Armin Shimerman's "Quark" has always been my favorite character on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, with very good reason. He portrayed "Quark," the gregarious Ferengi proprietor of Quark's Bar, the center of social interaction on the promenade of the Deep Space Nine station, and the coolest place in the entire Alpha Quadrant. Shimerman's character is arguably the most complex of the entire series. Quark seems, at once, a brilliant Machiavellian observer of society, but who also is a convoluted, ethical paradox, a Ferengi with more "human" foibles than any other character on the series. I was able to catch up with Armin Shimerman on the tail end of the Star Trek Seattle convention last week. We had a frank chat about how he started out with Star Trek, his Antaeus theater company in Los Angeles, and what his varied acting experience has meant to him over the years.
As a teenager, Shimerman was a fan of the original series when it originally aired, and would sit home on Wednesday nights to see all the episodes. He continued to watch the shows in syndication as he grew older. In the early 1980s, Shimerman was doing a television show called "Beauty and the Beast." The shooting of Star Trek: The Next Generation had just begun at that point. He was offered a very small role on Star Trek: The Next Generation, that of a "gift box face" in the "Haven" episode for Marina Sirtis's character, Counselor Troi. Shimerman recalls that there was a conflict between the day he was needed to shoot on The Next Generation and the day they needed him to shoot on Beauty and the Beast. Since he was a huge Star Trek fan, he told his agent that he wanted to do the one day on The Next Generation, but his agent was nonplussed, and suggested Shimerman take the Beauty and the Beast gig, because that was his regular paycheck and Star Trek was a one-time situation, or so he thought.
Shimerman told his agent that he was a big fan of the show and that he really wanted to do Star Trek. He told Beauty and the Beast he couldn't make it, and did his one day on The Next Generation on "Haven." Two weeks later, the producers were looking for short character actors to play Ferengi on The Next Generation. The producers had just worked with Shimerman, and this was the one show that didn't cancel actors out if they had worked on the show before. When actors first do a role, most shows will make them wait a minimum of four years (if they go that long) before they offer them another role. Because of the role's makeup, they didn't have that problem on The Next Generation. Shimerman ended up being one of the first four Ferengi. And that eventually led to his performing the role of "Quark" on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
I asked Shimerman about the richly developed character of "Quark" on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - how much was the writers and how much was Armin Shimerman. Initially, he had little input, as the writers wrote what the character did, how he spoke and what his reactions to things were. Most actors would agree. On any TV show, writers eventually begin writing for the actors playing the parts. The complex qualities of Quark's ethos most likely came from Shimerman first, he tells me. The writers began to write those qualities into Quark because he had those qualities to begin with. Shimerman concedes that he can't pinpoint, of course, what the demarcation is between his inspiration and that of the writers -- most likely a combination of the both.
Shimerman recalls the great project of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, of how was overjoyed to be on a Star Trek show, considering what a big fan he is. He also felt that he had won the lottery when he became a series regular on a TV show, which, in Hollywood, is a stroke of good luck. He soon became aware of the enormous talents of the writers and the actors within a couple of months of being on the project. He had landed in a Star Trek show, and what appeared to be the best of the Star Trek television series. As far as his own character's development, he feels too close to his character to make any comparisons between him and other characters. Without hesitation, Shimerman tells me that "our show is far and away the best of them," acknowledging that his answer is prejudiced, and adds, "but I believe that I could go toe-to-toe with anybody else and make that argument."
Shimerman is a true professional on set. He comes to deliver his performance well, and has concern that others feel centered and relaxed enough to be able to deliver the same quality performance on the set. Shimerman tells me that he grew up in the theater and in television, and in both those mediums he had the good fortune to have older actors treat him kindly, fairly and nurturing when he was in the guest star's shoes, just appearing as a small part in a play, or in a one-day part in a TV show or film. He tells me he had incredible role models who were kind, gracious, outgoing and supportive. He told himself that if he ever got in that situation, he wanted to be like them. It was a way of not only being gracious, but it was also selfish, he says. By doing that, when they were kind to him, he felt at ease and did the very best performance he could give. And so the actors got a better actor to work with, because he was taken care of. The opposite is true for Shimerman. When he is not made to feel at home on a set, he shuts down and gives a performance that he doesn't care about. It was always his intent to make as many people as content on the set as he could, to pay back the people who had been nice to him and for them all together to give the very best performance for the project that they could. That included not only caring about their personal needs, but also offering opportunities for the guest stars to run their lines, offering to explain anything and offering help to explain to them what the show was all about. Shimerman recalls the confusion the guest stars faced on the set --
"Because after all, walking on to the promenade of Deep Space Nine, it is like being shuttled to a different existence altogether. There was nothing familiar as far as props, as far as a set ... faces ...
