Zachary Quinto Says He 'Benefited' from His Heroes Character’s Slow Reveal: 'People Were Really Excited' (Exclusive)

Zachary Quinto is looking back at his breakthrough role in Heroes.

The Brilliant Minds star joins Busy Philipps on the Nov. 13 episode of her QVC+ and HSN+ chat show Busy This Week, and the host makes sure to bring up the NBC sci-fi drama.

“I remember watching that first season of Heroes and just loving it so intensely,” Philipps gushed.  

“It was well done,” Quinto, 47, agreed. “That first season was really, really special, definitely. It captured something that people really wanted to experience as an audience, and so it just caught fire right away.”

The series, which follows the adventures of a diverse cast of ordinary characters who discover they have super powers, premiered in 2006, essentially at the dawn of the modern superhero boom in TV and film. During the show’s original four-season run from 2006 to 2010, Quinto played the villainous Syler, a serial killer with the ability to steal others’ superhuman powers.

While the character served as the show’s primary antagonist in its first season, Quinto didn’t appear until Heroes’ third episode, and the slow reveal of his dastardly deeds built anticipation for Syler’s big reveal, according to the actor.

“I really benefited because the character I played was so specifically introduced to the show,” he told Philipps, 45. “So, it was built in a way that it really set me up for success. People were really excited. They wanted to know who the character was.”

“And then I showed up as this kind of nerdy watchmaker, and they were like, ‘Wait, how is this the guy?’ ” Quinto continued. “And then it evolved into this more archetypal villain as the series went on.”

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Over the course of the show’s four seasons, Quinto’s character continued to evolve into more of an anti-hero. However, the actor did not return for the 2015 follow-up limited series, Heroes Reborn.

Earlier this year, Deadline reported that Heroes creator Tom Kring is developing a second reboot, Heroes: Eclipsed. It remains to be seen whether Quinto will reprise the role of Syler should the new series get the green light.