In 'Brilliant Minds,' A Real-Life Queer Hero And Medical Pioneer Gets A Modern Makeover

NBC's new medical drama stars Zachary Quinto as a contemporary version of famed neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks, who died in 2015.

When he began writing NBC’s medical drama “Brilliant Minds,” series creator Michael Grassi says he had only one actor in mind to portray his show’s protagonist, Dr. Oliver Wolf.

That would be Zachary Quinto, the Emmy nominee whose television credits include “Star Trek” and the “American Horror Story” anthology series, and who has appeared on Broadway in acclaimed revivals of “The Glass Menagerie” and “The Boys in the Band,” among other shows.

“I’ve never seen Zach play it safe in a performance. Everything he does, he always takes a big swing,” Grassi, whose TV credits include “Schitt’s Creek” and “Riverdale,” told HuffPost. “We’ve seen him play villains before. We’ve seen him do so much genre. But the thing that Zach brings to the show — something I didn’t know was possible — is incredible wit and levity. I’m excited for viewers to see how much warmth and humor he brings.”

“Brilliant Minds,” which premiered last week, is based on the life of Dr. Oliver Sacks, the world-renowned neurologist and author once referred to as the “poet laureate of contemporary medicine.”

Like Sacks, Dr. Wolf is both a respected neurologist and a man of extremes — in the show’s pilot episode, he takes an evening swim in the murky waters of New York’s Hudson River amid a professional crisis, as the real-life Sacks was known to have done. The character shares Sacks’ love of motorcycles and indoor fern gardens, and also has prosopagnosia, a cognitive disorder also known as face blindness that allows him to empathize with his patients in ways some of his peers do not.