Armin Shimerman has always been an integral part of Stargate canon as one of the Nox, and as a sci-fi fan in his own right he understands how important it is for humanity to explore big ideas. We are thrilled to welcome him back to Dial the Gate to discuss science fiction’s role in exploring humanity’s goals and dreams, Quark’s significance in Deep Space Nine, and finding meaning in the texts of Shakespeare!

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Timecodes
0:00 – Splash Screen
00:14 – Opening Credits
00:41 – Welcome
00:54 – Guest Introduction
01:41 – Updates with Armin
02:45 – Conventions: The Gift that Keeps On Giving
03:44 – Darren’s First Star Trek Convention
04:46 – Star Trek and Portland
05:45 – “The 34th Rule”
07:01 – Old Questions, New Viewers
11:33 – Was Armin Ever Done with Star Trek Conventions?
13:11 – Favorite Deep Space Nine Scenes and Episodes
18:00 – Did Quark Always Have Hero Potential?
19:46 – Science Fiction is All Genres
22:25 – “Far Beyond the Stars”
23:24 – An alternate DS9 Ending
24:30 – Ray Xifo
25:36 – The Nox: A Secret Power
29:23 – Armin and Ray on “The Nox”
30:23 – Messing With Your Empathy
33:26 – A Great Sense of Hierarchy
35:13 – The Divine Right of Kings
38:04 – Political Turmoil in England
40:50 – Shakespeare’s Wife
44:00 – Science Fiction and Human Existence
48:25 – Shakespeare and Redemption
50:21 – A Pursuit of Understanding
51:40 – Armin in Castle’s “The Final Frontier” Episode
52:58 – Armin at Stargate Conventions
53:47 – Armin was Asked Back to Stargate
55:26 – Armin’s Favorite Rule of Acquisition
56:17 – Acting with Rene Auberjonois in “Boston Legal”
59:00 – Playing Anteaus
1:00:45 – The Four Great Races
1:02:27 – So Much to Chew On
1:03:27 – Armin’s Illyria Trilogy
1:04:38 – Post Interview Housekeeping
1:05:13 – End Credits

***

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read:
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Dial the Gate. This is episode 261 of the Stargate Oral History Project. My name is David Read. Thank you so much for joining me once again. I am privileged to welcome back to the show Armin Shimerman, who played Anteaus in ‘The Nox’ on ‘Stargate SG-1’, a pivotal episode, and also, a huge part of my sci-fi viewing life as well, with [Star Trek] ‘DS9’ and a number of other projects. Armin, it is wonderful to have you back. Thank you for being here.

Armin Shimerman:
My pleasure. Thank you for having me again.

David Read:
And I also have brought along Darren Sumner of Gate World, who has been covering the ‘Stargate’ franchise since 1999, when it aired in season three. And he’s also a big ‘Stargate’, ’Star Trek’ fan as well. So, Darren, welcome back.

Darren Sumner:
Oh, yeah. Thank you for inviting me. It’s a real pleasure. Pleasure to get to chat with Armin.

David Read:
Armin. What’s been going on in your world and how, have the sales for the Illyria trilogy been doing? You just got back from a convention as well about a week or two ago. What’s going on?

Armin Shimerman:
I’ve done a lot of traveling, David. Before going, the convention you referring to was one in Long Island that was really quite nice. And, had a lovely time there. Got to visit with some friends, not only at the convention, but also, in New York City as well. But about ten days prior to that, my wife and I returned from a trip to Italy, which was also a ‘Star Trek’ convention, although we took a week to vacation in Bologna, Italy.

Bologna counts itself the culinary capital of Italy. So, we did a lot of eating. I don’t think we had one meal that wasn’t terrific.

David Read:
Wow. Yeah. No, Italy is great for eating. Absolutely. It’s, I absolutely, gained weight, too much weight. And I went a few years ago, but it isn’t it awesome? The experience that fandom affords you guys to be able to travel and continue to not only connect with fellow fans, but connect with others around the world.

Armin Shimerman:
It is, as we say, the gift that keeps on giving. Yes. We’ve been very lucky to travel the world. We’ve been flattered that we’ve been invited to conventions around the world. It is really quite amazing. You know, it isn’t something I thought about when I wanted to become an actor. It’s just this extra Christmas gift that, as I said, just it shows up on a regular basis. And not only do they fly us around the world, but then they pay us as well. So, it’s really quite nice. There’s nothing wrong with my life that I know of. What’s that Darren?

Darren Sumner:
Good work, if you can get it.

Armin Shimerman:
It is very good work if you can get it. And most of us, most of us are very appreciative of that.

David Read:
Darren, you were the first of the two of us to do a ‘Star Trek’ convention, if I’m not mistaken. Was Armin at that one? And what were your experiences?

Darren Sumner:
Oh, my goodness, my very first ‘Star Trek’ convention. It would have been at a little airport hotel in Portland, Oregon in the early 90s, and, boy, I couldn’t even tell you who the headliner was. It was it was just one, right, when they were doing, I think Creation was doing small events with just one cast member. So my buddies and I went and lined up at 7:30 in the morning so that we could get the best seats, in the best of the cheap seats. And, I think I saw, I know I saw John Delancey there.

Armin Shimerman:
I think you also saw Kate Mulgrew, and I think you saw Max Grodenchik. And I believe you saw Aaron Eisenberg. Those are the people that I remember. I if I go back far enough in my memory to that convention. Portland, by the way, has the distinction of being the city that how do I put this? Our biggest viewership across the country was in Portland, Oregon.

Darren Sumner:
Is that right?

Armin Shimerman:
And one of our executive producers or one of our producers, not an executive producer, but one of our producers, eventually moved up to Portland, where he now lives. He was our line producer. And, it’s a beautiful city. I got married in Portland. My wife is from Portland. I have a lot of, in-laws in Portland. I really enjoy Portland a great deal.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, I’m a native. I like getting back. I haven’t lived there for years, but I like getting back. It was this is old, old, old days. This was I. One of the memories I have of this event is, I think Eric Stillwell was there.

Armin Shimerman:
He may have been. Yes, indeed.

Darren Sumner:
And he was talking about the sort of upcoming episode of [Star Trek] ‘The Next Generation’ in the third season that was sort of blew all our minds as teenagers. And I think it ended up being ‘Yesterday’s Enterprise’, which is one of my all-time favorite hours of Star Trek.