The actors' confusion was especially true on Deep Space Nine, which was "a huge make-up show." Shimerman recalls, "There were so many people in makeup, and so much disorientation," adding, "and it's disorienting to step on to a stage when you are there for the first time, even without makeup." To do that with all the distraction evident everywhere, Shimerman made it his mission to make people as relaxed on the set as possible so they could get over the hump of being nervous.
Shimerman agrees that he is continuing the great mythology of Star Trek with Deep Space Nine, and is a part of the continuum of Trek mythology that people the world over already subscribe to. Shimerman says, of the Trek mythos,
"It is the myth of our modern times. I feel honored to be part of that. And, if I'm the Loki character in this mythology, then I feel very honored to be part of that.
Shimerman likes what he does and it's connection to mythology, but uses the plural "we do" and "our connection" when pointing to the collective contribution of the community of actors in his answer to me. The standard vision of mythology is that people sat around fires in ancient times, and they listened to older, wiser people tell stories about the gods, the heroes and the villains. They instructed a new generation of people in learning about the world. Shimerman tells me that if he is part of that, then he has made a major contribution as an artist -- that is what artists all try to do.
Shimerman helps run a theater in North Hollywood, The Antaeus Company, where he is the associate artistic director, and his wife, Kitty Swink, the co-associate artistic director. They are both on the board of Antaeus, whose primary interest is in doing classical plays, but does occasionally produce modern plays.
Theater is what he has always felt "most comfortable" in, Shimerman says. "Theater is what I believe must be continued. And it's constantly being attacked by the inroads of television, film, games -- all things that are not convincing new people to come and sit in the theater. I believe the most visceral, the most exciting experience you can have is watching a play unfold right in front of you, and the connection, the relationship between the audience and the actors is primary -- much more than in any other medium."
Theater is important to Shimerman because it moves people, and he adds,
"Aristotle says that the actor's contribution to society is that he undergoes catharsis for the society, and the society experiences catharsis through the actor, and so feels better about themselves and learns something about themselves and about the world. I believe that we can do that better through the medium of theater than through any other medium.
He agrees that it [catharsis] does happen in other mediums. That people do see TV shows and films and they get moved and they think, but he thinks it happens more often in the theater than in any place else.
Shimerman remains extremely busy with various projects. He just finished directing a production of The Crucible. The directors deconstructed the play as presentational theater. For many of the scenes, the actors were talking to each other by looking at the audience. The actors said their lines, related, did everything they would normally do as actors, except they couldn't really see the people they were speaking to. They could see the other actors in their minds, but they could not see them. Although the actors were standing right next to the other actors, they couldn't see them. The nature of the play, with it's didactic exploration of the Salem Witch Trials and also the [House] Un-American Activitites Committee became much more visceral with the audience, and the theater reached people in a very strange way by doing it this way, he says.
Shimerman has no other directorial projects on his plate just now, nor any theater projects as an actor. He continues his projects as a producer at Antaeus with their upcoming production of Pierre Corneille's The Liar, which is currently in rehearsal and will be opening in a few weeks.
As far as performance, Shimerman has been a voice in several games. One franchise that he has been involved in is Ratchet and Clank, whose Doctor Nefarious character, voiced by Shimerman, will be reprised in an animated film. He is not looking forward to loosing his voice, which is what happens, he says, when he does the Doctor Nefarious character. Shimerman is looking forward to "getting into that character's head one more time."
Quark is just one of the dozens of characters that he has created, he tells me. "Perhaps the most famous ... perhaps," he adds, modestly. But he has a message for his fans:
"no matter whether you're watching my character or other people's characters, pay more attention to the heart than the face. We all have different faces. Some are more comely than others. It's what's in the heart that's important. Not the vizard that you wear. Look at the heart, not the face.
As far as his own performance, Shimerman adds, "I'm always playing rather strange characters because I look strange." He continues, "one of the nice things about doing games is that I can play very different characters." Shimerman just did a Superman voiceover a couple of months ago.
Armin Shimerman is part of a rare fiber of Hollywood cloth, of those experienced actors on the set who are willing to take the time to help the newer members of the community to learn their lines and become acclimated to their performance space. In a way, he's just fulfilling the 74th Rule of Acquisition, "Knowledge equals profit," only Shimerman has allowed other fellow actors a foothold -- to begin to grasp the knowledge they need to master their own craft.
In the end, it all goes back to the elders and the children, sitting around the proverbial Fire of Stories. Shimerman has graciously passed on the finest advice for those seeking to follow the ancient tradition of Thespis -- on television, film or the stage. His "Quark" character has passed into the immortal fire of the Trek mythos: a homely, alien creature whose constant lust for profit and sensory indulgence obscures his true nature: noble, brave and selfless to the end.
Shimerman is a powerful performer through all mediums, whether voiceovers, film, television or stage. His impromptu rendition of Richard Plantagenet (Duke of Gloucester) at Star Trek Las Vegas brought the entire audience to a standing ovation. Shimerman mirrors his own character, one with Quark's best nature. It's the heart behind the face that resounds with humanity.
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