Although Zachary Quinto only plays a doctor on television, his character has some very real inspiration. In Brilliant Minds , the Emmy nominee stars as Dr. Oliver Wolf, inspired by the world-renowned queer neurologist Dr.
Oliver Sacks , who wrote numerous bestselling books based on his case studies before he died at age 82 in 2015. Series creator Michael Grassi explained that he’s “doing something different” from other medical procedural dramas, telling Huffington Post , “What really differentiates our show is Oliver Sacks. This is a love letter to a real-life doctor who treated real-life patients and told their stories.
” In the NBC series, which airs Mondays, Wolf suffers from a rare condition that brings a unique quality to his care. After his unusual methods result in his dismissal, he takes a job at Bronx General, where he leads a team of bright young interns in solving puzzling cases. Although Sacks remained closeted throughout much of his life, Grassi’s show — inspired by Sacks’ books The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (1985) and An Anthropologist on Mars (1995) — is set in modern times, allowing the doctor’s onscreen counterpart to live his truth and bringing a new sense of relevancy to his work.
“To find somebody who is a hero, who is so dedicated to his patients [and] who also happens to be gay, is exciting to me,” said Grassi. “While Dr. Wolf has a lot of walls up and is dealing with a lot of complex things, I wanted him to be living in.
