Zachary Quinto Interview for 'Heroes'

Sylar ended last season with two spine-chilling words: "I'm back."

Now Zachary Quinto is joined by even more villains and exploring what life could be like if he weren't such a bad guy. In episode 4, Sylar sported khakis, slicked-back hair and his old tortoise shell glasses -- and a son. And he was suppressing his murderous urges, apparently. Will we see more of that Sylar this season, or will he be back to his old evil self?

Quinto took time out from shooting a major standoff scene to give us more scoop on Sylar's fatherly future possibilities, his "gifted" offspring and a hint at who's the mother of his son.

You seemed to be domesticated in the last episode -- is that a sign of the Sylar to come, or just a "what if"?
This is an alternative sort of reality. As our show does, and has done in the past, we catch glimpses of times that may or may not actually come to fruition but that are possibilities. Episode 19 of season 1 was called 'Five Years Gone' -- the whole episode was based on that premise -- and this episode has elements of that and my character is involved in those elements.

But the season premiere didn't show any of Sylar's sensitive side ...
No, there's no softer side there! [Laughs] The thing about my character this year is he's all over the map in terms of his internal conflict -- the orders he's given by certain people who have power over him this season and the situations that that puts him in. It really forces him to employ a kind of restraint that you haven't seen from him.

Your son seems to be creative ...
There's a lot of giraffe paintings and oversized Legos. What was the Bennet house is now inexplicably my house. My son is actually a gifted child.

Can you give us some hints about who your baby mama is?
She's silver-tongued and alive. [Laughs] I don't know what else to say ... I can't give that away!

Sylar seems to be following in the footsteps of Mr. Bennett a little ...
[Smiles] Maybe -- you never know. I am wearing glasses again. They're not horn-rimmed, but ...

And your son's name is Noah!
My son's name is Noah -- isn't that interesting.

Being a season of 'Villains,' is this really Sylar's year?
It's more fun than I've had on the show so far. That's hard to say because the first season was amazing and last season was really exciting too. But it feels like it's emerging into itself. I think the time we had away from the show really made all of us that much more grateful and excited to come back. It's been so long since we've been on the air, so all of us are just really 100% committed to what we're making this year.