June 2, 1977- As a gay man of a certain age, coming out of closet was a major, if not the defining, event of your life. So, I especially appreciate the very casual manner in which young gay celebs these days break the news by casually mentioning it in paragraph 7 of a magazine profile. Thank you, Ellen Page, Neil Patrick Harris & Matt Bomer. That is real progress. It’s the 21st century, Kevin Spacey!
Zachary Quinto credits his role in the 2012 Broadway production of Larry Kramer’s Angels In America, in which he played a gay man who leaves his AIDS-afflicted boyfriend, for helping to come out of closet & put him further in touch with the struggles faced by gay Americans.
“As a gay man I look at the gay kids committing suicide from being bullied & there’s a hopelessness that surrounds it, but as a human being I look at it & say ‘Why? Where’s this disparity coming from, & why can’t we as a culture & society dig deeper to examine that?’ We’re terrified of facing ourselves. When I found out that young Jamey Rodemeyer killed himself, I felt deeply troubled. But when I found out that Rodemeyer had made an ‘It Gets Better’ video only months before taking his own life, I felt indescribable despair.”
“In light of Jamey’s death, it became clear to me in an instant that living a gay life without publicly acknowledging it is simply not enough to make any significant contribution to the immense work that lies ahead on the road to complete equality. Our society needs to recognize the unstoppable momentum toward unequivocal civil equality for every gay lesbian bisexual & transgendered citizen of this country.”
Quinto has been an advocate for Gay Rights even before his coming out. He put out his own It Gets Better video in 2011, feeding the speculation about his sexuality, as did the fact that he’s played a number of gay roles on stage & film.
“The fact that these things are such hot-button issues right now, socially & politically, I would much rather talk about that than talk about who I sleep with, I would love to be a voice in this maelstrom of chaos & obsessive celebrity infatuation that says, ‘Let’s talk about something that matters.’”
This winter I stayed with NBC’s limited series The Slap after the first episode because of Quinto’s strong work playing a particularly brutish heterosexual with real intensity & conviction. It was worth it, the series was provocative & well-acted. His own gayness seemed to have been wonderfully ignored in reviews of the show. He can play sensitive also, gathering strong reviews for the 2013-14 Broadway revival of Tennessee William’s The Glass Menagerie along with openly gay Cherry Jones.
Quinto inherited of the iconic Mr. Spock role in JJ Abrams‘ Star Trek reboot (2010, 2012). He has had interesting, idiosyncratic roles on TV in Heroes, Girls, Hannibal, 2 seasons of Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story, & in the film Margin Call (2011), which he also produced. Quinto was Executive Producer of the terrific Robert Redford starring All Is Lost (2013).
Later this year Quinto will appear in 2 films with gay themes: I Am Michael opposite my boo James Franco, which garnered terrific buzz at the Sundance Film Festival this past winter, & also portraying gay guy Glenn Greenwald in the Edward Snowden biopic Snowden, to be released in December.
My sources tell me that Quinto is committed to play George Gershwin in a Spielberg directed bio-pic. This seems like a very good idea to me.
He dated cutie-pie Jonathan Groff, star of the already missed HBO’s Looking. My sources say he just purchased a loft in NoHo neighborhood of NYC with his new BF, an artist/model. Together they make a whole lot of cute.
“I believe in the power of intention to change the landscape of our society & it is my intention to live an authentic life of compassion & integrity & action.”
I find Quinto to be quite delicious & super-talented.
