Star Trek actor Zachary Quinto comes out as a gay man

Hollywood actor Zachary Quinto has spoken publicly about being a gay man during an interview with a New York publication.

Quinto, of Heroes and Star Trek fame, spoke about his sexuality in an interview with New York magazine, while discussing his eight-month role in the stage play Angels in America. The play is set at the time that Ronald Reagan was elected to his second term as President of the United States, in late 1985, and as the AIDS epidemic began to spiral out of control in the US. The 34-year-old actor said of the role that it was “the most challenging thing I’ve ever done as an actor and the most rewarding [...] as a gay man, it made me feel like there’s still so much work to be done, and there’s still so many things that need to be looked at and addressed”. Quinto is best known for his roles as Spock in the 2009 J.J. Abrams-directed Star Trek movie and as Sylar (Gabriel Gray) in the American television series Heroes. As well as his lead roles in Heroes and Star Trek, Quinto has played gay characters in a number of shows, including So NoTORIous, and American Horror Story. Quinto has been an active supporter of LGBT rights for some time, appearing in Standing on Ceremony – a stage production in aid of gay marriage – and, in 2009, The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later, which was performed as part of the annual gala of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. Quinto also spoke to New York about the spate of deaths among bullied gay teenagers: “[A]gain, as a gay man I look at that and say there’s a hopelessness that surrounds it, but as a human being I look at it and say ‘Why? Where’s this disparity coming from, and why can’t we as a culture and society dig deeper to examine that?’ We’re terrified of facing ourselves.” He is currently promoting his new film, Margin Call – which stars in alongside Kevin Spacey – is due to reprise his role in Abrams’s Star Trek sequel, which is currently in pre-production.