Armin Shimerman:
Well, Eric knows a lot about ‘Star Trek’. In fact, Eric and I and David [R. George III], sat down to write an episode for ‘Deep Space Nine’, which was rejected. They didn’t buy the pitch. And after we left, dejected from the meeting, David and I sat down and said, well, why don’t we make this into a book? And so that episode became “The 34th Rule”, published by Simon and Schuster.

David Read:
I didn’t know that. That’s what that was adapted from. Good trivia.

Darren Sumner:
That’s cool.

David Read:
Wow. All right. And what was it like adapting s script for television into a book?

Armin Shimerman:
I can’t tell you because, Eric and David and I all worked on the premise of the TV show, and we mapped it all out. And then when David and I said, okay, well, maybe we should make this into a book. David did all the writing, so, I can’t tell you what it was like, because I really didn’t have anything but my name on the cover, except that we plotted it out for the episode. So, we worked out the plot, but David wrote all the words.

David Read:
When you guys do these ‘Star Trek’ conventions all over the world, is there anything that continually surprises you? And is there anything over the years that it’s like, you know, and kind of or any particular questions where it’s like, you know, I’m really kind of done answering this one, or do you go at it with, with a different spirit of that?

You know, these are people who maybe have not seen the show when it aired. There’s plenty of people in the audience. This is their first-time experience. How do you get yourself into the mindset of a show as big as some of these are, with thousands of people coming to these events?

Armin Shimerman:
Well, like most of the main actors in ‘Star Trek’, I have the theater background. Yeah. So, it’s the same inspiration that drives you to step on stage at 8:00 in the evening and do a performance. It’s okay, I have to do this. I want to do this and ‘get ready, go’ and you go and whatever you draw upon for stage performance, you draw upon for, beefing up the energy when you step on stage.

Although I have on occasion, more than more than several occasions, going up to the microphone after I’ve been introduced before I’ve said anything else, but just lean into the microphone, say two hours, which is usually the answer to the question of how long did your makeup take?

Darren Sumner:
Get them out of the way.

Armin Shimerman:
Right away. Two hours. And then oftentimes we get fascinating questions. So it’s not by any means drudgery. It’s the audience inspires you to think about things perhaps you haven’t thought about before. And that’s really wonderful. Truly wonderful. Yeah. You know, sometimes they ask you questions that you’ve heard a thousand times and you say, okay, okay, I can do that, and I have a stock answer for that. So I’ll give you my stock answer. But a lot of times, and there are lots of young people who are excited to meet the actors, and have questions about the show, because you’re right, they’re seeing it for the first time. We shot it 25 years ago. 30 years ago. But for these people, it’s brand new. And we have to appreciate that. And we do and we do.

David Read:
Darren, feel free to cut me off at any point.

Armin Shimerman:
Or me, for that matter.

Darren Sumner:
I just imagine that, with all the stage work you’ve done and you’re, I mean, when you’re on stage and you’re doing six shows a week, I mean, how many?

Armin Shimerman:
Eight, eight, eight shows a week.

Darren Sumner:
Eight shows a week. That’s, I imagine, it gets drilled into a similar sort of repetition of, ‘okay, now I’m going to a convention’. It’s a smaller stage, with maybe a bigger audience in the house. And, there’s going to be some repetition because, you know, that’s right.

Armin Shimerman:
That’s right. And you have stock lines, it’s like I said, I have stock answers for some questions. And those are, those are like lines in a play. Okay. That the cue. This is the response. Call, response. And there’s that. But unlike a play, in a play you know exactly what’s going to happen. For the most part, the audience always changes every night. And so, the performance changes every night. But, oftentimes, as I said, you get questions that are new, fresh, exciting, and you have to go, whoa, I never thought about that. Give me a moment to give you an answer. What do I really think about that? And you hope to be intelligent and witty at the same time.

David Read:
I think there are a couple of advantage, too. Number one, this audience is a fairly high IQ audience. So, you’re not going to get stupid people. You’re going to get people who are there because they’re interested in you and interested in the subject matter. That also carries with it a situation where you know you’re going to get some people who are, a little bit more interesting and will surprise you in ways that you don’t expect, but also, it would be hell, in my opinion, it would be hell if you didn’t enjoy the contents, if you didn’t enjoy what it was that you had done. And to be talking about something that you didn’t care for, that would be drudgery. So you really have to have loved the work.

Armin Shimerman:
Exactly, exactly. That’s exactly right, David. And there are a number of shows, I’m becoming famous for naming them. There are a number of shows that I did not enjoy, and I have been pretty vocal about those. And usually they ask me about those shows. I usually say, give them the answer, that I didn’t really enjoy doing that, so can we talk about something else?

David Read:
Absolutely.

Darren Sumner:
I’m curious before you jump in, David, was there a season in your life where you would sort of where the show had wrapped? Maybe you weren’t heavily invested in the convention scene yet, where you sort of felt like you wanted to move on and stop talking about ‘Star Trek’ for a while, and then did it cycle back around?

Armin Shimerman:
No. I’m always, always interested to talk about my experiences, on most of the shows that I’ve done, because it is a chance for me to relive those golden moments. I never had the thing that Leonard [Nimoy] went through where he, you know, he wrote a book saying ‘I’m not Spock’. I’ve never felt that.

Although I do dread that when I die, the gravestone will say ‘Quark’, and I won’t say ‘Armin’. I am worried about that, but, But I had such a good time doing that show and other shows. And all of them were different, different experiences. It’s kind of wonderful to wander down memory lane and re-experience to them, even if it’s not brand new. It’s nice to revisit. It’s like visiting with friends you haven’t seen for a while. Those memories and, and you’re jazzed by that.

David Read:
And you can connect with people, behind the scenes, that you haven’t seen in a while.

Armin Shimerman:
Right, and if the audience is excited by that, if I can feel that they’re thrilled to hear these things, and that thrills me as well. The same way as in the theater when, you know, the audience is listening or, you know, the audience is laughing or you know that there is as involved in the production as you are, that’s a thrill and emotion for any, any actor.

David Read:
Darren and I have been catching up with the past couple of days getting ready for this interview. Darren, did you come up with before we move into some other topics, did you come up with your favorite ‘Quark’ scene or ‘DS9’ episode that we can, that we can tennis about for a couple of minutes?

