Zachary Quinto as an American Gay Man: “Scary”
Zachary Quinto is opening up about what it's like to be a gay American amid the country's current social and political climate.
In an interview with Time, the 39-year-old Star Trek Beyond star reflects on life as an out actor in the wake of the Orlando shooting at gay nightclub Pulse and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's appointment of vice presidential candidate Mike Pence, who has previously spoken out against LGBT rights.
"I am scared," Quinto said of the political climate. "I don't take anything for granted."
"There are indicators of the pendulum swinging the other way right now in terms of the political temperature and the landscape of Trump," he explained. "It's absurd to me, but I have to have faith that we'll endure and triumph. I have to feel like people will look at these two old white men, who represent everything that is negative in history, and say there are more people who want to go a different direction. I hope so."
"We have to fight with everything we have to continue the path that we've been able to gain such ground on in the last five to 10 years," he continued. "It's just a bleak and dangerous moment in our geopolitical landscape right now. It's unprecedented in our lifetime how precariously we're all perched – not just here in this country but around the world."
He also explained how the political tension in our world today is echoed in the themes found in Star Trek Beyond.
"Our adversary in this movie is a being who's diametrically opposed to the Federation," Quinto said. "He wants to destroy a place that's a hub for different species and races – people from all over the galaxy coming together and inhabiting this one place. It's weirdly parallel to what's going on all over the world right now."
"There's waves of nationalism and xenophobia and fear-based thinking and intolerance," he went on. “It's alarming."
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