Zachary Quinto’s everywhere. “Star Trek,” Broadway’s “Boys In the Band” and now Steven Soderbergh’s Netflix film, “High Flying Bird.”
Zach: “I haven’t even seen this one yet. My role’s a disreputable, sports agent corporate shmuck.”
Me: You maybe can explain that?
Zach: “The story’s love of basketball. Passion for the game. A financial NBA conflict. A strike. Players want more money. Owners need to solve a lockout. My antithesis of a big-time character is a cog who lays down decrees, wishes he was more important but he’s not and doesn’t know how to be. In June, I’m also in AMC TV’s ‘NOS4A2,’ which is a supernatural horror movie. I play an immortal-bastard schmuck.”
Before I murmur that he seems to replay the same character, he said: “Tomorrow I’m off to LA, where I only live six months a year. There I’ll look for another stage project so I can be back in New York.”
“Bird” co-star Kyle MacLachlan: “I play a moneyed team owner. It’s a complicated inside story. Cat and mouse. About control. Right and wrong negotiations. It’s a platform. A manager’s journey. In one scene in a sauna, I present my case and he realizes I won’t budge.”
Kyle, whose chestnut hair is now silver gray: “I’m in the middle of shooting ‘Atlantic Crossing,’ a TV series. I play FDR. World War II, his last six years. We shot in Prague.
“It was not an easy role. I watched Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s footage, read his biographies, heard his speeches, studied his history, rehearsed walking on specially made braces. He leaned on a son’s arm, threw one leg forward, lurched on the other. The steel braces connected around his hips. The producers said I looked like him — so the hair stays silver gray.”
You can also see what some of the seminaked rest of him looks like in a steam room in “High Flying Bird.”
This idea’s for the dogs
Connecticut’s working to tax dog-walkers. Unlicensed, often untrained, paid and tipped in cash, on cellphones while monitoring many big dogs who, pulled in tandem, poop or pee on one another. It’s pocket money. Pay no governments, no taxes. Watch. Next, NYC puts out its paw . . . LONDON, March 14, Christie’s auctions 200 works from George Michael’s collection. Seems the late music star admired art other than public potties’ graffiti. A special online sale will go to charity.
‘Fighting’ on film
Speaking of sports guys, MGM and WWE glued together “Fighting With My Family.” About wrestlers. Snoop Dogg, about whom you may have heard, hosted a showing. I saw the film. A comedy. Wrestler Dwayne Johnson, a k a The Rock, co-produced.
Odds & Ends
Clive Davis’ Aretha Franklin concert special airs March 10 on CBS . . . HEADING to Montego Bay, Jamaica, for the annual Sugar Cane Ball on Saturday, private jet-setters first loaded up at Elio’s . . . WHEN DJT stated USA’s never going socialist, Bernie Sanders’ scowly-face scowled. His BS initials stand for what he stands for . . . PLEASE try Barolo East, the new East 49th Street restaurant, and have John D. personally prep his ice cream with truffles dessert.
Tuna surprise!
Matthew McConaughey’s new film “Serenity” filmed around the Indian Ocean. In one scene, playing a fishing captain, he reels in a 212-pound tuna. Question: So what did you do with the thing? Answer: “You kidding? It fed the whole village.”
Dais whisper before an honoree’s speech: “Please, he’s such a sophisticate that he thinks Sani-Flush is an after-dinner liqueur.”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.