah, I just couldn't recommend them highly enough. If you want to try them out, go to symbiotica.com slash podcrushed for 20% off plus free shipping. That's symbiotica.com slash podcrushed for 20% off plus free shipping.

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Visit Iexl.com slash podcrushed to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. We will get into your career, but we have a few classic questions. It seems like you knew some of these were coming. So the first one I want to ask you is, do you have an embarrassing or awkward moment from your tween years that really stands out. You know what comes to mind and it's not particularly, I don't know that it's particularly embarrassing for me, but I just saw myself in such a different way because I had this

experience where somehow somebody unearthed a videotape of an audition that I gave when I was probably maybe 12 or 13 I would say and it was an audition it was a cattle call addition in Pittsburgh for the Mickey Mouse Club and it was the version of the Mickey Mouse Club that was eventually done by like the likes of Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears and Ryan Gosling and that whole that that was like what they were casting at that time and so they were going through all the cities in the country to find these kits you know and I remember it was early in my time as a performer and I went to this hotel in Pittsburgh

and there were hundreds of kids probably I mean it was like pre-American Idol American Idol kind of vibes you know for young kids and I went into this audition and I sang 42nd Street that was what I sang from the musical the eponymous musical musical

and I and I found it somebody found a video of this and I don't even remember who and I don't even remember if I still have it. But at one point I had it and I watched it. And it was just so incredible to see myself in this moment. And it engendered in me such a deep compassion for this little kid that I've been so relentlessly unforgiving to and hard on for so many years.

and I saw him in all of his vulnerability and all of his potential and the guy who was running the audition made I had this when I was a kid I had like a full on bowl haircut like a full on like I don't know what my mother was saying I don't know what anyone was thinking I think I actually have a picture

and I should show you this picture if I can I think I have it saved to my favorites this was me as a performer if I can find it this was me like in so the first way that I performed when I was a kid was in this group called the Civic Light Opera mini

stars and it was a children's performing group and we used to travel around Pennsylvania in the tri-state area doing like musical medleys and we used to wear these

basically like parachute nylon parachute pants and like really tight white t-shirts with multi-colored sleeves. Like one sleeve would be purple and one sleeve would be pink and then you'd be wearing these like electric blue nylon parachute pants and jazz shoes and suspenders. Oh my goodness. And then we would go around and like dance these medleys and so I can't find the picture. Anyway, but I have this picture of me that was a magnet cut out of me in my costume with my suspenders and my mom had it on a refrigerator and I have it somewhere. But anyway, but I have this crazy

bold haircut, like really bad. Not great. It was not a good though. some would say I was very early research to play Spock but I really went through the world with this haircut and it was it was it was bad guys

I can't really overstate how bad it was it's funny too though because you you've always had such good hair in my memory like you always have phenomenal hair and it's never on your forehead and never sometimes I actually brought it I brought this back actually

it's so funny the fringe bang like the blunt fringe is a look that has really been with me for a lot of my young and adult life and also really relates to this moment of like when it really became pronounced. The guy that was

running this audition, the casting director you know, he was like how hi, like tell me, you know, who are you whatever and I was like, you know, my voice hadn't changed yet. I had braces. I mean, it was just an awkward time. And this guy was so

mean to me actually and he uh he made fun of my hair and and watching yeah he made some comment about i can't remember what it was he made some comment that was like looking at it as an adult my reaction was you mother fucker are you fucking kidding me that you're in this position to to you know encourage children to find some spirit of liberation within themselves and you're starting off the experience by demeaning them it was really horrifying and to watch the way that i reacted to it was so insightful because i i heard it i felt it and then i immediately moved past it and like flick you know like went like this, compartmentalized it, and then came back with a response that was both heartbreakingly self-effacing and self-deprecating, but also unknowingly savvy and incredibly

