Zachary Quinto on Playing a Brilliant Yet Flawed Neurologist in 'Brilliant Minds'

I mean Spock has like a a whole side of him which isn't even human he probably as a result of that is maybe a little bit super intelligent but Oliver wolf would definitely give him a run for his money I would love to see that episode of [Music] Jeopardy Dr Oliver wolf is actually based on the of Oliver Sachs very renowned neurologist who lived and worked in the mid to late 20th century he died in 2015 at the age of 83 it's kind of been a dream as an actor because I get all of the benefits of the real life Oliver Sachs but I get to create a character all my own but I've never played a character that's inspired by a real life person but exists in a totally different world I mean he was really regarded as one of the preeminent neurologist certainly of his time and also the New York Times called him the poet laurate of medicine because he was very concerned with capturing the experiences of his patients in his writing and so he wrote books and uh innumerable case studies of patients that he worked with and many essays and he wrote a a beautiful Memoir toward the end of his life as well so it's been incredible for that reason alone and then add to it all of the amazing people that I've gotten to work with on the show and Michael grassy our showrunner and our staff of incredible writers and the the world that they've created has been really Vivid and really um a joy to immerse myself in we a doctor you put this facility at risk we get it you want to change how your patients see the world I want to change how the world sees my patience for me it was really about reading and watching him uh he's given many lectures over the years and I was able to spend hours on YouTube just watching him talk he was motivated by this idea that he always wanted to understand and experience whenever possible the same Sensations and the same perspectives that his patients were um experiencing and so he was very unconventional in how he went about that putting myself in the same state of mind as the patient will help us understand their condition did you just take a patient's trugs we must see the world through her Glens he was working with people who in many cases were suffering from their olical disorders or diseases uh or or injuries from which there was no return to normal and so part of his work was really always about working with his patients to find their new normal and find who they were in the context of this disease or this injury and that to me it's uh it's something so moving it's something so beautiful about the human Spirit right like let let me find um your Integrity with you let me find your dignity with you he's our North Star which is what Michael grassy and the collabora the creative team always says like we're we're always aiming to honor Oliver saxs this is Dr Wolf he's a genius we might actually learn something people say he can't recognize faces wolf I think he's a dick yes wolf is strange I hadn't done television in a little while certainly a series like this and it just felt I I don't know I mean it was the material it was the people getting to to work with Michael grassy who was our showrunner Le toen creger who directed our first two episodes and Greg brante and his whole team who are producing the show has been a real dream so I think I may have come into it with a little bit of uncertainty as to whether or not this was the right move to make but as soon as I talked to them as soon as I engaged them about the show they wanted to make and what they thought it could be then there was no looking back [Music] it is a bit of a departure for me I would say this character um in terms of what people generally associate me with which is either maybe some more heightened stylized storytelling sci-fi stuff or horror or you know Supernatural stuff um or a villain you know this is very different I'm always looking for ways to diversify and change up my experience and the roles that I play and the kinds of stories that I tell you know we I think our episodes tie up with a sense of what's possible and so there is this uh this feeling of optimism in our show which I think at this point in our cultural moment our social moment I feel really grateful to be putting those stories into the world as opposed to maybe some of the darker stories that I've told in the past you make furniture lamps mainly I make the shades myself really what kind of material do you use Skin zero similarities between Oliver threeson and Oliver wolf um zero but um yeah I never really I never really I mean I obviously I knew I played a doctor but I forgot his name was Oliver he's an inimitable character I mean it's really it's really fun because he's quirky socially awkward he he suffers from prosopagnosia which is face blindness which was true of Oliver saxs so that that's a a source of uh Conflict for the character and um presents obstacles for him he's not the most socially Adept person that you've ever encountered and so there is some humor in that and some awkwardness that comes from it you know he says what he thinks he doesn't really consider how it might land on somebody else um and he's only driven primarily by his char for the people that he's treating so um yeah it's uh it is quite a departure from Oliver threats and I will say that tell me what you're seeing I like to know what my patients are experiencing there is a lot of medical jargon uh well prosopagnosia took me a minute uh to figure that out