In fact Shimerman is credited as being one of the creative forces behind the series’ finest moment. It’s a multi-layered scene from the Season 4 opener The Way of the Warrior in which the space station’s bar keeper and exiled Cardassian spy Elim Garak (Andrew Robinson) have a conversation that starts off about the human drink root beer and ends up to be about galaxy spanning politics.
“While rehearsing it we came to find out that there was more to it than what was written on the page,” Shimerman said.
“We saw that there was more being said than what was on the page. We started to modify it from a comic scene to a very insidious sort of scene with some comic overtones as well and we rehearsed it that way at my house.
"When we took it in on Monday and the director (James L Conway) said let’s read this we presented it the way we had rehearsed it. He said, ‘We can’t shoot that, that’s not what the producers have asked me to shoot. This has to be a much more funny scene.
"I was rather adamant and happy with the choices I had made and the director, doing what his bosses had asked him to, said, 'I can’t shoot it like that’.
"It’s the only time ever in my carer, ever, where I simply said, 'Well I can’t shoot it the way you want to do it’ and put my foot down. "So the producers were bought down to the set and the director explained what the problem was.
"The producers took about 30 seconds, consulted amongst themselves, and then turned to the director and said, 'Shoot it the way Armin wants to do it’. And it’s of great satisfaction to me that it’s one of the most popular scene from Deep Space Nine because it would have been a totally different scene had we done it the way it was written.”
cucumber-s