resilient. And so I can't say that it's like a real like, oh yeah, I like got caught doing something or like I've tried to, you know, make out with somebody. I like it was, this is a more kind of esoteric awkward moment from my tweens but it was a profound one and it's one that i oh bye um it was a one that i uh it was one that i really learned a lot from and i think really grew from in uh a capacity for self-love yeah it's really beautiful told yeah yeah i can really feel that moment also knowing what it's like to audition at that age because i was doing the same and i mean it's just i yeah I also somehow even more impactful because probably I mean I don't know what your family was like filming you if you have a lot of home videos I don't have any home videos and so even those like little glimpses that you do get become so much more meaningful otherwise you only exist in your own memory and in the memories of the people around you and totally and you can't have perspective on it because your perspective is your own subjective experience of it so so that that third that third-party access to yourself as a child is a really interesting and valuable tool

if you're looking to understand your own relationship with yourself at that time. There's one other classic question we ask, which is about crushes and first, you know, those first glimmerings of the feelings of love and like and heartbreak. Yes. my first crush was Heather Mazer she's still a dear friend and we've actually worked together

recently she played my wife in a movie that I produced and had a role in not starting but had a supporting Roland and we're still very dear friends to this day she's my oldest friend I've known her since I was 11 so I've known her for 36 years

and and And I was in love with her, hopelessly in love with her at 11. What I now have come to realize is that I just wanted to be her. But I misappropriated that sensibility for love. And I was infatuated with her. She was in the mini stars with me. She was another mini star.

She was very talented. She is very talented. And she was very charismatic. And she played Annie in the main stage production of Annie at the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera. And that was just like, oh, my God, like, she's the lead of Annie. Like, I just love her so much. I love her, you know. But she wanted nothing to do with me at the time.

She really dismissed me summarily. And then we became very good friends. She actually also went to Carnegie Mellon, where I went to college. And she was a year ahead of me. And we became very good friends toward the end of high school and to this day. So she was my first crush. My first celebrity crush was Julia Roberts. It's a great one.

Me too. Me too. Thelma Louise until I saw Thelma Louise and understood who Brad Pitt was. But you and the rest of the world. Early crushes. Yeah. That's great. Yeah.

Let's get into your career. Yeah. Let's arc into. I'd love to hear about, so, you know, you don't have to give us the play by play, but. Yeah. That point. So, you know, 12, 13, 14. You then get into, you apply, and then you're accepted to Carnegie Mellon, one of the most

prestigious performing arts schools in the country. How did it become that serious for you? You know, what's the arc of it becoming that serious, realizing it's what you want to do beyond this sort of what, you know, a really important hobby and then beyond? That happened in high school, and that happened a lot through Jill, Wadsworth, my teacher. I mean, she really, really nurtured me and really gave me a place to get serious about it.

and so in addition to doing all of the musicals in high school I also really got serious about acting class and I was taking acting class twice a week for three hours after school in the evenings I mean that's a pretty big commitment for someone in high school to like stick get into something and you stay with it and I did that for years and we would do classes on the weekends too

and I took other classes too like voice and speech and dance and movement and I mean I really got into it at a young age in a serious way And so it was both desire and circumstance that facilitated this kind of alchemy within me that gave me this outlet that I then in probably my junior year of high school, I realized, well, this is what I want to do.

It was at odds with what my mother wanted for me. My mother wanted me to be a lawyer. She comes from a family of politicians and she wanted me to move in that direction. And I just had a, you know, there was a moment with my mom when I was about 16 where I just said, look, you know, this is what I want.

And if you love me and if you believe in me, then why wouldn't you want to support it and trust that it will work out? And to her credit, she eventually did. You know, it took some time and it took some conflict, but eventually she saw that I was serious about it. So I really have Jill Wadsworth

and her husband, Don Wadsworth, actually, who was on faculty at Carnegie Mellon, So he was one of the ways that I learned about Carnegie Mellon. I mean, I'm from Pittsburgh. So it was, you know, if you're from Pittsburgh, you know about Carnegie Mellon. And so I would go to Carnegie Mellon and see productions there. And I just thought, well, like, this is it. You know, this is, this is it.

I look at the life that I built for myself at that time. It had already been six years of pretty significant investment in this vocation. And so it was a natural progression for me to go to a conservatory, to go to drama school. best thing I could have done, you know? I mean, Carnegie Mellon was a phenomenal experience for me. One of my co-stars, Victoria Padretti in my show, you, seasons two and three,

she's like a, you know, a huge character. She also went to Carnegie Mellon, and she was the second person after you had ever met, you know, who'd gone. And the stories that both you and she told about it always made me think like, good Lord, I really wish I'd been able, I mean, you know, whatever life is life.

