Life On The Stage: Zachary Quinto

Join The Actors Fund and the Jacob Burns Film Center for an evening with Zachary Quinto, in a virtual conversation about his film THE BOYS IN THE BAND.

Fifty years ago, Mart Crowley’s play became an unexpected smash hit for putting gay men’s lives center stage with honesty and humor, and now “The Boys in the Band” returns to the screen in a new adaptation that reunites acclaimed director Joe Mantello with the all-star cast of the Tony®-winning, 2018 Broadway production. In the New York City of 1968 — when society demanded that being gay was best kept behind closed doors — a group of friends gather for a raucous birthday party hosted by Michael (Jim Parsons), a screenwriter who spends and drinks too much, in honor of the sharpdressed and sharp-tongued Harold (Zachary Quinto). Other partygoers include Donald (Matt Bomer), Michael’s former flame, now mired in self-analysis; Larry (Andrew Rannells), a randy commercial artist living with Hank (Tuc Watkins), a school teacher who has just left his wife; Bernard (Michael Benjamin Washington), a librarian tiptoeing around fraught codes of friendship alongside Emory (Robin de Jesús), a decorator who never holds back; and a guileless hustler (Charlie Carver), hired to be Harold’s gift for the night. What begins as an evening of drinks and laughs gets upended when Alan (Brian Hutchison), Michael’s straight-laced college roommate, shows up unexpectedly and each man is challenged to confront long-buried truths that threaten the foundation of the group’s tight bond.

Zachary Quinto can most recently be seen starring as Charlie Manx in the AMC series, NOS4A2. Directed by Kari Skogland and written by Jami O’Brien (based on the novel by the same name by Joe Hill), NOS4A2 follows Manx (an immortal who stays that way by feeding off the souls of children) and Vic McQueen (Ashleigh Cummings) who encounters Manx and makes an enemy of him.

Quinto was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he began performing as a teenager. He attended Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama and received a BFA in Acting. After graduation, he moved to Los Angeles and began to build a career in television with guest starring roles on numerous series, including CSI and Six Feet Under. He appeared as Adam Kaufman on the third season of 24, and in the only season of the critically acclaimed series So NoTORIous.
In 2007 he was cast as the psychopathic super-powered serial killer Sylar on the hit NBC series Heroes; and in the same year was cast as Spock in the JJ Abrams directed reboot of the Star Trek franchise. Sub- sequently he has reprised his role of Spock in both sequels to that film: 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness and 2016’s Star Trek Beyond. He played Chad Warwick on the first season of American Horror Story and received a Critic’s Choice Award and Emmy Award nomination for his portrayal of Dr. Oliver Thredson on American Horror Story: Asylum.

In 2008, Quinto began his production company Before the Door Pictures and produced and starred in Margin Call alongside Stanley Tucci and Jeremy Irons. His company has gone on to produce such films as All Is Lost, Banshee Chapter, Breakup At a Wedding, A Most Violent Year, and Aardvark. Last year, Quinto hosted and executive produced In Search Of, which aired on HISTORY. The show, inspired by the iconic 1970s series of the same name, examined unexplained phenomena from all over the world. Season two is currently in production and will air later this year.

In theater, Quinto appeared as Louis Ironson in the 2010 Signature revival of Tony Kushner’s Angels In America, for which he won a Theater World Award and a Drama Desk Award nomination. He made his Broadway debut to universal praise in the 2013 Tony Award winning production of the Glass Menagerie; and appeared in the 2017 MCC production of Noah Haidle’s Smokefall. Last year, he starred in the Joe Mantello directed, Tony winning revival of The Boys in the Band, alongside Jim Parsons, Matt Bomer and Andrew Rannells at The Booth Theater.

On screen, Quinto appeared this year in Steven Soderbergh’s Netflix film, High Flying Bird and in two epi- sodes of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Over the last few years, he starred opposite James Franco in I Am Michael in 2015, and as journalist Glenn Greenwald in Oliver Stone’s film Snowden in 2016. The following year, he starred opposite Julianne Nicholson and Emma Roberts in Who We Are Now, which premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. In 2018, he appeared in Drew Pearce’s Hotel Artemis oppo- site Jodie Foster, Jenny Slate and Jeff Goldblum. Quinto currently resides in New York.

THE BOYS IN THE BAND:

DIRECTOR: JOE MANTELLO
WRITTEN BY: MART CROWLEY AND NED MARTEL
BASED ON: THE PLAY AND THE MOTION PICTURE ‘THE BOYS IN THE BAND’ by MART
CROWLEY
PRODUCED BY: RYAN MURPHY, p.g.a.,  DAVID STONE, ALEXIS MARTIN WOODALL, JOE
MANTELLO, p.g.a., NED MARTEL
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: MART CROWLEY

KEY CAST: JIM PARSONS, ZACHARY QUINTO, MATT BOMER, ANDREW RANNELLS,
CHARLIE CARVER, ROBIN DE JESUS, BRIAN HUTCHISON, MICHAEL
BENJAMIN WASHINGTON, TUC WATKINS

Presented in partnership with the Broadway Podcast Network.