Zachary Quinto Unconcerned Over ‘Star Trek 4’ Time Gap, Could See Playing Spock In His 60s

It has been a while since one of the Kelvin Universe actors has weighed in about returning to Star Trek, but Zachary Quinto has stepped up to talk about taking another ride on the USS Enterprise. Even though it’s been over 8 years since their last trip, he still sees “limitless” possibilities playing Spock.

Limitless Spock

Paramount has confirmed they are still developing another Star Trek movie film set in the Kelvin Universe featuring the cast of the 2009 Star Trek movie. There have been several attempts to make “Star Trek 4,” with writer Steve Yockey hired in March to take the latest crack at a script. In an interview with Variety promoting his new NBC medical drama Brilliant Minds, Zachary Quinto expressed hope to get to play Spock again:

“The great thing is ‘Star Trek’ is a limitless universe. Look at all the television shows, look at all the stories, look at all the characters and timelines. Anything is possible. That’s the joy of the franchise. That’s why it’s lasted for 55, 60 years. I’m open to it. I would love it. I would absolutely love it.”

Paramount has confirmed that the next Star Trek feature film on their slate is actually an untitled Star Trek origin movie with a new cast, based on a script from Seth Grahame-Smith (The Lego Batman Movie) with Andor‘s Toby Haynes set to direct. That movie is on Paramount’s 2026 release slate, so “Star Trek 4” is still several years away and its release will happen over a decade after 2016’s Star Trek Beyond. But Quinto doesn’t see an issue with the time gap, or with playing the character later into his career, telling Variety:

“There’s no cutoff. The original cast did movies for decades, well into their 50s, 60s. The stories might be different. We might not be running as fast on the other planets, but I think anything’s possible, and I think there’s nothing more fulfilling as an artist then to come back to something after time has passed, and cultivate a relationship with it from a completely different perspective and a completely new point of view.”

This issue of a time gap has also been brought up by Chris Pine (who is now 44), who recently pondered how the next movie will deal with Kirk “getting older.” Original Spock actor Leonard Nimoy was 60 in 1991 when the final film with the original cast (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country) was released. James Doohan (Scotty) and DeForest Kelley (Dr. McCoy) were both 71. Nimoy returned to the role of Spock in his 70s for 2009’s Star Trek and his 80s for 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness. Quinto was 31 when the 2009 Star Trek movie came out and he is now 47, so he has given himself plenty of leeway for a return to the role if Paramount finally puts what they have been describing as the “final” film for the Kelvin crew into production.

For now, to see Quinto you can tune into Brilliant Minds, where he stars as Dr. Oliver Wolf in a medical drama based on the real-life neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks. The show premiered last week and episode two airs tonight (September 30th) at 10 pm on NBC. You can see a trailer below.