I don't have regrets. But it sounds just incredible. If you are an eager student like that, if you're ready to drink it in and experiment, it's such a valuable time. Well, I was just thinking about this the other day, because now I'm at a time of my life where I really do have perspective on it.

I mean, I'm 47 years old, so I really can look back on my time and I can really look back on my evolution. And I am so grateful to be able to say that I have spent my life, cultivating a craft and honing a craft. And I feel, especially in this moment, you know, where being an artist has never been more important

or vital or necessary. You know, without being self-aggrandizing about it, I just feel a deep gratitude for it, you know, and that I will be able to look back on my life and know that it was informed by, and it was defined by me, sensing something within myself at a very young age and by hook or by crook, you know, in the face of support and in the face of resistance, listening to that, that inner knowing,

listening to it and seeing where it needed me to go and following it and trusting it, even when I didn't know that's what I was doing. And the magnitude of fulfillment that I've experienced as a result of that, is to me a miracle of life, actually. That is a miracle of the human experience, one of many. But for me personally, that is one of my miracles of human experience. And now I can see that in the way that it took me, you know, almost 50 years to be able to identify. But now that I've seen it, I'll never unsee it.

And now that I feel that gratitude and that depth of fulfillment, I will never be without it. I want to jump ahead just because I'm mindful of time to Heroes, which I consider your sort of breakout role. That's when you entered my consciousness. Would you consider that your breakout role? I know you were on 24. Definitely. Yeah.

Okay, so I have a question about heroes. I watched Heroes with a group of friends. And it was, I think it's the first show that I ever, like, watched religiously with a group of friends. Like, we would get together on the night of the week that it was on. And we were all obsessed with it. And you were so chilling, like, so chilling as that. character. And I just am curious, like, how did you get into the mindset of playing someone so

evil? And when people met you in real life, were they ever scared of you? Yes, they were. You were so scary, I have to say. It was like very convincing. Yeah. I mean, that was such an interesting time in my life. I got that job when I was 28, 29, actually, 28 or 29? I can't remember. I think it was 2006, so I would have been 29. A huge moment inflection point in my life, both personally and professionally. When I got Heroes, it was at the end of the longest period I had gone without working since I moved to Los Angeles. It was about eight months I hadn't gotten a job.

And I was really, really depressed. I was a daily pot smoker at the time, which didn't help. And I was struggling to keep the faith. You know, I was really at a nadir. And the audition came. And yes, the character became this kind of chilling, archetypal villain. But if you remember, it starts as this kind of very introverted, nerdy, lonely guy. And that's what got me the job, actually.

Because that's kind of closer to the place that I was at in my life at the time. And it was one of the first times in my experience as an actor because I'm not a huge, I mean, I'm a, as an actor, I'm more of a technician than I am. Like, to me, my job is to make an audience feel something. And I don't, I know very well that I don't need to feel that thing in order for them to feel it. And so technique is a, is a beautiful part of my process, you know. And sometimes I do feel it, and that's great when I do. But if I don't, I'm still able to tell the story. And so Heroes was really the first time for me

that actually the human experience that I was having had no choice but to come into the audition room with me because of where I was in my life. And so I think it allowed me to show an authenticity, and they didn't know what they wanted that character to be. When I showed up to my first audition, the waiting room was full of, I mean, there were probably 20 other guys in the waiting room,

ranging an age from 20. 28 or late 20s to like 60. They were auditioning like 60-year-old men for that role. So there was something about the authenticity of my own personal experience that I brought into that audition that I think is why I got the role. And then from there, it was less about getting into the mindset of the character and more about learning how to be a series regular and a TV show because up to that point I had only done kind of recurring roles and peripheral roles

and there was a whole other element of learning the craft of camera acting that I had to kind of dive into immediately. And so the mindset evolved as the character evolved. But I understood what the character needed to be and I understood that a huge part of the success of that character was stillness. And so that was really like a foundation that I started to lay for myself as an actor. Stillness is one of my, I think, my sharpest tools as an actor. and so that was something

that heroes helped me identify and access that's interesting you say that not that things can resonate without having had the same experience but there's a very strong similarity there that I've had playing a very different kind of killer but I've had a interest

I've seen a little bit of Penn and it's wonderful what I've seen early early episodes I know you did what five or something We just finished the last and fifth season, yeah. Fifth, right. Congratulations. I'm so happy for you. The stillness, you know, is such a valuable tool, as you say, being a technician.

