Zachary Quinto Remembers Leonard Nimoy

Zachary Quinto offered a touching moment to the late, great Leonard Nimoy during his appearance Tuesday on “Conan”. Invited to talk about his recent projects including a guest-starring role on Girls and his latest mini-series The Slap, he shared a few words about his former coworker and dear friend.

“Losing him was really difficult,” he said about the former Mr. Spock. “I feel so grateful that I knew him and that he was such an instrumental figure in my life,” he added. Not only did the two men share a role, they had also become really close friends throughout the years. When the role of Spock brought them together on the set of the reboot of the Star Trek franchise in 2009, they stayed friends long after. Quinto even called him his “second father”.

“I think, there was much more celebration of what he accomplished and how many lives he touched in the world. He stood for, and stands for, such an ideal,” he continued referring to all the artistic and creative projects Nimoy had been involved and all his support for several causes included women rights.

“We should all be so lucky to live half as fulfilled a life as he lived.”

O’Brien offered also a touching moment, sharing his experience when he met Nimoy for the first time when he was working on the Simpsons.

Watch the full tribute below:

Zachary Quinto will be reprising his role of Mr. Spock for the third installment of the rebooted Star Trek franchise that is being directed by Justin Lin and is slated for a July 8, 2016 release date if they don’t encounter any further issues with the film. The issues began when J.J. Abrams, director of the first two Star Trek films took on directing Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (much to the dismay of some fans). Roberto Orci, writer for the previous two films in the rebooted franchise was then slated to direct, but in December it was announced that he was stepping away from the job both as director and writer and looks to have no ties to the film at all now.

Chris Pine, Zoe Saldana, Anton Yelchin, Simon Pegg and Karl Urban are all expected to return to their respective characters as well.