Darren Sumner:
I don’t know about a favorite from the great body of work, but, my kids and I have recently been re-watching the first part of season six of ‘DS9’, which is the Dominion occupation of the station, and, Quark has such an interesting role there and the one that we’ve watched recently that just stands out to me so much is I think it’s in ‘Favor the Bold’, the fifth episode where sort of, you know, Odo is off with the Changeling and…

Armin Shimerman:
The founders.

Darren Sumner:
With the founders, and everybody’s been arrested, right? They’re hatching a plan to finally, you know, save the station, and Kira gets arrested. And the camera, I just this shot stands out to me so much, right? The camera pans over to Quark in the bar with this look on your face, like, yeah, you know, Quark is the only one left. It’s up to him. He’s got to do something. And then he, you know, becomes the action hero and breaks in.

David Read:
And rises to the occasion.

Darren Sumner:
And shoots down the Jem’Hadar. He has to rise to the occasion. It’s just it shows you how far Quark’s come in those five, six years to be. You know, he knows that it’s now fallen to him. There are no options left. It’s him or nothing and he takes action.

Armin Shimerman:
He takes action. And he has to betray his morals as well, in several ways. One of them being that the Ferengi, I can’t remember which episode it is, but it’s about that same season, I believe. Maybe. Yeah, I think it’s the episode called “The Jem’Hadar”, where he tells Sisko, ‘Ferengi don’t kill. That’s something humans do, humans kill. We don’t kill.’ So, for him to take action and do that, is truly, a huge step for my character. And, and, yeah, the arc of my character was very subtle. In fact, I didn’t recognize it. Yeah. Wow.

David Read:
Oh. That’s awesome. What a surprise.

Armin Shimerman:
It was a huge surprise. I remember speaking to the writers, probably in the seventh season, saying, everybody has this really phenomenal arc. Their characters are doing all kinds of different things and, and becoming different things. And we’re learning lots of great stuff about our, my fellow actors, fellow characters. You know, I don’t see my character having changed at all.

And then we came to, the penultimate episode, whose name is just gone out of my head. And, where I had a speech about I’m going to revert back to the Ferengi that used to be. And all of a sudden, I realized just what you said there, and I realized how different Quark was now from the first or second season.

And, there was a truly surprising moment for me. I really did not think the character had matriculated much. And then when I had the epiphany, I realized, oh, no, he’s come a long way. Maybe not as much as Bashir, but a long way.

Darren Sumner:
But it’s subtle, for sure. I mean, I’m watching these episodes again, and I’m seeing what Quark is going to say to everybody on the station out loud is, well, the Federation’s better for business, right? Jem’Hadar are lousy customers. But you know, when he takes action that it’s not just about that.

Armin Shimerman:
Yeah. If I may, I will reference something I saw years ago on British TV and it involved a very young Patrick Stewart, and he had just done Shylock from Merchant of Venice and John Barton, the great dramaturge director of Shakespeare in England, asked him how did he approach the character of Shylock? And he said, Shylock is not from the culture that that surrounds the Merchant of Venice.

But once you’re involved in another culture, you become somewhat assimilated to that new culture. And so that he said, Shylock has to take on some of the characteristics of the Venetians in the play. And I came to realize that was true for my character of Quark as well, in the sense here I am living in the Bajoran culture with Starfleet overlords. And so he’s becoming a acclimatized. He’s becoming assimilated into that culture and is beginning to take on some of the characteristics of the people that he lives with.

David Read:
I’m curious, Armin, as to your answer for this question, talking just about the heroism that Quark exemplified rising to the occasion. It’s kind of a nature-nurture question. Do you think, looking at that character from who he was in, ‘Emissary’, that Quark always had that capability within him, always had that spark within him?

Or was it only because he was forced to be surrounded by the people who came into his life and was forced in those circumstances, especially during the Dominion occupation of DS9, that he became that instead. Where is the line?

Armin Shimerman:
I would say it’s the latter. I would say that he didn’t have it in the beginning. Okay. Certainly, these people that he’s for, in the end of the arc of the show, these are now good friends or good customers or good something. Yeah, certainly weren’t in the first two seasons. There was an antipathy that was inherent in the relationship. My relationship with a lot of the characters, especially with them, with me. I’ve been reviewing a lot of the earlier episodes recently, and I see the antipathy of the characters against the character that I play, but that also matriculates lessons. They become more and more bonded together as one does on any show.

And that’s the agenda of the writers, the writers who are watching carefully to see how the characters are matriculating or growing or changing.

David Read:
And it was with a series like this one, it’s not just one genre. It can take many different turns, which, you know, gives, it’s not like, you know, it’s not like a, a law and cop show. It’s not, you know, a detective. It’s all of these different things. One of the things that I thought was so wonderful about that series was its flexibility in doing so many different things, playing with reality even ‘Far Beyond the Stars’.

Which I just went, went back and re-watched. I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about this show. That was an “out there” show. And not only do you get to get away from the ears, but you get to be, even more a more forthright character who, you know, steps up and is like, hey, you know, how you’re talking to this guy is not right. You know, it was a completely different person. Right?

Armin Shimerman:
‘Far Beyond the Stars’ is my favorite episode. I would venture to say every actor, main actor, on our show feels the same way. ‘Far Beyond the Stars’ is exceptional. It’s not an exceptional ‘Star Trek’. It’s extraordinary television, because it deals with racism, through the prism of science fiction and, which makes it a little bit more palpable for people who don’t necessarily feel the same way you do.

So, if you present them with, with a pastiche, they can digest it a little better, maybe think about it in a different way. But, yes, we did lots of different things. I regret that we never had a musical, but, but we but we did do, farces, that’s not the right word. What’s the word I’m looking for?

Parodies. We did parodies of various types of TV and films. ‘Magnificent Ferengi’ as a parody of ‘The Magnificent Seven’. ‘Our Man Bashir’ is a parody of James Bond movies. There’s a number of our episodes that are parodies of other things, but they’re good stories, and good stories can be told in different ways.

So, Yeah. You know, kudos to everybody involved. Not just the actors, not just the writers, not just the directors, but everybody involved. Because if you look carefully, you know, costumes are magnificent, sets are magnificent, props are magnificent. Everybody was doing their best. And in that episode where I was playing a Harlan Ellison, type character, who’s for those of you who don’t know, the Harlan Ellison was one of the great science fiction writers of the 50s, of the 60s, and in fact, I believe, worked on the staff for Roddenberry for the original Star Trek. Famous, famous, science fiction writer. And I remember, Avery [Brooks] coming up to me and said, you’re not behaving like Quark in this episode. And, Avery was the director, and I said, I’m not Quark.