I think of myself kind of similarly. Like, I rely on that so much playing somebody who's dangerous, you know. Yep, yep. I mean, space and breath within a performance of anything, I think, is valuable. And I've learned that more as I've gotten older. But yes, I think especially when you're playing a character who is dangerous and predictable or malevolent, that space that you can create with stillness, which is the space of uncertainty. And what a lot of people are uncomfortable on camera doing also.

I think a lot is like it takes a while to feel comfortable doing actually nothing on camera. That's true. And I think Heroes for me was a big. and so I'm grateful that it was an early job, right? Because it's something that taught me that early and then I was able to bring it with me and other stuff that I've done since then, both when I'm playing villains and also not.

That must have been, it was kind of same time. You did Star Trek. It was crazy. I mean, within one year, I got two of the most significant jobs of my career. Heroes happened in September of 2006. and Star Trek happened in June of 2007. And there's a lot of stillness.

There's stillness in Spock's brilliance as well. And so then it sounds like you started to... I mean, I don't know, before those roles, did you find yourself consistently getting to play, you know, for lack of a better word, like geniuses? I mean, like, was that a... No, no. I mean, I wouldn't say that any of the things that I did

before heroes had any impactful, you know, significant in my career. I mean, I did a lot of guest stars and a lot of bad acting. And, you know, I learned. I learned. And sometimes to learn, you have to be bad. And I was definitely bad in things that I did in my early career. But, you know, I'm grateful for those experiences. So, yeah, those were really the formative roles for me, both Siler and Spock. And yes, that stillness I started to identify at trend perhaps you know um there is a there i think that's something that once i once i played characters for whom i became known you know um i think that then there started to emerge this through line or this thread between them where there was uh whoever they were to the outside world there was often if not always a very very complex

inner life and sort of deeply rooted experience within themselves that may not be communicated or expressed to the outside world, but very significantly influenced how those characters related to the outside world and moved through the outside world. So I think that kind of, that the stillness and that inner life and that inner complexity found a marriage that then started to define the kind of characters that people wanted to see me play and of course we all well know that once you get known for a specific kind of character then people want more and more of that kind of thing and so one of the big um through lines of my career has been trying to push against that and diversify you know the things that i'm able to do and

i and i think i've done a relatively successful job of that and i and i think theater plays a big part in that for me coming back to the theater which i do as often as i can i don't know if you recall i saw you in Angels in America. I think in the last night that you were... Oh, was it the last show? I think it was your last show. Maybe the last show of that run. I don't know. I don't remember the... But I'd also never seen Angels in America.

You saw both parts? I did see both parts. I was... One of my most incredible experiences, seeing theater, to be honest. I mean, you were profound. The whole cast... I mean, it seemed like you guys were just really...

There was a significant chemistry there And I think the reason I remember it being the last night is because I think it was particularly emotional for everybody. You know, you were like, and so for me to see that. Some of us left, some of us left the company before the end of the run. Five of us left of the nine. Five of us left the company. So you probably saw the last night that we did it.

Yeah. I was replaced in that production by Adam Driver. Oh, wow. Really? Yeah. Wow. Isn't that crazy? Yeah.

Because like how different is out of Driver? Like, I don't know if anybody that knows Angels America. Lewis is this kind of like. bookish, nerdy, you know, kind of like very tightly wound, self-loathing and, you know, very kind of like just in his head. And I guess now that I know Adams work much better

and what a phenomenal actor he is, it does make sense that he would play the part, but physically he's very, very not what you would normally cast. And I remember they were all like, yeah, this guy's coming and he used to be a marion. He said, you're the Marine. He's a big guy's coming in to take over for you. And we were like, wait, what?

