Quinto Comes Out; Spock Next?
Zachary Quinto, who played Spock in the last “Star Trek” movie, has come out of the closet. Everybody I know in the world of New York acting and theater (Quinto appeared last season in “Angels in America” off-Broadway) knew that he was gay. So this was not news to most of his colleagues. But I’m sure it was news to many Trekkies out there. I think it’s great that Quinto is at the point in his life where he feels free to share this personal information. I have to admit, however, that I’m less interested in who he’s dating than the larger question of why there have never been any LGBT characters in screen versions of “Star Trek.” J. J. Abrams, who directed the last movie and is readying the next one, with Quinto attached, said in 2009 that he was “frankly shocked that in the history of Star Trek there have never been gay characters in all the series.” Including a gay character in the next film “was not in the list of my priorities to try to figure out how to make this movie in the best possible way. But it will now be in the hopper.” We’ll see if the script follows through. But don’t expect Kirk and Spock to get jiggy with it.