This is not Quark. Don’t expect Quark behavior from me. I’m. I’m acting a new character. I can’t remember last name. His first name is Herb. And I said, this is totally different. I will give you something. I will give you something other than Quark, because this is not Quark. It may be Ben’s dream. It may be your dream. But, according to the script, there are very few qualities that are reminiscent of Quark in Herb’s character.

David Read:
Wow. And there was a chance for a little while there, a small one, that the show could have ended, as well as,

Armin Shimerman:
So glad it didn’t.

David Read:
Yeah, that would have been a left turn.

Armin Shimerman:
Yeah, but it will also would have been to reminiscent I think of Dallas, that it was all a dream. And, I’m really glad we didn’t do that.

David Read:
It’s an interesting idea.

Armin Shimerman:
Yeah, it’s an idea. And in hindsight, if it had been a dream, then there would be no future for it. Still hasn’t been any future for ‘Deep Space Nine’, except for, 1 or 2 episodes on ‘Lower Decks’. If it had been a dream, those two episodes would have been impossible. And, you know, although we’re very sanguine with the fact that there will be no more ‘Deep Space Nine’ movies or TV shows and that spine were old enough to accept that, but if they ever decide to reboot it with different actors and different writers, of course there is that possibility. And if it had been a dream, none of that would be possible.

David Read:
That’s right. I have to thank you so much for connecting us with Ray Xifo. I thought he was wonderful. What a great guy.

Armin Shimerman:
He is a dear, dear friend, one of my best friends. We had been friends since 1975. Ray and I, he probably told you this already. He and I met doing a Broadway show called ‘Three Penny Opera’ with Raul Julia, and, we became good friends there. I convinced him to move to Los Angeles. I’m sure he told you the story about ‘Stargate’.

That would not have been possible. His appearance on the show would not have been possible had he not been my house guest, when he was auditioning. I love Ray. And whenever I go out of town for a convention, Ray comes over with his wife, Kay, and takes care of our dogs. In fact, Kay found our dogs. And it’s my opinion that in her mind, the dogs are hers. They just kennel in our house.

David Read:
And they just kennel. He had an interesting conversation with us about. And something that I had forgotten about with the Nox. There is an original series, ‘Star Trek’ episode, I forget the name, that features this race of beings that are very like, we’re afraid the Klingons are just going to go to town on him, knock him out. But in the end, they turn out to be some of the more powerful people beings that we’ve ever encountered. And it was that way with the Nox as well. The Nox were very similar to the Organians.

Darren Sumner:
Organians, yeah.

David Read:
They look like they’re one thing, but they’re much more powerful than that. Looks can be deceiving. And it also connected back to the Shakespeare play that you that you sent me, the one that was at the top of your list. Why are the names blanking on me Darren? ‘12th Night’. You know where people are one thing, but they’re actually another. There’s a lot of similarity there.

Armin Shimerman:
“Disguise and see thou art wickedness in which the pregnant enemy…”. Yeah. But ‘disguise, I see thou art wickedness’ is a very famous line from ‘12th Night’.

David Read:
Were you connecting the Nox in any way with the Organians during that performance? Were you seeing that thread?

Armin Shimerman:
No I don’t know who the Organians are.

David Read:
Okay. Got it. Okay.

Armin Shimerman:
So. No, what I was connecting was, that, just what you said, that appearances are not what they seem. And, the more gentle and pastoral we were, the more we gave the lie to what the reality was up above the clouds.

David Read:
Darren. You have any memories from the Nox?

Darren Sumner:
Oh, I’m just thinking about your comparison with the Organians in that, right. It’s our hero show up. And the premise of the episode is the simple people who need our help and the sort of right, the team tries to take this parental role in safeguarding them from this external threat, only to find out that they are far older, far wiser, far more powerful, and so right our heroes end up, there’s not only a turn at the end of the story, but our heroes end up, you know, almost sheepish, like, you know, we’re trying.

Armin Shimerman:
A little egg on their face.

Darren Sumner:
Trying to take care of these guys who really we should be, you know, begging their help right from the Goa’uld.

Armin Shimerman:
I often, encounter that in life, because I’m a short person. Because I’m short. Most people just assume because you’re short that you’re not powerful, or that you’re less than. What you lack in inches, may be a metaphor for what you lack in other things. And, and I’m always delighted when people realize there’s more to me than the package that they’re aware of. That’s a great delight. And, you know, so I live that, these episodes on a day to day basis, actually.

Darren Sumner:
And I think that that shows through in, good performances and stories like this. It comes through in the performance when there’s a sort of breathy withholding, or a twinkle in the eye that I know something. I’m not going to tell you what it is necessarily, but we’re going to be okay. Trust me.

Armin Shimerman:
Right?

Darren Sumner:
I it comes through in great performances like yours and your fellow Nox.

Armin Shimerman:
Thank you. We, Ray and I loved, doing that episode. We had a lovely time. It rained every day in the forest, but, aside from the – it wasn’t a torrential rain, it was just a gentle rain – But, it was really quite wonderful. And we couldn’t find our marks sometimes on the ground because there was so much mud.

The marks were buried in the mud. But we had a lovely, lovely time. And it was it was delicious to spend time with Ray and everybody else. When we weren’t shooting, Ray and I did a lot of sightseeing on Vancouver. We were always friends, but we just bonded even more.

David Read:
Was that your first time in Vancouver?

Armin Shimerman:
I was thinking about that this morning. Yeah, I think it was my second time in Vancouver. I think I had done a film in Vancouver, but I may be wrong. Perhaps the ‘Stargate’ came first. It was all years ago. So I think perhaps the film came first. But perhaps I’m wrong.

David Read:
Yeah. Darren and I were also talking about, a lot of the connections in “Richard II” and themes in science fiction. And one of the ones that I really took away, was the perception of Richard in the first and second acts and how Shakespeare messes with your empathy toward characters as the story moves along.

You know, he’s not locked into “person equals bad”. It’s locked into “person is a person”. You know, this is a real person with feelings and their own motivations. And they’re not just bad or good. They are coming from a place of their own. And by the end of that play, you feel bad for, you’re invited to feel bad for this person.

