ZACHARY Q UINTO THE BAND AND BEYOND WHY THE BOYS IN THE BAND REMAINS RELEVANT TO ZACHARY QUINTO — AS AN ACTOR AND MEMBER OF THE LGBTQ COMMUNITY. BY KEVIN PHINNEY
in his breakout role as superpowered serial killer Sylar on Heroes, following in Leonard Nimoy’s footsteps as Star Trek’s science officer Spock, or as shrink with a secret on American Horror Story: Asylum — that leaves a nagging sensation there’s more to his characters than meets the eye. It’s almost as if, while you’re watching them, they’re watching you: studying you, assessing your strengths, committing each imperfection to memory. Now Quinto is bringing his keen intellect to a play that many thought might never be seen again: Mart Crowley’s pre-Stonewall cult classic, The Boys in the Band, reimagined by director Joe Mantello. By turns, it’s a tale both funny and ferocious, as nine men convene to celebrate the birthday of their friend Harold, a self-deprecating queen who slyly slips in and out of the action to maneuver his friends as if they were pawns in a 3/D chess match. Not surprisingly, that’s Quinto’s part. Quick to counter, Quinto says,“I never think of Harold as three steps ahead of everybody in the room. I think that of the nine personalities in the show, Harold is the most self-explored, self-examined and ultimately self-accepting of the group. I think he knows his own self-loathing, and as a result it doesn’t really have as much power over him as it does over some of the other characters.” This is Quinto’s initial impression of Harold, and as a good citizen of the theater (including a 2014 turn in Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie opposite Cherry Jones), he knows the path ahead will have its share of
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twists and turns : “Of course, this is all from my perspective, and some of my fellow castmates could disagree,” says the actor. “We start rehearsals tomorrow, so I might change any of these perspectives as I get more into the process.”
MORE THAN A CHILDHOOD HOBBY Quinto’s relationship with stagecraft began early, in his native Pittsburgh. After losing his father at the age of seven, Quinto saw his mother forced to reinvent her life in order to support her two sons.“There was a natural period of adjustment [after my father lost his battle with cancer] and contraction within my immediate family,” he says looking back. “And, you know my Mom — who had been a stayat-home Mom to that point — had to go to work and had to raise two sons on her own. “I think acting for me was a bit of a combination of exploring my internal emotional life and processing a lot of the things that had happened. Logistically from a practical standpoint, it was an outlet for me and [a way] for my Mom to know that I was safe; that I had structure, that I had stimulation and that I was doing something productive with my time after school and on the weekends.’ Becoming a performer was“a very organic process,”he says, even from the outset. Just the same, “it very quickly evolved into something beyond just a childhood hobby.” Quinto also took those formative years to navigate toward a greater certainty of his sexual orientation grappling with both the internal and external homophobia every
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THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT ZACHARY QUINTO – WHETHER
