Interview: 'Heroes' star Zachary 'Sylar' Quinto

There's an especially creepy moment in the Heroes season premiere where the show's acquisitive bad guy, Sylar (Zachary Quinto), catches up with one of the other super-powered individuals he's been pursuing.

After stalking his prey, he gets what he's after inside the person's brain. The scene isn't overly gory, but it does get to the heart of what has made Sylar such a good villain over Heroes' two seasons (the third begins Monday on NBC): Quinto's cool, clinical approach to the character, which makes Sylar a disturbingly unflappable monster.

The first arc of season three is called "Villains," so viewers can expect to see a lot of Sylar in the story's 13 episodes. And according to Quinto, that will allow the show to explore his character in greater detail.

"This character grows and evolves in so many ways this season. I mean, primarily I think he's put in situations and he is, I think in some ways, manipulated to employ a kind of restraint against his instincts and his impulses that we've never seen him have to employ before," Quinto says.

"There's a lot of unexpected turns this year for my character and it's been -- you know, every time I open a script there's just a different kind of challenge, you know, whether it's a either physical challenge in terms of a fight sequence or a stunt sequence that we're doing, or a special effects sequence that we're doing, or emotional challenge in terms of what he's coming up against in himself, and what he's coming up against outside of himself with the people that he's interacting with."

Here's more of what Quinto had to say on a call with reporters in early September:

On delving into Sylar's background:
"I'd certainly be interested in learning as much about his background as the writers see fit. I mean, we do go there again this year. At a certain point you'll sort of revisit that character and the shades of that character as you first saw him."

How evil can he get?
"I feel like Sylar's evil is rooted in a great humanity and in a lot of smallness, and a feeling of sort of emptiness. So I don't really look at it as, like, how evil could he possibly get. I sort of look at it as ... what he has in front of him and the choices that he makes in order to seize his opportunities or to feel -- you know, he's constantly, constantly wrestling with the desire to feel special, the desire to feel valid, the desire to feel viable. So I feel like those are the ways that I come at it more than the level of evil that he achieves, because those are really just means to an end."

On whether Heroes helped him land the role of Spock in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot:
"Well, I hardly chose it, so to speak. I mean, you know -- this whole year for me has been such a blur of good fortune that it's -- very little of it was by design. I feel like my experience on Heroes and the world in which it's rooted lends itself to the attention that led me to be a part of the movie. And, you know, I don't really think of it in terms of how I'll use Heroes to get movie roles or how I use, you know, Heroes to get other jobs.

"I remain as grateful to be on Heroes now as I did when I first started. And it's so fulfilling creatively and professionally that I feel like as long as I keep -- I think it's like, you know, you can't get ahead of yourself, you know, because no amount of success or exposure, or opportunity is going to really matter or be ultimately fulfilling unless you can be totally present in what you're doing right now."

On whether Sylar could ever be good:
"I don't really look at him as, you know, absolutely good or bad. I think that he is constantly walking a line of ambiguity within himself and uncertainty within himself that defines the way he acts. And so I feel like there are colors of this character that are possible, that are maybe a little less violent and a little less dark than we've seen him in the past.

"But as long as it's rooted in a connection to the character's psychology, then that's what's fun for me. So I have nothing but faith in the fact that that would always be the case no matter where this character is taken on the show. And that's certainly held true so far this season."

More Heroes: Creator Tim Kring and star Masi Oka talk about what's to come this season.

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