Who? Like, nobody knew he was yet, you know? You haven't even done drugs yet. Wow. So it was pretty funny that, yeah, he replaced me in the United States America of that production. But, yeah, the theater is the place where I go to recharge, restore to, you know, to elevate to the next level always, you know. So I'm in the process of that as we speak, actually. Anything you can talk about?

Yeah. Yes, I'm in a play called Cult of Love. We start previews next week, shockingly, on the 20th. And it's a play by Leslie Headland, directed by Trick Coleman at the Helen Hayes Theater, which is the second stage's Broadway space. I don't want to oversell it, guys, but like my experience so far, it has been the single most rewarding and fulfilling experience of my entire career, just creatively. Just the process of working on a new play,

because every play that I've done for the most part has been like a real American classic like he's in America, the glass madgery, boys in the band, who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? Like I've done like Titan American plays which have been so profoundly challenging and rewarding but they're fixed entities, right? These are plays that have been around for decades

and that anyone in the theater community has some kind of relationship to these plays and they exist in this kind of monolithic center around which creative collaborators move and assess and, you know, try to reimagine or reconceive. And so that is an incredibly fulfilling

process and to be able to say that I've played Lewis, I've played Tom, I've played George, I've played Harold, like these are really, especially as like, you know, this young theater nerd at 12, knowing that I've done this on Broadway and off Broadway in London and done theater. You know, I mean,

it's so gratifying but I have to say to work on a new play. and a play which in my estimation holds its own against any one of those plays that I just mentioned in terms of what it is examining and how it is expressed Leslie Headland to me is an absolutely brilliant writer and I really feel like I don't know

at least the experience that I'm having in the rehearsal room now obviously an audience is going to come in and have their own experience of it and I have no control over that all I can do is focus on what we're building and what we're trying to make together but so far it's been if not the most certainly one of the top three experiences that I've had in my career

I would say margin calls probably another one to be honest that's right because you were such a vital part of that too you were a producer with that the first time you were producing that was the first movie I produced yeah and was pretty significantly responsible for putting it together if I do say so myself

you know certainly from a casting standpoint did you help cast pen I was the one he he tried can you You were not. No, we had the same agent at the time, actually. I was at CIA, you were, too, right? Yeah.

I had just gone there, in fact. Uh-huh. They were trying to prove themselves. They were like, yeah. They really wanted us to, um, I didn't know Penwell, but he was fantastic. I mean, I can't imagine anybody else playing that role. And I love playing those scenes with you. I just felt like we really and Paul, bet me, the three of us, I thought really had this.

I thought our rapport off camera really translated to the chemistry between the characters. And I really think you did such a beautiful job in that film. Oh, thanks. Yeah. I was just, I was along for the ride. I mean, I feel like, and I know that you somewhat felt the same way. As much as you were this integral part of putting it together, you were also, I mean, you know, the actors we were alongside in that was, it was full on. It was really full on.

Especially full on when Jeremy Irons showed up. That guy was not giving me any breaks. I'll tell you, do you remember that, boardroom scene? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Jeremy came in. First of all, we almost couldn't get Jeremy. visa and so we had to like we had to I think someone went to like Chuck Schumer's office or

Hillary like someone went to the somewhere to get him a visa to get in the country he got a visa and showed up the day before he started film and so he came in hot like he came in just sort of like I don't have a way in on this other than to be this character and he was playing the you know this high powered CEO of this you know massive sort of Merrill Lynch or Goldman Sachs type corporation so he came in suffering no fools first of all and and and reveling in some sense of antagonism particularly with my character who's this young kind of unproven upstart who has cracked the code for why everything is falling apart and has brought it up the chain and basically has just shit in everyone's salad and so you know he pretty much treated me like that from the beginning

while we were filming and really did not let me off the hook but it really shows when you watch that boardroom scene because there are ways in which I related to him where I just had like it engendered in the performance actually this kind of this irreverence in me which I think was a was an expression of the discomfort that I was feeling in the situation with

as an actor from one actor to another But it actually, to his credit, it informed the performance. I think I gave a better performance in that scene than I would have if he was all sunshine and roses. But after the fact, when we've encountered each other, subsequently, he's been nothing but absolutely lovely. And obviously he is one of the greats of our time. So I feel grateful that I got slightly shaded by him during that experience.

