2009 Star Trek convention Sunday: The Zachary Quinto Panel

Picture 1: More coffee for Zach

Last picture: Zachary Quinto on stage with Garrett Wang asking the last question of the panel -Garrett Wang is on the bottom right corner of the picture (click on it to make it bigger)

When Zachary Quinto walked on stage, holding a cup of coffee in his hands on the Sunday morning of the Convention, the theatre was packed. People cheered and clapped loudly at his appearance, and he waved to the assembled audience. Not wasting time, Zach decided to go directly to questions.

This was the Heroes actor’s second appearance at a Star Trek convention for the second year in a row and he seemed at ease to work the stage, going back and forth between one end of the deck to the other.

Heroes fans will be happy to know that he was very much excited about the direction in which the show was going for season 4. He’s kept very busy in the last months by doing press tours for the movie, working on Heroes, and having his own production company (Before the Door). Zachary Quinto thinks that his next announcement as an actor will be a play, and revealed that his ideal career would be a movie, then a play, then a movie, etc. I was saddened to learn that he will take a break from TV after Heroes ends.

Talking about the new Star Trek movie, Zachary Quinto told us that it was rather easy to work with Chris Pine since they knew each other and that he really liked the scene where he got to kick Kirk’s ass on the bridge, a comment that elicited laughter from the audience. About the kissing scene, he was mostly happy and relieved that they had managed to keep it secret. He also mentioned that the hardest part about the whole experience of the new Star Trek was the expectations; but when asked what he thought about people who had problems with the new movie, his answer, in a deep Sylar voice, was that ''those are not my problems.''

There was a very lovely moment during the panel when, at one point, a young girl in the audience simply forgot the question she wanted to ask him and started crying. Zachary Quinto asked if she was alright and tried to make her feel better while saying ''just complete the sentence, I feel . . . ?'' (which drew laughs in the theatre) and then people shouted for him to go and give her a hug. Mr. Quinto complied to the sound of applause from the assembled audience.
The actor later made us laugh heartily when he mentioned that Leonard Nimoy was here at the convention and that he’d been ''kicked to the curb'' since William Shatner was also there! (Very funny and everyone was laughing). He reminisced that last year HE was doing everything with Nimoy, panels, photo-ops, everything. Poor Zach, we all felt sorry for him Haha! He was a very good sport about it and made us laugh quite a bit.

Zachary Quinto also told a funny story about the moment he learned he would play Spock. It was 10 am in the morning and he was still in bed sleeping. When the phone rang, he answered in a very sleepy voice, took in the news, then basically went back to bed. It took him a while for the fact that he had gotten the part of Spock to sink in as he was groggy from sleep.
He also made people laugh when he asked a person asking him a question ''are you wearing ears?'' to which the person replied yes but that they were LOTR ears. Zach jockingly told the person to ''get outta here.''

When time was up and there was only time left for one more question, Voyager actor Garrett Wang surprised everyone by being the last person to ask a question (Wang had to explain to Zachary Quinto who he was, since Zach had only seen a few of the Original series’ episodes and none of the other ones). Wang talked about the fact that he loved the new movie and that he saw it nine times, he also told Zach that he had pestered the Voyager production team for more action, more humour, and that the new movie got it right – at which point there was a round of applause. Then he asked Zachary Quinto for a picture to which Zach kindly obliged. What a great and wonderful moment.

Too quickly again it ended. After Zach made his salutation to a rapturous and applauding crowd, he left the stage. Another year, another time Zach.