Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Rom

Before Rom, Max Grodénchik had already played two separate Ferengi characters on Star Trek: The Next Generation — Sovak in Captain's Holiday, and Par Lenor in The Perfect Mate. It was during filming of the latter, Grodénchik told StarTrek.com in 2014, that he got wind from make-up artist Michael Westmore that a new Star Trek show with a Ferengi series regular was in development.

Grodénchik went on to audition, not for the brother, but for Quark. At the callback, the actor thought he had completely ruined his chances and went to sit to sulk outside. He was joined by Armin Shimerman, equally unconfident, who had the following observation:

Here's the good news: it's between only you and me for the role.

You might wonder, like Grodénchik, how anyone could be so sure. Shimerman's reply was simple, but savvy — "Well, we were the only two short people there".

Though he didn't get to play Quark, Grodénchik, magnanimous, noted in The Fifty Year Mission: The Next 25 Years that his disappointment was tempered by "knowing that Armin landed the role". "Thrilled" to be offered Rom, Grodénchik also had "no idea that it would turn into such a recurring role".

At the very start of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, there was no 'Rom,' properly speaking. In Emissary, Max Grodénchik's character was simply 'Ferengi Pit Boss,' that is, one in charge of the Dabo wheel. 'Rom' wasn't named as such until the first season's fourth episode, A Man Alone.

As Grodénchik recalled in the 2014 interview with StarTrek.com, he didn't know if 'Pit Boss' would appear again. At the time, he considered his turn in Emissary to be more of a happy "consolation prize," having not been picked for Quark.

In Deep Space Nine's pilot, Nog was also 'nephew of'. According to The Making of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, that particular family connection was a late addition during the development process. Its inclusion then created the "need" for the father in Quark's "my brother's boy". As well as getting a name, Rom was revealed as the parent in A Man Alone.

The family connection also continued after Deep Space Nine had ended. At conventions, Grodénchik and the much missed Aron Eisenberg would perform as Rom and Nog in full Ferengi make-up and costume.

Before we rush to judge Rom's first wife, we should remember that Ferengi society holds up a mirror to our own. In the West, marriage has only comparatively recently — and especially for a fee-male — become 'all about love'. A contract is a contract is still a contract between hew-mons. In Rom's case, it was, in Quark's words:

A standard five year marriage contract with Prinadora's father […] to have a child. A simple everyday business deal.

Rom fell in love. The father-in-law "swindled". Prinadora left "for a richer man," probably with humungous lobes. That almost wasn't the end for the ex-contractually obliged cohabitators, however. As detailed in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, the writers had planned for the B-story of the sixth season episode Change of Heart to centre on Rom and Nog, with Nog's mother paying a visit to the Station.

The scenes were cut as producer Ira Steven Behr wasn't a fan of the "basic concept". "It was about Rom being hoodwinked by this woman all over again, but it just did not work," he noted in the Deep Space Nine Companion. Nevertheless, some fans still got to see what might have been between the former spouses.

At 2002's Slanted Fedora Entertainment convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Max Grodénchik, his then fiancée, and Trek production alum, Lolita Fatjo, Chase Masterson, and Aron Eisenberg performed the un-filmed Prinadora plot from Change of Heart as part of 'The Ferengi Family Hour'.

Don't worry! You can believe in love again, as we go from a bad marriage to a great one. The brother always deserved better, as did the dabo girl, more than just a showgirl. Goodbye Julian, in the garden, on Risa, in the Rite of Separation. Hello "cute" and "sexy" Rom!

As Chase Masterson revealed in an interview with EntertainmentNOW, Bashir's relationship status was, in fact, a good part of the reason behind everyone's favourite Ferengi/Bajoran pairing. One day, Ira Steven Behr apparently took Max Grodénchik for a walk down the Promenade to tell him that they needed to keep the Doctor single, so Rom was going to end up with Leeta.