It's so true that his countenance when we went to Sundance was like glowing. Entirely different. Yeah, it was like, oh, great. You know, I remember him rocking Sundance in like a full on like zip up one piece snowsuit and like ski boots

and he would just spend all day on the slope. He was just like, well, I'm off to the slopes, you know, and we were doing presents and stuff and as soon as we'd finish before it premiered, like, it was just amazing. And what a life that man has lived and what work he's given us. I mean, it's such a, such an honor to have been able to work with him.

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shall we talk about brilliant minds and I feel like you had a lot of questions about brilliant minds and some praise about Oliver's sacks that you wanted to share I didn't realize until I started watching it it reminded me and then I you know looked it up

it's meant to be Oliver sex or it's rather it's it's inspired by all of us it is inspired by the life and work of oliver sacks that's right i love oliver sacks and i discovered oliver sacks through radio lab a pod like sort of the greatest podcast ever have you heard those interviews with him have you heard him speak ever i have yeah what i mean yeah i mean phenomenal his mind was i mean something else it was singular it was really really singular and um he he was a very

special person. I regret that I never got to meet him when he was alive. He died in 2015 at the age of 83. And so our show is essentially it's a fictionalized and contemporary imagining of maybe who Oliver Sacks might

have been if he had been born a generation or two later. And so it's kind of the most wonderful hybrid experience that I've ever had. Playing a character who is inspired by such an incredible and fascinating real-life person and having the benefit of all of his writings because in addition to being profoundly influential neurologist and making irrevocable contributions

to the field of medicine and science, he was also a prolific author and speaker. And so there is no shortage of source material. He wrote an incredible memoir called On the Move. He wrote many essays and compilations for the New Yorker and for New York Times. He wrote dozens of books of case studies of his patients. And so I got the benefit of all of that. And I got to create a character who, while inspired by Oliver Sacks, is ultimately a creation of my imagination, the imagination of my collaborators in the show. So I wasn't tethered to any physicality or vocal patterns or, you know, I didn't have to worry about any of that, which was amazing. So the best of both worlds in a way. Yeah, exactly.

the best one yeah um can i ask i mean it's you know it's not like you have to have a just the best answer a soundbite but what's your do you have a favorite book of his on the move definitely okay i i quite prefer his writings about himself really yeah yeah his life is so fascinating so yeah absolutely strange he was he was a he broke a state record in california for deadlifting oh he was an award wedding bodybuilder yeah uh he He was an avid motorcyclist. He was a well-documented psychonaut. He took psychedelic drugs and many different kinds of drugs.

Very often when he was doing his residency in California, he used to finish a shift at 11 at night. He'd do a bunch of methamphetamine, and he would get on his motorcycle, and he would ride chest-to-gas tank on his motorcycle from Los Angeles to the Grand Canyon. And he would get to the Grand Canyon in time for the sunrise, and he would watch the sunrise over the Grand Canyon and then he would take some more methamphetamine

and get back on his motorcycle and ride back to California and do another shift at the hospital. He was like this absolutely completely. He was celibate for 35 years. That's what I was actually going to say. I remember that part of his life as well, which is so compelling. And he also grew up in a very orthodox Jewish family.

Very religious household. Both of his parents were doctors, so he was instilled from a very young age with this drive and ambition and desire, but he had parents who were incredibly emotionally unavailable when he came out to his mother. She said, you are an abomination. And it forever affected his relationship

to his own sexuality and his own identity, compounded by the fact that he was living and working in a time when being gay was still illegal in the UK, let alone socially accepted. And so I believe that he made this choice, to sublimate his sexuality in order to make the indelible contributions to the fields of medicine, science, and literature that he knew that he was singularly designed to make. And so what a tragedy of such a brilliant life that such an essential part of it had to

essentially be split off and cut away in order for him to be able to succeed to the degree that he knew not only that he could succeed to, but he had to succeed to. So those were to feel like I'm a part of the linear. of his story, but I'm telling it in the context of a story that allows for his full identity, his authentic identity, to be integrated and expressed in who he is, is to me the love letter tolerance acts that Brilliant Minds hopefully is or tries to be anyway. There's a funny line in the first episode where I think a nurse comes up to you, your character and says, should we tell them about your condition?

