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Brilliant Minds' Zachary Quinto: It's a "Significant Honor" to Play Openly Gay Doctor
Actor Zachary Quinto lets his art and real life merge a bit in his new series.
NBC's new medical drama Brilliant Minds represents a true meeting of life and art for series lead Zachary Quinto. The show is inspired by the life and writings of British neurologist and author Dr. Oliver Sacks (1933-2015), who helped demystify rare and unusual neurological disorders through his non-fiction writing and patient care.
Most will know Sacks from his book Awakenings, which was adapted into the Academy Award-winning film of the same name in 1990 by director Penny Marshall and starred Robert De Niro and Robin Williams playing Sacks.
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In the new series, Quinto plays the fictional Dr. Oliver Wolf, who possesses many of the same attributes as the real Sacks, including his identity as a gay man, which Sacks revealed to the public in his 2015 autobiography On the Move: A Life.
Paying Homage to Dr. Oliver Sacks' Real Identity
At a recent press day for Brilliant Minds, Quinto — who is a gay man — addressed that inclusion in the series with reporters, including NBC Insider.
"To play an openly gay character on a primetime network show is an incredibly significant honor for me," Quinto shared. "I'm deeply grateful for this experience to tell these stories and to use Oliver Sacks' life as the origin point for those stories. Oliver Sacks was somebody who was deeply influenced by the time in which he came of age and the social restrictions on people being able to live fully who they were. So he didn't come out until very much later in life. He ended up meeting a partner and having a really happy relationship until the end of his life. So, to play a character who is embracing that aspect of himself in the modern world, and in a way that is vital and contemporary and forward-looking, is really special.
He added, "I'm incredibly grateful to NBC for telling these stories, and not only the stories from an LGBTQ perspective, but from a perspective of diversity in all the characters that we meet at Bronx General."
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The series has Wolf accepting the Attending position for Neurology at Bronx General Hospital. Part of his duties is to mentor the interns in the department and take them on rounds to help diagnose and treat their complex patients. Those interns will also be a diverse bunch that Quinto said the show will dive into.
"There's a really organic sense of inclusion in our show," he said. "I think audiences will see themselves in these characters no matter what their personal experiences, and that's something that is especially gratifying to me and and really exciting."
Brilliant Minds premieres on NBC on September 23, 2024, at 10 p.m. Brilliant Minds will be preceded by the premiere of Season 26 of The Voice with new Coaches Snoop Dogg and Michael Bublé at 8 p.m.
