Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Odo
8. Hmph For Humanity!
"Alien male, middle aged, curmudgeon… and a shape shifter," begins Odo's entry in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Series Bible. He was "the curmudgeon of all curmudgeons," Michael Piller added, doubling down, in Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Unauthorised Story. We all like a good grumble from time to time, but this wasn't for the sake of it. There was method in the misanthropy of that morphogenic matrix.
From the very beginning, Odo was imagined as the outsider character, the observer of humanity in the line of Spock and Data, but from a decidedly grumpier point of view. In The Unauthorised Story, Piller went on to explain that,
Odo has been forced to pass as a humanoid all of his life […] and he resents it. So, he has now found a way to use it as a defence mechanism […] and find ways to be critical of the human condition.
Indeed, in Emissary, Odo makes that same point to Kira, almost verbatim — "All my life, I've been forced to pass myself off as one of you". Before entering the room at his audition, René Auberjonois was even told by casting director Ron Surma that "Nobody's been grouchy enough," as the actor recalled on the DS9 DVD extra Crew Dossier — Odo.
After Auberjonois was cast, characteristics brought to the role by the actor were then reflected in changes made to the Series Bible. The revised edition of 10 September 1992, given in The Making of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, added the following under the entry for Odo:
His voice is gruff… his in-your-face manner is designed to keep everyone at a distance and disguise his inner vulnerability which he cannot bear to reveal.
As time passed, Odo opened up, without losing his edge. Curmudgeon or no, us humans all fell in love with him. In the end, few characters, few actors, could have trademarked a 'hmph' with such delightful, disdainful appeal.