Zachary Quinto blamed himself for his father's death.

Zachary Quinto

Zachary Quinto

The 'Star Trek: Beyond' star tragically lost his dad Joe to cancer when he was just seven years old and has admitted he thought for a long time that he was the root of the cause of his passing until he sought therapy.

He explained: "I realise it [therapy] isn't designed for everyone, but personally it feels a very valuable place to channel my resources of time, money and energy. Psychologically and emotionally I have felt more self-acceptance, love and compassion for myself when I have been in therapy than when I'm not.

"I took responsibility for things like my father's death when I was seven. I think any child in the context of such profound trauma doesn't have the capacity to realise they were not somehow complicit in the trauma."

The 38-year-old actor is so convinced the therapy helped pull him out of a depressive rut that he would like to become a psychologist if his career as a movie star was to come to an abrupt end in the near future.

Asked what he'd like to do if he wasn't an actor, Zachary said previously: "Probably be a psychologist. I love therapy - I've been in therapy for a long time. I think psychologists are a tremendous benefit to people if you're prepared to dive in as far as you're willing to go into yourself. So I feel that if I didn't have an outlet to express that exploration in acting, I'd want to be engaged on a fuller level in psychotherapy.

"To be able to be a guide for other people - that's an aspect of what we do as actors in the characters we play, especially when they're as archetypal as Spock."


Tagged in