we have an incredible team of medical advisers we have a a ER doctor who's on our writing staff so um she's a really wonderful resource we have a great team of nurses who are on set with us every day and helping us understand how to pronounce things first of all and second of all we do a lot of medical rehearsals to make sure that we are approaching any of the medical events that happen on the show with authenticity and the terminology of the brain and the different cortexes and the amydala and the you know all all of the kind of for me playing a character for whom these terms are second nature and like they just come I have to have a relationship to them that feels really familiar and really comfortable and I usually I usually cultivate that on the day I like that stuff I like that challenge of language I can't tell you how many times I've been reading a script for the show and then I'll be like uh oh okay well that's fake that didn't you know and then I go to Michael I'm like Michael this fake thing that you put in the and then it's always real like there's one case of a of a woman who who entirely loses her sense of pro perception our conscious awareness of our body in space so she loses that the signals that go to her from her brain to her muscles are interrupted and so she's not able to move and a lot of what we try to accomplish on the show is portraying these experiences that the patients are having in a visceral way for the audience in a cinematic way for the audience so that they get a sense of what it might feel like the pilot episode is a woman who under goes surgery for epilepsy and that that that part of the surgery is successful so she no longer has seizures but a a byproduct of the surgery is a syndrome called capg grass syndrome uh and that is where you lose all emotional connection to the things or the people in your life that you would and should have an emotional connection to I've never seen anything like it she doesn't recognize her sons you will find your way through this I'll be there with you every step of the way and so the whole episode is about how do we create a scenario in which she's able to feel that depth of emotion and connection and accountability to her own kids those are two examples I mean there are many others but those are the two that I I I really understood the depth of stories that we were telling here and the magnitude of um what those experiences would be for the people who were confronted by them she can breathe on her own our brain just doesn't know it [Music] yet he's incredibly brilliant he knows how to help people how to change lives if only he could apply some of that to his own life to his own intimate relationships and that's another great thing that we get to explore in the show not only do we encounter these patients on a regular basis but we also um explore the emotional psychological and intimate connections between the series regulars between the doctors we're close to a breakthrough are you you know it's a gift your condition it makes you look so much deeper sometimes all it takes is for one person to really see you Sophie in the case of Oliver Sach wolf I think he's somebody who felt called to something bigger than himself and had to get to a place in his life where he was able to connect with that and step into it fully and embrace it and I think that has to come with a a period of of growing pains and discomfort and I think that someone who is incredibly intelligent can be perceived as other um because they're not always so easy to relate to or identify with and I think that's certainly true of Oliver wolf I think it is human nature to want to dive deeper to want to go to darker and more complicated places I think that is actually part of our imperative as human beings and I don't know why maybe maybe there's some connection where these experiences creatively have drawn me further on that path for myself as an actor or as a person you know I do think that we all bring ourselves to the roles that we play on some level and I think we bring the roles that we play into our own lives as well there's an exchange that happens over time and lastly uh Donna Murphy as part of your Ensemble are there other Broadway Divas you want to be on the show Cynthia Nixon come Christine baransky come Audrey McDonald come just bring them all basically the trouble is that pesky Gilded Age has all the Broadway Divas on it so schedules are very complicated but interestingly you mentioned Donna Murphy Donna Murphy and I were in a production of Oliver in 1992 and on and on our first meeting I reminded her that we were both in this production of Oliver she pretended to remember me but I was like girl you don't remember me but she was like no no I really really do and I was like okay well but in any event it's been a delight to work with her she's so good and she's um she's really a wonderful addition of the cast and I hope that we're able to bring you know because I come from the theater and go back to the theater as often as I can and uh so that is the goal as we move forward if we get to keep telling these stories to bring more and more of them [Music] up I think probably I mean Spock has like a a whole side of him which isn't even human and I think that he probably as a result of that is maybe a little bit super intelligent like hyper intelligent not in just a human plane but on another level but Oliver wolf would definitely give him a run for his money I would love to see that episode of Jeopardy okay [Music]