You’re invited to put yourself in this person’s shoes and go, “oh,” and that’s one of the things that I particularly love about science fiction, because it doesn’t look at us in terms of the sterile objects that are immovable. It invites us to look into a person’s soul and say, “okay, why are they behaving that way? What is it that’s causing them to, work themselves through the world in that manner? And if I were in that position, would I not do the same given the life that that person has had?” I like the invitation of empathy that it brings about that in particular “Richard II.”

Armin Shimerman:
Well, that’s a wonderful synopsis. Yes. The great thing about Shakespeare is he always, for the most part, true human beings, not just characters. And in Richard, we don’t like Richard for the first two acts, he’s a mean, petty, king. But as he suffers losses and realizes his own humanity, he looks inward and finds a journey inward, as opposed to other characters who find journeys outward.

It’s an, in my opinion. Shakespeare is known for his language and for his writing. But in my opinion, some of the best writing he ever did best write metaphors and allusions and speeches are in “Richard II”, a play that is rarely done. I don’t know why. You need you need a unique actor to play Richard.

Because he has to be obnoxious in the beginning. And then you, as you said, you have to feel for him at the end of the play.

David Read:
Darren, what were your, we talked a little bit about this. What were some of your takeaways? You know, there’s not just that element. There’s a higher order element to country and God going on in the story.

Armin Shimerman:
Well, in, in Shakespeare’s world, forgive me for teaching, but that’s what I do, you know.

David Read:
Go right ahead.

Armin Shimerman:
In Shakespeare’s world, there was a great sense of hierarchy. There was a great sense not only as far as kings and queens and earls and dukes and peasants and everything in between. But the great sense everything was ordered, for instance, emotions were ordered. Love was a supreme emotion. Hate was a lesser, very bad emotion.

And there were all sorts of emotions in between, elements were ordered. The four elements were earth, air, water and fire. And fire is the highest, and Earth is the lowest. And water and air fit in between. This is why, when you hear the opening line of “Henry V”. If you don’t understand that hierarchy, then you don’t understand the line which is over a muse of fire that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention. He wants a muse of the highest caliber. He doesn’t want of water. He doesn’t want one of Earth. He doesn’t want one of wind. He wants one of fire, which is the highest element. And so that’s what the line means. So, for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven invention.

So, yes, hierarchy is very important. And hierarchy is part and parcel of all of Shakespeare’s plays, because that’s the world he lived in, just as if you have a modern playwright. They are steeped in psychology because that’s the world we live in. Shakespeare had an understanding of psychology without any of the terms, but certainly understood human nature.

Darren Sumner:
We were talking a little bit yesterday, David, about the idea of the divine right of kings.

David Read:
Darren has a theology background.

Darren Sumner:
So, yeah, my degree is in theology, and I’ve also taught church history, including medieval, European history. And so this right, this is something that has really resonated with me looking at the background of the historical place. And I’m kind of struck by the fact that because Shakespeare had the King as his patron, do you think that that impacts the way that he wrote in the way that he thought because, right, he’s writing commercial endeavors for public performance? Does that change the way that he, sort of, writes about an idea like the divine right of kings?

Armin Shimerman:
Yes, absolutely. Because kings, for the most part, or queens for that matter, are usually right. Order is assumed in Shakespearean plays. When things are out of order, then we have misrule, we have comedy. But invariably in every play, order is reestablished at the end of the play. Because,

Darren Sumner:
Political figures, going appealing to the Duke, for example.

Armin Shimerman:
That’s right. Because he did indeed work, he was the Queen’s man in the King’s that that the names of the two companies that he that he worked with and same company, just different names. And so he, he wrote for those people and proselytize. It is an assumption, a pretty good assumption that most everyone believes in that.

Richard III actually wasn’t that terrible a king in history. But because he [Shakespeare] was working for Tudorean kings, a Tudor queen, the Tudor queen and her family had defeated Richard III, who’s the last York king. And so, in order to proselytize the Tudors, who he worked for, he had to denigrate the Yorks, or at least Richard, in order to, to make, you know, to be good with the with the Queen he was working for.

And it’s a given fact that he wrote Macbeth. Because the king, James I, is the heir to Elizabeth, loved horror stories and was intrigued with witches. And so he wrote a play for the king about witches, and not his ancestor. But one of James’s ancestors is in the play, and that is, Macduff.

David Read:
Wow. Okay. And I think it’s very important to recognize during the performance of a lot of these, plays, there’s a lot of political turmoil that’s going on simultaneously. I think, if I’m not mistaken, during ‘Richard II’ when that play was first performed, they were plotting to overthrow Elizabeth. If I’m not, if that was at the same time.

Armin Shimerman:
When it was first performed. You’re very close. It’s very good history, very good research. You’re close. You’re very close. Let me try and clarify that.

David Read:
Please, massage that into place.

Armin Shimerman:
Yes. You’re very close. The play had been performed before. Okay. There was a resurrection by a man named Essex who wanted to overthrow Elizabeth. He had been Elizabeth’s favorite, but was out of favor and didn’t like that. And so she, Elizabeth, at this point was rather old, and he thought that they should have a new king on the throne, and people were not happy in the beginning with having a woman on the throne anyway.

So, the country had gotten used to that by the time Elizabeth was in her 60s, which is about, I think the attempt to overthrow over was 1599, I believe.

David Read:
That is that Mary, Queen of Scots, is that 1599?

Armin Shimerman:
No, no, no, no Mary Queen of Scots, that’s something else too. Okay. This is the Essex Rebellion. And, so in order to jazz the people of London up, he went to Shakespeare’s company and ordered them to do ‘Richard II’, because the play is about the overthrowing of a monarch. Yeah. And the actors and the shareholders of the Queen’s company had no choice. They had to do it. Essex was high up in the in the nobility.

So, they did it. They got into a ton of trouble for doing it. They were brought before the Privy Council, which was the Queen’s private court kitchen cabinet and reprimanded for doing that. And there was a great possibility that they could all be arrested and thrown in jail, no matter whether they were the Queen’s men or not. They had helped in some people’s minds this possible revolution. By the way, the revolution lasted one day and it came to nothing.

David Read:
It made a statement, a political statement, using the play as a tool.

