Zachary Quinto has played supernatural villains before.  That’s why he wasn’t, at first, interested in NOS4A2 series, based on Joe Hill’s novel. “Then they sent me the scripts to read and I felt there was a lot of dimension to this world and to these characters and I felt like there was a lot of great collaborative energy around the TV show,” Quinto tells to HFPA journalist Anke Hofmann.

He had a follow-up conversation with creator-showrunner Jami O’Brien and Kari Skogland, who directed the first two episodes of the show. “I really liked Jami and Kari and I liked that the show was being led by women, that was really interesting to me.”

The story is dark.  Quinto plays Charlie Manx, an immortal vampire-like character who, rather than drinking blood, feeds on the souls of children. “He is 135-years old.  When he is in need of being replenished he becomes this withered, hollow, stooped over character.  You see the darkness manifest in him.  And then after he becomes sated he is more vital and powerful and younger.”

A massive amount of makeup work was needed for Quinto to play Charlie Manx. “There was something really interesting for me about the transformation that would be a part of playing this role.  I had been really interested in finding a character that allowed me to disappear and this certainly did that but at the same time it also allowed me to play a bit more of a heightened, vital version of the character.”

After four and a half months into the process, he appreciated the younger version of Manx because that meant less time in makeup. “But I loved it all because there was a lot of variety.  Sometimes on a television show when you’re playing the same character for an extended period of time there are ruts of monotony that present themselves and that was really never the case with Manx because every day was different.  That was an interesting and a unique part of the process as well.”

Listen to the podcast and learn what is Christmasland; what was it like to drive a 1938 Rolls Royce Race; why he wanted to do a reboot of the documentary series In Search OStar Trek experience; why being curious is important; why hosting is different from acting or producing; why theatre is his first love; what kind of experience he had in the Broadway play The Boys in the BandStar Trek movie; what is his fondest memory of Leonard Nimoy; what would he tell his younger self; what makes him happy and why he wants to travel to India.