Interview with Heroes' Zachary Quinto and Jack Coleman

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Interview with Heroes' Zachary Quinto and Jack Coleman

The Heroes' nemesis is on the rise in the new third series (starts Wednesday 1 October, 9:00pm, BBC2), so RT's Jenny Eden went to meet the man behind the eyebrows.

Wearing shorts, a T-shirt and flip-flops, the baddest man on TV, Zachary Quinto, looks more prepared for a trip to the beach than a hard afternoon slicing heads and scooping out brains.

The next thing you notice about the man who plays evil Sylar in Heroes are his thick, black eyebrows, which for the past six months have been groomed into the shape of Vulcan brows while Quinto plays the part of Spock in the next Star Trek film.

"I don't think my eyebrows factored into the decision to hire me as Sylar, but once I got the job, they played into my characterisation of this man. Spock is a pretty eyebrow-centric character in his own right, too," he laughs. "They're my dad's eyebrows, but my mum has brows that feature pretty prominently for a lady."

Quinto is the perfect example of how quickly fortunes can flip around. He was nearing 30 and considering giving up acting when he landed the role of Sylar. That led on to the part of the ultimate pointy-eared sci-fi icon.

"I was wrestling with my place in the world," he admits. "It was the longest time I had gone without working - I'd supported myself as an actor in LA for six and a half years. But as many times as I contemplated the notion of giving up on acting, the thing that stopped me was I never knew what else I would do."

Before Heroes, his biggest role was playing one of the CTU's background boys in 24. Now, his biggest concern is how to keep his feet on the ground faced with so much sudden success.

"I think there is great value to having struggled for as many years as I did," he says. "Acting is a difficult road even in success. You can't get your validation from saying, 'I'm working now' or 'I'm famous now' because all that stuff is ephemeral; it will go away, and ultimately you're going to be left with a lot of emptiness. All my friends are from when I was in college, and my dog keeps me grounded - you can't feel too fancy when you're picking up poop in a plastic bag at 6am."

Today it's also hard to feel the Hollywood glamour. He's filming a chase scene for episode 11 in a tatty back alley in downtown LA. Mr Bennet, aka the man in Horn-Rimmed Glasses or HRG (Jack Coleman), is in hot pursuit. As he walks away from the set, Coleman removes his famous spectacles and replaces them with Ray-Bans.

"My character was called Horn-Rimmed Glasses from the start. They're not the most attractive things, but Man in Ray-Bans didn't have the same menace," he laughs. "I put them on and I'm the character, but sometimes I still find pictures of me in them disconcerting."

Hayden Panettiere (indestructible cheerleader Claire Bennet) calls to her screen dad to help her with a crossword. "When I knew my character was the father of the cheerleader," adds Coleman, "I knew he was ripe with possibility. What I love about him is that he's always on a moral pendulum. As good as he gets, he always goes back to being dastardly. This year Claire gets to see him in a work situation and it's not flattering. Let's say his methods bring up some civil-rights issues."

The new season has been subtitled Villains, which means Quinto has been working every day. With Sylar's powers back, he's chasing Claire and there's a spectacular fight between the two at the heart of season three's curtain-raiser. There's a new line-up of bad guys, plus the ongoing theme of a battle between good and evil in everyone and how much it takes to bring it to the surface. It means even the most heroic of the Heroes may have a shockingly dark side…

As for the show's evil epicentre, Quinto insists Sylar isn't quite as black as he's painted. "We establish in the first episode of the season that he doesn't eat brains; he has a different relationship to them - which is not edible! He is in great conflict within himself and you get to see different shades of his character, some a little less threatening than others, but that darkness and evil that he serves have a great power over him and I don't know if that power is surmountable."

But ask him for any more clues and he just grins. Like the rest of the cast, he has been well schooled in how to keep his mouth shut. "People know not to come knocking at my door for secrets," he smiles.

Jenny Eden, Radio Times, September 2008

Now why not visit our Heroes programme guide, which features episode details, photo galleries and more features?

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