Quinto

Zachary Quinto, who has played the alternate-reality version of Spock in 2009's Star Trek film, Star Trek Into Darkness and now Star Trek Beyond, first came to wide public attention thanks to his acclaimed performance as the villain Sylar in the TV series Heroes.

The Pittsburgh native has been acting in theater since age 11, in a wide variety of shows, including Side Man, Gross Indecency, Oliver!, Much Ado About Nothing, The Bear, and Lonely Impulse of Delight. During high school, Quinto realized that acting was more than a hobby, and decided to further pursue his dream by attending Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama. There, he was honored with the University’s prestigious Gene Kelly Award for his role as the Major General in The Pirates of Penzance. Acting in television since 2000, his first job was in The Others, and he quickly scored guest-starring roles on CSI, Touched by an Angel, Charmed, Six Feet Under, Crossing Jordan and Dragnet. He enjoyed a recurring role on 24 and co-starred in Tori Spelling’s sitcom, So NoTORIous. In addition, his film credits include Down with Love and Psychic Murders.

Following Star Trek, he appeared in the comedy short Before After, the features Girl Walks into a Bar, We'll Never Have Paris, I Am Michael and Hitman: Agent 47, and the television shows American Horror Story: Murder House, American Horror Story: Asylum: The Chair, The Slap, Girls and Hannibal. As a producer, his credits include The Chair, the Robert Redford feature All Is Lost, Banshee Chapter and the thriller You Were Never Here.

Apart from his skyrocketing career as an actor and producer, Quinto made headlines in 2011 when, frustrated by the rising number of troubled and bullied young homosexual men and suicides, he came out as gay as part of the "It'll Get Better" social movement. As such, Quinto became the second openly gay Star Trek actor, after George Takei of the original cast. Quinto had also forged a close friendship with Leonard Nimoy before the Star Trek icon's death in 2015.