According to Behr in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, however, writers and producers had planned to get the two together for some time. "We'd been thinking long and hard about pairing up Leeta and Rom ever since 'Bar Association'," he noted. Behr went on to add that, whilst the idea itself was "funny" enough, they needed "to get the audience to root for it".

To do that, they dangled the possibility of a relationship for Leeta with the 'less likeable' Doctor Lewis Zimmerman in Doctor Bashir, I Presume? That way, in Behr's words, Rom would "seem a much better alternative. Sweeter, nicer, kinder". Don't feel bad for Zimmerman, either. As Robert Picardo put it, "I decided to make [him] kind of a slob".

In Take Me Out to the Holosuite, Rom was serving bunt. He won the day, if not the game, in the most delightfully curious way, though not without breaking several of his brother's, and Worf's, bones in the process. "To manufactured triumph," and the osteo-regenerator!

Rom couldn't hit a ball if the Alpha Quadrant depended on it. Thankfully, he had other skills when it came to that. Max Grodénchik, on the other hand, as noted in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, was part of a semi-professional baseball team in high school. He only stopped because he "got a hankering for the stage". In fact, Grodénchik was so good, he had to play left-handed in the episode in order to look as bad at the game as Rom was.

Written by Ira Steven Behr, Take Me Out to the Holosuite was inspired by a 1985 episode of Fame, The Ol' Ball Game, written by… Ira Steven Behr. In the one from Fame, the game is actually won by a character who can't play (softball, in this case).

For Take Me Out to…, the writers always wanted the Niners to lose the game. "I didn't want to do 'the little-team-that-comes-from-behind-to-win'. That's such a cliché," Ronald D. Moore commented in the Deep Space Nine Companion. In the end, Rom only scores one run, but clinches the moral, and personal, victory. Whatever happened to "death to the opposition"?

Rule of Acquisition #6: "Never allow family to stand in the way of opportunity."

Rule of Acquisition #111: "Treat people in your debt like family. Exploit them."

As Max Grodénchik put it to Warp Factor Trek in 2023, Rom was, at first, "a weak, wimpy, frightened, timid nebbish under his brother Quark's thumb". Let's not forget that, in Deep Space Nine's first season episode The Nagus, Rom also co-conspired to kill his brother. But then, for the Ferengi, "such wonderful treachery [like trying to toss family out of an airlock] deserves a reward".

Skip ahead to the very end of their time together on Deep Space 9, Quark summed up the evolution of the relationship with the line, "You're an idiot, but I love you". That brotherly connection extended beyond the characters to the actors. "I consider Armin my mentor, and I learned from him how to conduct myself on the set, as well as conduct myself in life," Grodénchik told StarTrek.com in 2014.

Back in beta canon, the two brothers also appeared side by side on the front cover of the 1999 novel The 34th Rule ("War is good for business."), co-written, or at least co-pitched, by Armin Shimerman and David R. George III. Set during Deep Space Nine's fourth season, the book depicts rising tensions between Bajor and the Ferengi Alliance, with Rom and Quark caught in the middle.

Few could have predicted Rom's path from outwardly bumbling 'idiot' to leader of his people. In the end, as Quark put it, accurately, if somewhat passive aggressively, Rom was "the perfect Nagus for this new Ferenginar". He was precisely what Ferengi society needed to avoid social, cultural, and political stagnation as the 80s approached. After all, bribes were already tax deductible!

Becoming Nagus was, however, one of the few things Max Grodénchik "questioned" about Rom's journey over the years. As he recalled in an interview with TrekMovie in 2018,

I remember we walked down to the writers building to talk to [The Dogs of War writer] René Echevarria. [..] René sat with us for a half hour and explained why this needed to be this way.

Grodénchik went on to add that he was just happy "to play the hapless schmuck so everything else was icing on the cake".

Until very recently, Grodénchik's last outing as Grand Nagus had been in Star Trek Online. There, he joined a host of his Deep Space Nine castmates, including Chase Masterson, Armin Shimerman, and the late, great Aron Eisenberg for the 2018 expansion Victory is Life. In game, Rom is then still Nagus up to at least 2410.

