A moment of anger sets The Slap into motion.

The eight-episode miniseries centres on the fallout after a man (Zachary Quinto, Star Trek) slaps the misbehaving son of another couple (Melissa George, 30 Days of Night, and Thomas Sadoski, The Newsroom) at a birthday party.

Slap stars Peter Sarsgaard (An Education) as Hector, a New York government worker who is celebrating his 40th birthday, with Thandie Newton (Crash) playing his wife, Aisha. Peter is already navigating complex personal and professional issues when his hot-headed cousin, Harry, slaps a young boy. That act ignites a series of events that uncovers the secrets of Hector's friends and family.

Slap goes far beyond the act mentioned in the title, exploring the characters' complex lives, Quinto said during a panel at the Television Critics Association winter press tour on Friday. "The great thing about the series is that it's a launching point. (There's) very little black and white and a lot of gray," he said.

Uma Thurman (Kill Bill) and Brian Cox (X-Men 2) also star, with Jon Robin Baitz (Brothers & Sisters), Lisa Cholodenko (The Kids Are All Right) and Walter F. Parkes and Laurie McDonald (Gladiator, Men in Black) serving as executive producers.

In response to a question, actors acknowledged The Slap is the kind of project that might be more often seen on cable than on broadcast television. George, an Australia native who played the same character in the original Australian series, said the miniseries blends high quality with the opportunity to reach a large audience.

"For once, we might get the viewers and we've got the beautiful dialogue," she said.

"With cable, maybe it's more gratuitous than it needs to be," Newton said. "Because we had certain restrictions, which weren't crazy, it meant we had to dig deeper into the performance in a certain way. ... In our performances, we were free and it wasn't gratuitous."

Sarsgaard then joked: "In cable, somebody would have shot somebody else's child."

Sarsgaard, who has lived in Brooklyn for two decades, said that New York borough is a great setting. "One of the things I love about living there (is) every culture you could imagine is living on top of one another. (They have) different credos about every different part of their lives and these people have to somehow co-exist."

'The Slap' will be broadcast on NBC on February 12 at 8PM.

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