Zachary Quinto Is Unrecognizable As An Ancient, Soul-Sucking Demon In The First ‘NOS4A2’ Teaser

When he’s not too busy dampening the dreams of hopeful Star Trek fans, actor Zachary Quinto is hard at work on his next project: a television adaptation of author Joe Hill’s supernatural horror novel NOS2A2. AMC’s new series is set to premiere the first of 10 episodes this summer, and according to the first teaser trailer, it’s going to be quite a twisty ride for viewers. That is, if they can even recognize Quinto underneath all that makeup as the ancient, soul-sucking demon Charlie Manx.

“I dreamt there was a man,” Vic McQueen (Ashleigh Cummings), the heroine of NOS4A2, says in the new teaser. “He’s involved in something. Something bad.”

Said man is Manx, a long-lived being of supernatural powers who prolongs his life by consuming the souls, or life forces, of young children. In the process, he transports them to a fantasy world called “Christmasland,” in which every day is Christmas and every one present must be happy, no matter what. Or, as Quinto explained the character to Entertainment Weekly, his victims “become these ghoulish creatures, and Charlie Manx is fed with vitality and youth.”

As for McQueen, showrunner Jami O’Brien describes her as “a working-class kid who has such a creative mind that it actually gives her a kind of superpower.” As a result, “Manx becomes aware of her and realizes that she may be bad news for him, so he has to figure out pretty quickly what to do about her.”

Don’t let the feature image fool you, though. Evidently, Manx’s true — or at least drained — form is much older, horrifying and somewhat vampiric-looking than Quinto’s good looks would have his victims believe.