Zachary Quinto shows off banjo skills in U.K. interview

Actor Zachary Quinto showed off his secret musical talents by playing banjo in the middle of a U.K. TV interview over the weekend (04-05May13).

The 35 year old was appearing on The Jonathan Ross Show with his Star Trek co-star Zoe Saldana when the host challenged him to pick up the instrument, which Quinto has only been playing since last July (12).

The former Heroes star wowed the audience as he masterfully strummed away on the banjo, and later admitted he took up lessons to pass the time while on set.

Quinto explained, "I haven't by any means mastered it. I'm no Steve Martin. I actually started playing when I was doing the second season of American Horror Story. I decided I wanted to go into that job and have a hobby, something I could challenge myself with. At first I was really afraid of being one of those douchey (sic) actors that was just doing what he wanted to do on set at the expense of everyone else and about three days in I started to get a little braver and so I took my banjo from my trailer out to set and between shots I would play. I would sit in the corner and fiddle around.

"All of a sudden people from the crew started coming up and saying, 'Thank you so much, it's so pleasant.' It's such a beautiful instrument, there's something really meditative about it. I could sit for hours and hours and hours (playing banjo)."