Carolyn Seymour's Toreth Role In Star Trek Was Written 'For' Sean Connery

In the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "Face of the Enemy," Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis) is kidnapped by Romulans. She is given surgery against her will to look like a Romulan commander, and told by her captor, Subcommander N'Vek (Scott MacDonald) that she is to pose as someone named Rakal, a Major in the Tal Shiar, essentially the Romulan Secret Service. Because Troi is half Betazoid, she can intuit the emotions of others and, crucially, tell if they're lying or scheming. N'Vek reveals that he needed a secret Federation ally to convince his captain, Toreth (Carolyn Seymour), to deliver a secret payload to a Starfleet vessel. The payload, audiences will later learn, is a small team of Romulan diplomats held in stasis. The diplomats need to be delivered to the Federation, as they intend to defect. 

Toreth, however, is intelligent and strong-willed and won't take suggestions from N'Vek, hence why he's kidnapped Troi and forced her to play the part of a Tal Shiar agent. Troi is outraged at the crime committed against her, but also understands N'Vek's situation. She eventually goes along with his plan. There are many tense scenes wherein Troi and Toreth butt heads over who has more authority, all while she and N'Vek try to manipulate the situation. Toreth is, of course, too bright to fall for all their schemes. 

While writing the episode, screenwriter Naren Shankar took inspiration from John McTiernan's 1990 film "The Hunt for Red October," a film about a Soviet submarine commanded by a potential defector named Marko Ramius (Sean Connery). In the oral history book "Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages," edited by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross, Shankar even admitted that the role of Toreth was inspired by Sean Connery. 

The story for "Face of the Enemy" is credited to longtime "Next Generation" screenwriter René Echevarria, and it seems that he and Shankar did some vital brainstorming during the writing of the episode. Eventually, the two writers decided that the Toreth should be a woman, although that didn't stop Shankar from writing the part with Connery in mind. He said: 

"We talked a lot about whether the character of the Romulan commander would be a man or a woman. We finally decided on a woman, but we had also talked about there being a little bit of a feel of 'Hunt for Red October' in the show. When I was writing it I just had this strong image of Sean Connery, so all the dialogue I wrote for the show was with Sean Connery's voice in my mind, and then just changed the name."

Toreth was eventually played by Carolyn Seymour, the prolific actress of stage and screen, perhaps best known for her roles in the 1975 post-apocalypse series "Survivors" and for playing Grace in the bonkers satire "The Ruling Class." Seymour is also one of the many actors to have appeared in both "Star Trek" and "Star Wars," as she lent her voice to Mon Mothma and Shmi Skywalker in various animated projects. Video game fans might know her voice from the "Gears of War" video games wherein she played the Locust Queen Myrrah. She may not have had the star power of someone like Sean Connery, but she was pliable, talented, and deeply understood the role. 

Indeed, Shankar said he was impressed by Seymour's handling of the role. 

There was one line of dialogue in particular that Shankar could hear very clearly in Connery's voice. It was surreal, he said, to hear it coming from an actress like Seymour. He said: 

"The interesting thing is there's a line 'The Federation is neither stupid nor foolish,' and I was going off like that. And then to see the same words – with not even a punctuation mark changed – played by a woman was a very interesting thing. It was the same exact words with a different delivery and a different attitude and it worked really well. It was the ultimate gender-blind writing."

Toreth was a wonderfully memorable character, it's a pity she didn't return after the events of "Face of the Enemy." One might assume that she was arrested and/or executed by the Romulans after allowing her ship to be used as a secret transport for defectors. Her continued life was confirmed, however, in the 2009 tie-in novel "A Singular Destiny" by Keith R.A. DeCandido, which took place in an alternate timeline following a Borg invasion. Toreth, it seems, became a respected commander in the Romulan Empire during a parallel version of the Dominion War. 

So she did survive in a small way. 

Later in "Star Trek" lore, the Tal Shiar would also return, serving as one of the central antagonistic forces in the first season of "Star Trek: Picard." Despite how nostalgia-forward that series was, the filmmakers didn't think to hire back Seymour. She is still acting at age 76.