Armin Shimerman:
Yes. Right. Exactly right. And so, a man named August Phillips, one of the shareholders, Shakespeare’s partner, defended what the players had done and was able to get them off without, any reprimand whatsoever. So, but there was a threat that they could have all gone to prison.

David Read:
Well, I have been wanting to ask you this. Armin, about Shakespeare himself and his relationship with Anne Hathaway, his wife. Not the actress. There has been a lot made of his will, his final testament.

Armin Shimerman:
His second best bed?

David Read:
The second best bed. What do you think? Is it you’re, because you’ve studied this man for decades, is it your opinion that, that he loved her dearly or was…?

Armin Shimerman:
No. I don’t think he loved… He may have loved her, but not dearly. I can understand leaving his home and his family. It’s not a good thing to begin with. And going to London to make his career. Okay. All right. People sometimes do that, because of financial reasons. But he became successful while he was in London.

And why didn’t he move his family to London? What, why? I mean, he lost a son, Hamnet, and he still had, I believe, two daughters and he had no further sons. He had a wife, they had a big house in Stratford. Why didn’t he move his family to London if he felt he couldn’t leave the theater?

Why didn’t he do that? Now, we don’t know how often he made the long ride from London to Stratford, during the course of the years. But I don’t… I hope that there was feelings between the two of them that they both felt for each other. But I think if he had really ‘dearly’, as you put it, loved her, Anne Hathaway, he would have gotten them closer to him, especially when he had the money to do it. As it is, he eventually did move back to Stratford. He retired to Stratford, and started up a lot of lawsuits. He was a very litigious person, Shakespeare was. But I don’t know, I wasn’t there and as far as the second best bed, there’s a great deal of debate what that means. A lot of people say that it was it was customary for a host to give his guests the best bed when they came to stay or to live. And so the second best bed may have been the bed that the husband and wife shared. So he left her the bed that they shared, but he didn’t really leave or much of anything else.

Well, yes, he gives a he gives a lot of things to other people. He leaves a little to his daughter. Yeah. But he only leaves her the bed. And that for me is problematic. That again goes to indicate for me to go to show that they weren’t Romeo and Juliet.

David Read:
That’s awesome, good, yeah. There you go. Darren, do you have anything else you want to add before I go to fan questions?

Darren Sumner:
Oh, you know, the other thing that I’m interested to maybe ask you to reflect on with us a little bit, Armin, is the way that David sort of invited me into this conversation as a theologian, is thinking about the ways in which Shakespeare and other great works of literature similar to science fiction, help us reason through the great questions of human existence.

Right. Who are we as creatures? Who are we in relation with one another? Who are we in relation with our environment, ad infinitum? And as a person of faith who’s loved science fiction from the cradle, this is one of the things that I love so much about science fiction is, it asks these big questions about human existence, about who we are.

I wonder either in the sci fi direction or the Shakespeare direction or both, how you might reflect on that, that sort of high noble pursuit of this form of art.

Armin Shimerman:
Well, I will tell you, from the Shakespeare point of view, they lived in a very religious era. It was required that whether you were Catholic, whether you’re Protestant, Jewish, Hindu, whatever, you had to attend a Protestant, a, oh my God, I just forgot the name of the sect. Pi English church. What’s that called?

Darren Sumner:
Oh, yeah. Anglican.

Armin Shimerman:
Anglican. You had to attend an Anglican service once a month. And if you didn’t, you were fined. And if you didn’t, a second time, you were fined even more. And I believe, the third or fourth time you were imprisoned and possibly killed if you didn’t attend services. A lot of Shakespeare has a lot of biblical references in it, because not only did you have to attend, but the pastors, for the most part, weren’t that good.

And the government knew that. And so there was a handbook. It’s called the Homilies. And the pastors in every church in England were required to cycle through the government written homilies for the congregation, and because you had to hear them year after year after year, the stories told in the Homilies became like commercials for us that we see a thousand times and they become just catch phrases for us because we’ve seen these commercials.

So religion is a very big element of Elizabethan life. Huge. People went to their deaths over religion. There’s a great schism at that time between Protestantism and Catholicism and, in fact, Catholics were forbidden to practice mass in England at the time. The church of the Roman Catholic Church was smuggling priests into England to give mass.

And while they were doing it, Protestants were killing them off as soon as they would find them. So, we call Elizabeth’s half-sister Bloody Mary, and, that’s Mary Tudor. And, but I think if you look at history, you can also call Elizabeth ‘Bloody Elizabeth’ because she killed not as many, but she killed a fair share of Catholics as much as Bloody Mary killed Protestants.

But yes. So these, to your question of I’ve gone off on a tangent, but to your question, religion and the big questions are paramount to Shakespeare. And not only is he trying to suss them out every now and then, he doesn’t. He doesn’t. It’s not his focus. But his focus is something called rhetoric, which is reasoning.

And he is trying to suss out some of the more philosophical ideas of the times in his plays. He tends to leave religion for the most part alone, because that can get him into trouble. So he tends to stay away from that.

Darren Sumner:
But, I’m thinking even some of these more, not necessarily religious, but more fundamental questions that he explores through his characters, like, you know, who are the good guys and bad guys or what makes a person morally, worth emulating and honoring? Where is the possibility of redemption? What sort of redemption arcs do we see in characters? In Shakespeare?

Armin Shimerman:
There are redemptive arcs. I directed a play called ‘Measure for Measure’, and that is about redemption. It’s about the Duke puts Isabel through her horrible thing, makes her believe her brother is dead. And why does he do that? So that she has a redemptive moment at the end of the play? Redemption is very much part of some of Shakespeare’s plays.

But again, religion is in the forefront of every Elizabethans life, whether they’re pro-Catholic or whether they’re pro-Anglican or Protestant. Religion is very much an element, just as politics, I would imagine. I was at someone’s house last night. We had a long and hearty discussion about politics. They were discussing religion as much as we were discussing politics last night.

David Read:
Yeah. When you break it all down, for sure.

Armin Shimerman:
And philosophy, they were steeped. The Literati, anyway, were steeped in the good books. And not just the Bible, but in great philosophical works that had come up through the Middle Ages and had just recent, some of the Greek and Roman literature that had just recently been rediscovered. They were dealing with that and trying to suss out, you know, what is right, what is wrong, and it’s one of the things that draws me to this literature is, not only am I getting good theater, but I’m also being introduced to wonderful ideas.

