Image Credit: Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto in 2009. Amanda Edwards/Getty Images
Star Trek fans everywhere have been watching, sharing and re-watching The Challenge, a sly Audi ad that, as a comedy vehicle, comfortably seats a pair of mismatched Spocks: Leonard Nimoy, the television and sci-fi icon, and his on-screen heir, Zachary Quinto, who wears the ears in Star Trek Into Darkness.
They are trash-talking frenemies in the mini-movie, but Trek producer Bryan Burke says that in grand Spock tradition there’s a vast emotion hidden behind that frosty artifice.”Their relationship is not a working relationship at all,” Burke said. ”They’re family.”
As Hollywood relationships go, the bond between Nimoy and Quinto is an anomaly. Not only does it bridge a vast generation gap (Nimoy is 82, Quinto is 35), it defies the Hollywood undertows of rivalry and status anxiety, which have made actors in similar situation behave like Betta fish when paired up.
”We spend a lot of time together, we keep in touch,” Quinto said in February just a few days after he filmed the Audi ad. “He’s a great friend. I value his presence in my life far beyond the experience we had making the first Star Trek movie and I’m grateful that it brought us together but now the friendship is a thing — it’s own thing. I love Leonard a lot.” READ FULL STORY »