it's 2024, homosexuality is not a condition. Yeah, exactly, right. And your face blindness. We fold the identity of the character's sexuality into the role in a way that I think is significance for its insignificance. It's significant for its insignificance. So, yeah, that's like the way that you find out

the characters care actually in the pilot of the show, but that's the only mention that we make of it for quite some time. Wow. Methamphetamine, I can't get over that, how he even lived to 83. That's wild. So I love reading about him more than I love reading the case studies. The case studies, to me, are interesting. I like to read things that are just a little bit more active alive about human interaction.

And yes, that's what it is about, but I mean, that's, to me, from what I understand, that's what he was doing. He was trying to return modern, modern, you know, highly, um, um, technical highly you know the incredible evolutions and advances that science has made in the last whatever 200 years you know especially like he was trying to bring that level of medicine um back to what it seems to had lost which was like in touch with the humanity the patients you know and so i think like he was really driven by understanding and amplifying the experience and the identity of his patients even when they were suffering from diseases, disorders, conditions, or injuries

that rendered them incapable of relating to the world in a quote-unquote normal way. Whether that meant they were vegetative or nonverbal or limited in other ways physically, he was always interested in getting to the root of who they were. One of his favorite quotes was, ask not what disease the patient has, ask what patient the disease has,

who is the person, who were they before, who are they now, and who can they be even in the face of all of these insurmountable challenges, how can they be the best version of themselves and how can we help them be the best version of themselves? And so, you know, essentially what he was doing with these books and this writing that he did of case studies, if you really think about it,

and I never thought about it before I play this role. But essentially medicine as we know it is primarily, if not singularly, diagnostic. And the advancements that you're talking about, pan in technology, in science and medicine have allowed us to approach medicine from an unfathomably diagnostic point of view so you can really find out to almost the cell

what's wrong and is it fixable and how do we fix it? But if you rewind the tape to the 18th, 19th centuries and into the early 20th century as well, doctors didn't have that. They didn't have the benefit of technology and the diagnostic aspect of medicine didn't exist yet as succinctly as it exists today. And so these case studies were actually how these doctors learned

by documenting very in-depth accounts of their patients, and then they would file them away, and they would share them with one another. So it was a huge web of interconnectivity among the medical community, and therefore between doctors and their patients, but also between doctors and each other. And so that art form got systematically diminished

and then eventually eradicated all together once you have a machine that you can slide somebody into and figure out what's wrong with him. But Oliver was so inspired by those writings as a young doctor, as a child and then a young doctor. And he was kind of looking around and saying, but everybody, like, can't we still advocate for the humanity of healthcare and of medicine?

And so these writings are a real testament to his indomitable spirit and his singular mind and his singular expression of self that generated all this incredible work and these incredible writings which even though they're not necessarily a source of great pleasure

for me as literature they are a source of great inspiration to me as an actor and as a human being and so I've enjoyed them for that but it does feel sometimes when I'm reading them like I'm doing homework. Yeah, I mean again he just studied people exhaustively

in a way that is just rare, super rare. Yeah, totally. We have a final question that we always ask. If you could go back to 12-year-old Zach. Yeah. What would you say or do, if anything? I would say I promise you that eventually I will take care of you. That's sweet.

And if I can go back now, I would say I'm sorry I didn't do it sooner. But again, like you said, no regrets. Just the evolution of the lessons that I've learned and the compassion for both him and for me that I've been able to cultivate, you know? And that I think is, yeah, that's probably what I would say. It's really sweet. Yeah, thank you, Zach.

We are so excited that you can now listen to Podcrush, ad free on Amazon Music. In fact, you can listen to any episode of Podcrushed, ad free right now on Amazon Music with an Amazon Prime membership. You have children of I have two children. Wow.

And two wives, obviously.