David Read:
Absolutely.

Darren Sumner:
Shakespeare’s a moral education.

Armin Shimerman:
Yes, it is for sure.

David Read:
I think sci fi is as well. I think.

Armin Shimerman:
It can be. It can be.

David Read:
Yeah. Or you can enjoy it for its entertainment value. But I think at the end of the day when it really breaks itself down, it is a pursuit of understanding.

Armin Shimerman:
Excellently well put. And I would venture to say, one of the great things I think that ‘Star Trek’ has always done in the past is try to address some of these questions through pastiches, through metaphors, and God bless them for doing it. I get a little cranky with ‘Star Trek’ when all I’m getting is starship battles and special effects and and people, you know, just trying to figure out how to stay alive.

It’s lovely and it’s exciting and a lot of people like that. But for me, that’s not ‘Star Trek’. For me, ‘Star Trek’ is about social issues, about religious issues, about philosophical issues, about moral issues, about human issues, and not so much about phasers.

Darren Sumner:
We need we need the exploration of the “hoo-man” condition.

David Read:
Those “hoo-mans”.

Darren Sumner:
I’ve been waiting for two weeks to make that joke.

David Read:
Oh, Darren.

Armin Shimerman:
You got it.

David Read:
Armin, Do you have a few more minutes for fan questions?

Armin Shimerman:
Sure, absolutely.

David Read:
Bernd Bacchus from Facebook: Armin, what do you remember about your experience as a guest appearance in ‘Castle’ on the episode “The Final Frontier”? I just saw a snippet from this episode. I want to go see it now. There’s a death, I think, at a fan convention to set up everybody.

Armin Shimerman:
Yes, it’s wonderful because it takes place. It’s basically a ‘Star Trek’ convention. And, and I’m playing someone who is selling merchandise to the fans and has a weapon that may have been used in a murder. So, it was delicious to do that. Mainly because, Jonathan Frakes was the director. And, he gave me he let me do whatever I wanted, and he was very happy with that.

Nathan Fillion is a is a lovely man. And I’ve forgotten the lady who was the leading lady who I did the scene with. I did with both of them, and both of them at the end, when I was done, as I was leaving, they both told me, what big fans they were of Quark and ‘Star Trek’ and I was very pleased by that. But, yeah, it was a great deal of fun and I think I had more fun than I should have in that, in that particular episode.

David Read:
Darren, have you watched Castle?

Darren Sumner:
I watch a little bit when it first started, but no, I haven’t seen the series all the way.

David Read:
Nathan Fillion is amazing. He is so good. EricaMamaNox: Have you, yet to do a ‘Stargate’ convention? And we’d love to have you, in the UK. She’s from UK.

Armin Shimerman:
I will be doing a convention, and I do sell ‘Stargate’ paraphernalia. That’s that’ll be in Blackpool on the 26th of July. I’ll be there for three days. So if you’re anywhere near Blackpool, stop in and we’ll talk ‘Stargate’. When I go to conventions, I usually do have, Nox pictures. Because they’re usually very popular, and, but, you’re right, I’ve never done a ‘Stargate’ convention. Just a ‘Stargate’ convention. I understand that the Nox are very popular, and I must admit something that perhaps people don’t know. Even you guys who are experts. Why would you know? Is at least once, if not twice, the ‘Stargate’ people ask me to come back and do another episode. Each time that they asked me, I was involved in another project and it was impossible for me to go. So I believe, and again, I’ve forgotten her name. But the lady who played…

David Read:
Frida Betrani

Armin Shimerman:
Yes, she went back and did the episodes, and I think I was invited to do as well.

David Read:
Very good. Well, I’m glad to hear that you are not forgotten. It’s important.

Armin Shimerman:
No, no, but it’s hard to, you know, if you’re dealing with saving people and if we can bring beings back to life from the dead, It’s hard to include the Nox in episodes because we can just fix it, you know?

Darren Sumner:
Right.

Armin Shimerman:
So there’s no there’s no fear there. There’s no there’s no trepidation there.

David Read:
Oh, that’s my father’s issue when we watch ‘Star Trek’, when he can’t take it seriously. Because he’s like, just go get in the ‘Bird of Prey’ and fly around the sun a few times and undo it. When you introduce those elements, you know?

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, that’s the Superman problem.

Armin Shimerman:
Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, I think, a little bit of the Nox goes a long way.

Darren Sumner:
Do you get ‘Stargate’ questions at conventions from the stage very often?

Armin Shimerman:
Not very often. Usually they’re either ‘Star Trek’ questions or ‘Buffy’ questions or some of the other shows I’ve done. But once in a blue moon. Yeah, there’s a ‘Stargate’ question.

David Read:
DeeJohn: Please ask Armin, What is your favorite rule of acquisition?

Armin Shimerman:
Enough is never enough. Oh, I think that’s 129. I could be wrong. That is the rule. Enough is never enough. Or, what is it? Dignity and an empty shack is worth the price of the sack. Kind of like that one, too.

David Read:
Oh, geez.

Armin Shimerman:
But there are there are some wonderful ones. In fact, I was told years ago that in some, MBA classes, master business classes, that the rules of acquisition are handed out to be read by the students, so they have awareness of that, which tickles me no end. Yeah. You can imagine.

David Read:
Absolutely. Richard Hawkins: I was wondering when Armin was acting with René [Auberjonois]and ‘Boston Legal’, did they ever get themselves mixed up as to where they were?

Armin Shimerman:
No. But I will tell you a story. Which is delicious to me. I had been watching ‘Boston Legal’ for a number of years because René was on it, and I really liked it. And I’ve talked about several shows I’ve been on, but I had a nice spate of shows with David Kelley, who created ‘Boston Legal’ and David Kelley hired me for a number of shows where I played recurring judges for the most part, and the show that I did with René, ‘Boston Legal’.

I was a judge, but not a presiding judge. And I wanted to be on the show. And as fate would have it, they hired me to do a judge and there’s a longer story that goes with this story, which I won’t bore you with. But in my second episode on that show, they sent me this script and I read the script.

I immediately got on the phone with René and said, “René, this is a Quark and Odo scene! They’ve sent us a Quark and Odo scene.” And he said, “Yeah, I read it. It’s a joke. Don’t even think about memorizing it. They’ll cut it. It’s just a joke. Just forget about it. Don’t worry about it.”

