Armin Shimerman wanted to know Quark’s IQ

Armin Shimerman played the greedy, conniving Ferengi Quark on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but there was more to him than just avarice. 

Armin Shimerman is well-known for making the most out of the alien character he portrayed on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for seven years. A Ferengi, Quark ran the bar inside the space station, but the latinum he earned there was never enough, and he was always on the lookout for more. At times, his schemes worked; others, not so much, and sometimes, he didn’t come out looking very smart when one of those schemes did fail. So Shimerman had a good question for the writers and producers during his tenure on the series. He wanted to know if Quark was actually smart or not.

Shimerman appeared at the Fanboy Expo in Knoxville, TN recently [via Trekmovie] and told the audience that at least three times a year he took the writers out to lunch to make suggestions about his character (even though they were rarely followed). And at the lunches, he always asked the same thing: what is Quark’s IQ?

"I remember begging them many times, “Just tell me what his IQ is. Just tell me because sometimes he’s smart and sometimes he’s not. Just tell me what his IQ is.”"

Armin Shimerman couldn’t tell if Quark was smart or just playing like he was smart.

Shimerman never got a solid answer so he, like the rest of us, remained in the dark as to Quark’s level of intelligence. That hasn’t stopped the actor from returning to the character as, at a convention right before the pandemic, a fan wanted him to appear as Quark again. They paid him “a ton of money” and also paid for his makeup artist [Karen Westerfield] who worked with him on Deep Space Nine to go to England to get him ready to become Quark again.

"At a convention right before COVID, someone paid me a ton of money to get dressed up as Quark one more time. And I would only do it if it was with my makeup artist [Karen Weserfield] who was with me the whole seven years… and they paid for Karen to come out to England… And when I put it on, Ira [Steven Behr], the executive producer, was there and we were all amazed because it was a good 20 years after I finished the show, and when I got into the makeup it was like a time machine. It looked like Quark 20 years ago."

We’ll never know exactly how smart Quark was supposed to be on Deep Space Nine, but we do know we’d love to see him back on our screens, eve if only for a short visit.