Zachary Quinto is no stranger to playing unhinged and downright murderous characters, ranging from the villainous Sylar in the fan-favorite Heroes series and various iterations of terrifying characters in Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk's American Horror Story franchise. But with Audible's latest Audible Original thriller, Quinto takes on a new brand of unhinged: an actor who takes method acting a little too seriously. The Method is the fifth release in Audible's exclusive deal with the famed author James Patterson, following in the footsteps of The Coldest Case, Chasing Ghislaine, The Guilty, and Daniel X: Genesis.

The cinematic soundscape of The Method is the perfect way to slip into the mind of Brent Quill (Quinto), a frustrated actor who keeps having his scenes cut, until one day he books a career-changing role as the lead in a new series about a brutal and charming serial killer. The trick behind his success? A new intensive method acting process that pushes him to blur the lines between real life and the pages of the script. It's a brutally unsettling series that will absolutely keep hooked until the very end. In addition to Quinto, the voice cast includes Stephanie Beatriz, Lil Rel Howery, Justine Lupe, Michael B. Silver, Jack Davenport, Gideon Glick, Ethan Herschenfeld, Adam Lazarre-White, Judith Light, Margo Martindale, and Graham Powell.

In a 1-on-1 interview with Collider, Quinto spoke about playing characters like The Method's Brent and Heroes' Sylar, whether the Audible Original changed his opinion of method acting, what led to him collaborating with James Patterson and if he would ever write a book with the prolific author, and why he enjoys doing voice acting.

COLLIDER: I have followed your career since you played Sylar in Heroes, and listening to The Method, I was like, “I'm starting to detect a bit of a pattern.” Why is it so fun to play characters who are crazy?

ZACHARY QUINTO: Yeah, good question. I mean, they tend to be more complicated. They tend to be a little bit more dynamic in some ways. There's something a little bit fun about being able to lose control in an environment that in and of itself is cold, so there's a nice structure that allows for that kind of exploration, I think, in a creative outlet.

Also, I think once people experience a character that they respond to and that they enjoy, then oftentimes they want to continue to experience that kind of a character. So it's nice for me to be able to come back to stories that allow me to tap that part of myself and to bring something to life that I know people really like to see me do. So I think all of those reasons factor into this throughline that I have in some of the work that I've done.

The Method is exploring this darker side to method acting, which is obviously very topical right now. As you explored this role, did it change your own opinions to method acting or make you look at it in a different way?

QUINTO: Not really, to be honest. I mean, I respect the method and certainly the history of it. When you really consider where it came from, there was a whole generation of actors and directors, of course, most notably like Marlon Brando and Elia Kazan and that whole world, that whole movement of actors who had to create something in order to advance the work itself. They were working at a time when psychological exploration in society was much less common than it is today.

I think that the method was born out of a need to give language and vocabulary for something that the rest of society has caught up with in a contemporary culture. So for me, I respect the method and where it comes from. I've never really considered myself a method actor. It's not really my style. So it was kind of fun to explore the psyche of someone who really does get lost in it. But boundaries are such an important part of my life and my work that I've never been in danger of losing myself in a character. But it's fun to pretend.

Speaking to boundaries, there's so many points in this story where the onset experiences are so F'd up, and I would love to know what it was like to kind of explore that onset element. That is definitely not the kind of set you want to work on.

QUINTO: No, it's definitely not. Well, I have to say Danya Taymor, who directed this, was really fun to work with, and really prepared, and really created an environment in which I felt like I could really explore and play a lot, which is what you want from something like this. I mean, when you're doing an audio-only narrative, there's something freeing about the fact that you get to play with sounds and sounds alone. We were able to really explore that. We did this kind of at, I wouldn't say the height of the pandemic, but certainly, while things were still shut down.

It was, for me, a really great outlet to be able to go and dive into this world and excavate it and explore it with her in a way that was really enjoyable and fun when I wasn't having those opportunities on real sets. So there's something really fun about creating a heightened world with these really dynamic and colorful characters. We had a really good time working on it, I have to say. I really appreciated her input and her vision, and I hope very much that we get to work together sometime in an environment that's not audio only, but that she's an accomplished theater director, and film and television is something that I would love to explore with her as well.

I love audio dramas, and I'm so thrilled to see that this medium is really starting to become more popular. What drew you to create this as an audio drama instead of something like a limited series? Was it because it was in the midst of the pandemic, or was it just a new avenue you really wanted to explore?

QUINTO: Well, it came about because of a friendship that I have with someone who works with James Patterson and develops a lot of adaptations of his work into television series. He suggested that I come up with an idea that I could develop with James as a book. Then as we were doing that and as this was the idea that started to emerge as I was brainstorming with my creative collaborators at my production company, Before the Door Pictures, it was right at the time that James Patterson was establishing this relationship with Audible to produce audio dramas, and it just made sense.

I've worked with Audible a lot in the past. I really love the experiences that I've had with them. They're a great partner. Because Jim's company was exploring this space with them, it just made sense in an organic way. It wasn't something that we set out to have lived, necessarily, in the audio space, but it just was a really good parallel, and it was a really good medium for this story to be told. So we decided to pivot a little bit from the idea that this could maybe be a book in print, and decided to back it into the deal that Jim had with Audible for a scripted audio drama.

Is that something you still want to explore, working on a book with James Patterson?

QUINTO: I'd be open to it. I mean, what an incredibly prolific and accomplished author he is, and so much of the stuff that he's done has found other life. I'm always interested in telling stories that can live in multiple mediums. So I would be open to it, for sure.

You've done a lot of voice work over the past few years with Invincible, Louder and Prouder, Big Mouth. Does it feel like flexing a different acting muscle when you're doing voice acting?

QUINTO: I mean, as I said, it's freeing to be able to rely on just one aspect of my skillset to tell a story, relying only on my voice. Being able to show up in shorts or sweatpants and a hat, not really caring about what I look like or what's required to produce a certain kind of performance. It doesn't matter how it looks, it just matters how it sounds. There's something liberating about that. I love voiceover and voice work, and I'm grateful to have started to do it more, and hope to be able to continue.

What do you hope that listeners get out of listening to The Method?

QUINTO: Well, like you said, you sat down, and you ended up listening to the whole thing. I feel like it's a really wild ride, and I hope people get to lose themselves in it. Maybe not quite as much as Brett loses himself in it, but certainly I think there's a lot of surprise, and a lot of twists, and it's a real roller coaster, and so I hope people really go along for the ride, that's for sure.