But of course, they didn’t cut it. And, so on the day that we were shooting it, we did the master, which is usually the shot that gets done first, which is shows you the whole room and how the actors fit into the whole room. That’s the master shot. And while they’re lighting and setting up for the two shots and the close ups and the coverage, there’s a desk in the room.

René is sitting on one edge of the desk. I am sitting on the other edge of the desk. The gaffer, the man who does all the lighting is sitting in the middle between us, and, he doesn’t know me at all, but he does know René. And he turns to René and he says, “I just watch the two of you do that scene. It looked like you’d been doing it for years.” Which sent us into hysterics because it was a Quark and Odo scene and he didn’t understand why we were hysterically laughing because it was a Quark and Odo scene. And so but he recognized that we had been doing it for years. Without knowing that we were Quark and Odo. Yeah. I mean, he didn’t know that. It just looked that way. It looked like these two actors had been together for a long time.

David Read:
They are the coyote and the sheepdog?

Armin Shimerman:
Yes.

David Read:
And they clock out at the end of the day and say, see you tomorrow.

Armin Shimerman:
See you tomorrow.

David Read:
Armin. Your insight is always just delicious to listen to. As I sci-fi fan, you get it.

Armin Shimerman:
They’re un-Quark-like. They may be more Nox-like, but they are very un-Quark-like. It’s one of the lovely things about doing the Nox, was it’s very rare do I get to play someone basically nice. And Anteaus, which was the character’s name, Anteaus, which is also the name of our theater as well.

But that’s just coincidence. So I jumped at the chance not only to do ‘Stargate’ and to work with Ray [Xifo], but actually to play somebody who was a nefarious who wasn’t double dealing or wheeling and dealing. That’s one of the reasons I liked working on ‘Stargate’ so much, because it was it’s just a character that I rarely get to play.

David Read:
There’s a lot going on beneath the surface with this guy. You know, the lines aren’t long there. You get the impression that…

Armin Shimerman:
He’s being careful about his words.

David Read:
Very careful. And that he just, you know, now that we’ve taken care of them, they’re okay. It’s time for you to go. We have a life to lead to lead here.

Armin Shimerman:
And your petty concerns are not, they’re not ours. So I don’t think he thinks of them as petty, but they don’t stand up to what the Nox are interested in. And it’s like children. They’re children. Let the children go on to play.

David Read:
Yeah, yeah. The very young do not always do as they are told.

Darren Sumner:
Exactly. And he says at the end “We’ll bury the gate.” But he says it in a way that’s, “it’s for you, right. If it’ll make you feel better, we’ll bury the gate.”

Armin Shimerman:
And then you must educate me. I was once told there are five families, five races, five something in ‘Stargate’. And the Nox are one of the five. Can you educate me on that?

Darren Sumner:
So your episode, right, is early in season one, and by the time we get to the middle of season two, Robert Cooper writes an episode called “The Fifth Race” where our heroes realize their place in the galaxy because they meet one of the advanced races, the Asgard. And they say there was once an alliance of four great races, right, tens of thousands of years ago. And it was the Asgard. It was the Nox who we met, the Furlings, who we never meet, and the Ancients, who built the ‘Stargate’ network. So, all of a sudden you realize, oh, that episode from season one that had ‘Quark’ in it, that was massively important to the lore of the show.

David Read:
They go way back.

Armin Shimerman:
And so it’s not five races, it’s four races.

David Read:
We are the fifth race. The Asgard officially name us the fifth race in the last episode of the show. So your legacy, your purpose is clear. But throughout the run of the show, we’re kind of…

Darren Sumner:
It’s, this is what humanity through exploring the galaxy and meeting new races and is aspiring to be.

Armin Shimerman:
Okay. All right.

David Read:
Which lends itself to much more mystery because, you know, you can go back and watch the Nox and see, these are the seeds. These people are the seeds that the ancients planted. So, you know, we’ve done this a long time ago. We’re over this.

Armin Shimerman:
So, yeah, we’ve moved on. We’ve moved on.

David Read:
That’s it. Darren, anything else before we wrap up?

Darren Sumner:
Thank you for inviting me to be a part of this conversation. And Armin, thank you so much for your time. And, thank you for your work over the years. It’s so much fun to get to meet actors from our favorite shows, but then also to appreciate the depth that you bring to your work and to recognize, right, whether it’s from Buffy to Quark to Anteaus.

Armin Shimerman:
Illyria.

David Read:
Illyria there. Yeah, yeah. Links in the description below, folks, go and check out his trilogy.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, yeah, there’s just so much there to chew on, so I appreciate it.

Armin Shimerman:
As I said earlier on, I give you know, what you think you’re getting, there’s more to it. There’s more here besides, the various things that I’ve played on TV and I’ve mentioned being on stage, and I always think of myself as a stage actor first and as a TV actor second.

David Read:
Well, it means a lot to have you back when you when you agreed to come back a second time, it really, you know, I it really made me feel good because I really appreciated the conversation that we had the first time around. And, it means a lot to us. So everyone who is tuning in, if you enjoyed our conversation about Shakespeare, Armin wrote, what could have been, you know, how do you how do you get all the knowledge that he has, you know, what kind of life may he have led before coming to London? And that’s Illyria.

Armin Shimerman:
Yeah. How did he go from being a small town boy with a limited, not a bad education, but a limited education to being the greatest writer in the English language. How did that happen? And I don’t give all the reasons, but I do suggest that he had an extremely good teacher that helped to educate him. It’s more than that. It’s also, it’s a political mystery. And we’re trying to solve the problems of the political mystery.

David Read:
Armin Shimerman, thank you very much for joining us, sir.

Armin Shimerman:
My pleasure. Thank you.

David Read:
Thank you for coming, Darren.

Darren Sumner:
Thank you.

David Read:
That’s Armin Shimerman, Anteaus in ‘Stargate SG-1’. My name is David Read. Thanks so much for tuning in. My appreciation to my mod team. You guys are fantastic. Antony, Summer, Marsha… couldn’t do, the show without you guys. Tracy, Jeremy. if you enjoyed the episode, click like, it does help the show grow.

We’ve got a complete list of shows heading your way at DialTheGate.com. Lots of stuff coming up. So, keep an eye on that for more information and for the exact dates of the live episodes. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate, and I’ll see you on the other side.