If you really want to get the measure of the mirror universe, and leave a lasting impression, send the Ferengi! For Deep Space Nine's final outing into the alternate in The Emperor's New Cloak, that's precisely what they did with Zek, Quark, and most importantly here, Rom.

For exec. producer, and the episode's co-writer, Ira Steven Behr, commenting in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, The Emperor's New Cloak was first the opportunity to show that Deep Space Nine could be "serious" and "pretty silly" at the same time.

Second, through Rom — "one of his favourite Ferengi" — it was Behr's chance, in his words, "to question the whole lunatic idea of the mirror universe". Indeed, after a lot of confused questioning, Rom does ultimately conclude that "it [the mirror universe] doesn't make any sense".

The titular cloak also provided for some fine physical comedy during the episode. For the scene in which Rom and Quark must carry the Klingon cloaking device down the Station's corridors, Max Grodénchik and Armin Shimerman reportedly "practised for three days, carrying something that wasn't there".

In the end, on set, the actors were given transparent filament connected to four dowels to assist their performance. The scene didn't quite work as expected, however, so producer René Echevarria came up with the idea to "make it [the cloaking device] fritz". Just don't touch those induction coils!

After 24 years of absence in the real world, Rom and Leeta returned to our screens in animated form in the Star Trek: Lower Decks episode Parth Ferengi's Heart Place. In universe, only six years had passed. Rom was still Nagus. Leeta was First Clerk. Both had the lobes, and the baseballs, for a bit of business with the Federation.

On The 7th Rule podcast in February 2024, his heart forever in the right place, Max Grodénchik called reprising the role "a dream come true". Co-star Chase Masterson agreed. It was, in fact, Masterson who was largely responsible for the episode's existence in the first place, and the one to let Grodénchik know the good news.

In a 2023 interview, Lower Decks creator and showrunner Mike McMahan told Collider that in around 2011, when he was still an assistant, Masterson (and Wil Wheaton) had vouched for him at a Comic-Con party, preventing him from being thrown out, and that despite the fact that Masterson had only just met him. Years later, McMahan got to return the kindness. "I literally wrote this Ferenginar episode to have her be in [it]," he added to Collider.

Masterson is equally the champion of kind in her charity work, proving, as Rom would say, that "equality and hospitality are more profitable in the long run".

Ishka, mother of Rom and Quark, was the iconoclast who cast off the sexist strictures of Ferengi society and put on the clothes. Her relationship with her youngest, more inclined to listen, was one of the highlights of the series. Her back-and-forth with her eldest, more stuck-in-his-ways, was a lot of fun to watch, too.

Ishka was played by two actresses — Andrea Martin in Family Business and Cecily Adams for the rest of the character's appearances. Neither actress was old enough to be 'Moogie' to Max Grodénchik or Armin Shimerman. In fact, Adams was a few years younger than both her on-screen sons.

'Moogie' is 'mother' or 'grandmother,' but also an insight into Rom's most memorable voice. As Grodénchik told the audience at Bayou-Con 2011, it was all in the teeth, especially the snaggle tooth on the bottom. He'd also worn the same set as his first Ferengi — Sovak — in Captain's Holiday, and by the looks of it, as Par Lenor in The Perfect Mate.

To be understood amongst the gnashers, and to avoid an incident with his upper lip, Grodénchik had to switch his way of talking to the back of the throat, hence the distinctive sound. As he demonstrated at Bayou-Con, and at other conventions over the years, Grodénchik then has a trick to perform his famous 'Mooooooogiiiieee' without all that disastrous dentistry.

If you want to try it at home, as Grodénchik suggests — and, really, if you don't, then what are you doing with your life? — simply wrap your thumb and forefinger around the back of your bottom teeth, lower your jaw, and speak. Go on, one more time! 'Moooooogiiiie!'