Q1 Playboy: You grew up in Pittsburgh, hometown of Mister Rogers, who famously told kids, “You’re okay just the way you are.” Would he apply that to Heroes’ Sylar, the best villain on TV, and want him as a neighbour?

Quinto: I don’t think Mister Rogers’s far-reaching assertion reaches so far as to include maniacally bloodthirsty superpowered psychopaths. He was talking to and about children who were struggling with what it means to be fat, dyslexic or myopic. If Sylar were Rogers’s neighbor, the Neighborhood of Make-Believe would have a whole different element. I can just imagine Trolley being impeded on the tracks by the severed heads of Daniel Striped Tiger or Lady Elaine Fairchilde as he tries to pass by the castle of King Friday and Queen Sara—not a pleasant image.

Q2 Playboy: Is there real evil in the world?

Quinto: Absolutely. I’m a huge fan of Carl Jung. I think shades of the Shadow exist in each individual. If you’re not aware and willing to look at that part of yourself, your unconscious, your Shadow, then the shit we don’t want to look at manifests itself as dysfunctional relationships, addiction, aggression and bad choices. That adds up and can create personal discord and disharmony, which then affect relationships, then society, then the world. Is Dick Cheney aware of his Shadow? I don’t think so. I think he believes in what he’s doing. That’s what’s so creepy about it.

Q3 Playboy: Must Sylar use only his index finger when opening a brainpan? Didn’t his mom teach him it’s not polite to point?

Quinto: I can also use the middle finger—and either hand, depending on camera angles. The adage for me is, When you point at somebody else, three fingers point back at you.

Q4 Playboy: Did you ever sport a unibrow? What’s your eyebrow-care routine?

Quinto: I lost the unibrow in college when I was preparing to go into the acting marketplace. My eyebrows do require some attention. I had to shave three quarters off each to play Spock. I don’t know if they’re my favorite feature, but they’re certainly my defining characteristic. My older brother and I refer to ourselves as the Brow Brothers sometimes.

Q5 Playboy: We all had to suffer through “Save the cheerleader, save the world.” Now it’s your turn to fill in the blank. Save the…?

Quinto: Save the bullshit. I don’t want it.

Q6 Playboy: You sang and danced in high school. Did that make you an object of scorn or praise?

Quinto: I was always an actor who could also sing or move; I wouldn’t say dance so much. In high school the drama program was an after-school, let’s-get-together-and-put-on-a-show kind of thing. Since the play was always a musical, that’s what I had to do. I also studied acting outside of school. Toward the end of my junior year kids started to realize I had perseverance and had already decided what I wanted to be. Lots of them hadn’t even thought about it, and that created unexpected respect, which surprised me. It was gratifying.