We had the honor of sitting down with Zachary Quinto (Sylar) and Tim Kring (Creator/Writer) to talk about the 3rd Season of Heroes. Here's what they had to say:

*Spoilers for people who haven't seen the Season 3 Premiere*



Zachary, when you signed on as Sylar, did you have any way of knowing how big this character would turn out to be, how the viewers would just love and hate him as much as - the way they do?

Zachary Quinto: Absolutely not. I don't think there's any way to sort of predict the way that things - as powerful as this show has been for all of us involved and then for our audience.

When you get involved in it, it's something that sort of takes you by storm a little bit. And this is obviously the biggest example in my experience of that happening.

But yeah, there's really no way to predict it. And obviously I'm most grateful that it did, but had no way of telling when I signed on.

I enjoy the understated efforts you put into Sylar as far as your theater training. You come at his character very quietly with a lot of menace. And I wonder if you could talk about your theater training and how it's helped you with this role, and other roles?

Zachary Quinto: Well actually I'm really grateful to come from a theater background because it's sort of solidified my relationship to the work from a different - a little bit of a different perspective than you see in Los Angeles sometimes.

You know, I mean, there are a lot of actors and sort of more and more actors I think that come from a theater background. So many of my friends actually working in Los Angeles now got those jobs that are - that brought them to LA in New York, you know.

So for me personally, I feel like my training has sort of - allows me to look at things from more than one perspective. It allows me to have a little bit more of an oversight and understand where a character lives in my body and understand where a character lives in my voice.

And then you sort of modify those understandings to fit the format that you're working in. I remember when I was in school that teachers would, you know, always sort of constantly argue about whether there was a different technique applied to television and film than is applied to theater.

And I think there definitely is, you know, and I think that coming from a theater background allows me to sort of bring things down. Like rather than going from a small/medium to a large venue, it's much easier if you can fill a 700-seat theater.

It's much easier to fill a 34-inch proscenium or whatever the, you know, the size of the screen is that you're working on. So for me that training gave me a really great basis from which to work and I continue to learn about the technique and the tools that are necessary to work in television and film.

And it's - you know, I feel really fortunate to continue to have the experiences that teach me those new lessons, you know.

As far as Sylar goes, obviously he was the main bad guy in Season 1. In Season 2 he spent a lot of time really sort of recovering on the DL. It looks like he's more (involved) this year. So Zachary, what was sort of your intention for this character coming into Season 3 and are you satisfied with the scripts you've seen to this point?

Zachary Quinto: I think that the scripts this season are just, you know, more exciting and more action-packed, and more dynamic than ever. I mean, I think it just keeps getting better and more - you know, every time I open a script it's truly a thrill.

I mean, in terms of my - my approach is always the same in whatever I'm working on, is to serve the text, you know. And I think we're really fortunate to work with incredibly creative, imaginative, consistent writers that bring, you know, surprise.

I can't - sometimes when I opened the script in Season 3, it's difficult to keep track of exactly where I'm going because there's so many different aspects of this character's experience this year that are drawn upon.

So my approach really is just to sort of serve that and to keep track of it at the same time. But I think people will see what I mean as the season unfolds.

Tim Kring: Let me sort of - I wanted to kind of clarify something because it's been brought up a couple of times, this idea of Season 2 versus Season 3, versus Season 1.

The truth is what you were referring as Season 2 was not really our Season 2. It was - it turned out to be Season 2 because of the writers' strike. It was really, you know, sort of like watching a movie and having the projector break 40 minutes into it.

So what we're doing now on - for Season 3 was really going to be contained within the body of Season 2. So to the extent of a character like Sylar who spent the first volume of Season 2 without his powers, in the subsequent volumes he would've gotten those powers and all of - back and then gone on, you know, a series of adventures.

So I just kind of wanted to clarify that, you know, what people are referring to as Season 2 was not by our design. It was really by the design of the fact that there was a writers' strike.