Heroes's Sylar: How do you find an exploding man?
I remember when Sylar was just a name on Heroes and when the fannish buzz was that Sean Bean would be playing the role of the notorious killer. It was funny when Zachary Quinto's name was leaked, because the general reaction was, "What? Who?" And his first appearances on the series did nothing to change that vague sense of disappointment, of disconnect. This nebbish, this little man was supposed to be a supervillain? This nobody?
What Heroes has done beautifully is build a nobody into a somebody, a nebbish into a powerhouse, all with the help of Zachary Quinto's innate talent and a blank slate. It's amazing to me how it happened, in steps, week by week, and I don't think they could've done with a "name" actor, with Sean Bean, who would have come in right on the heels of menacing Sophia Bush in The Hitcher. He would've walked in with pre-fabricated evil and the shadows of Alec Trevelyan and Boromir filling all the mysterious spaces in Sylar.
Quinto's Sylar is a delicious unknown, something truly frightening because it comes from a place so mundane. (And, no, I don't mean Queens.) He's like a video game character, gaining strength with every kill and picking up extra lives. Not only that, but going hand in hand with the killer instinct is the exponential growth of his sexual appeal. Generally speaking, psycho killers are not *hot* -- or, at least, they're not hot because they kill people. They're hot *and* they kill people... and it's really not all that sexy. (Though women who wrote to Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker, would probably disagree.) But Sylar is a different egg... a meek Mama's boy, a watchmaker living a life of quiet desperation... he embraces his lust for murder, for power, and it opens up something in him. It's like hitting puberty all over again... that rush of hormones, that change... "becoming a man." Only, Sylar's change is not about the sudden ability to give life. It's the ability to take it away, to consume it. And how can that not be heady?
Which is not to say that Sylar is interested in sex. For him, taking the powers of other "heroes" is far, far more arousing and orgasmic than the mechanics of Tab A, Slot B. He shows no canonical interest in getting fleshy whatsoever. It's incidental, completely insignificant. And perhaps that's what makes him so chilling: That basic human drive for procreation (and recreation) is effectively replaced by the drive to kill. He gets off on pain, on death, on fear.
And yet Zachary Quinto brings a whimsy to it, a boyish amusement...which both keeps him watchable and cements just how twisted Sylar really is. There are elements of vulnerability to the character, flashes of the basic human need to connect, first with Mohinder and then with his mother. But the elements, the flashes, don't surmount Sylar's basic core: His explosive need to conquer, to be somebody you can't ignore.
He's a brilliant villain, an effective one, and being an unknown (aside from his stint on So NoTORIous) has given Zachary Quinto the distinct advantage of eating viewers' brains just as slowly and insidiously as Sylar cutting a swathe through those on Chandra Suresh's list.
No one's saying, "What? Who?" anymore.
They're just saying, "Boom!"
What Heroes has done beautifully is build a nobody into a somebody, a nebbish into a powerhouse, all with the help of Zachary Quinto's innate talent and a blank slate. It's amazing to me how it happened, in steps, week by week, and I don't think they could've done with a "name" actor, with Sean Bean, who would have come in right on the heels of menacing Sophia Bush in The Hitcher. He would've walked in with pre-fabricated evil and the shadows of Alec Trevelyan and Boromir filling all the mysterious spaces in Sylar.
Quinto's Sylar is a delicious unknown, something truly frightening because it comes from a place so mundane. (And, no, I don't mean Queens.) He's like a video game character, gaining strength with every kill and picking up extra lives. Not only that, but going hand in hand with the killer instinct is the exponential growth of his sexual appeal. Generally speaking, psycho killers are not *hot* -- or, at least, they're not hot because they kill people. They're hot *and* they kill people... and it's really not all that sexy. (Though women who wrote to Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker, would probably disagree.) But Sylar is a different egg... a meek Mama's boy, a watchmaker living a life of quiet desperation... he embraces his lust for murder, for power, and it opens up something in him. It's like hitting puberty all over again... that rush of hormones, that change... "becoming a man." Only, Sylar's change is not about the sudden ability to give life. It's the ability to take it away, to consume it. And how can that not be heady?
Which is not to say that Sylar is interested in sex. For him, taking the powers of other "heroes" is far, far more arousing and orgasmic than the mechanics of Tab A, Slot B. He shows no canonical interest in getting fleshy whatsoever. It's incidental, completely insignificant. And perhaps that's what makes him so chilling: That basic human drive for procreation (and recreation) is effectively replaced by the drive to kill. He gets off on pain, on death, on fear.
And yet Zachary Quinto brings a whimsy to it, a boyish amusement...which both keeps him watchable and cements just how twisted Sylar really is. There are elements of vulnerability to the character, flashes of the basic human need to connect, first with Mohinder and then with his mother. But the elements, the flashes, don't surmount Sylar's basic core: His explosive need to conquer, to be somebody you can't ignore.
He's a brilliant villain, an effective one, and being an unknown (aside from his stint on So NoTORIous) has given Zachary Quinto the distinct advantage of eating viewers' brains just as slowly and insidiously as Sylar cutting a swathe through those on Chandra Suresh's list.
No one's saying, "What? Who?" anymore.
They're just saying, "Boom!"