trillscienceofficer
Odo’s line [in “Shadowplay”] “I don’t do faces faces very well,” triggers the eternal query, “Why not?” Since the writers hadn’t pinned down a definitive answer, Rene Auberjonois devised one of his own. “If there’s something for Odo to replicate that has a prototype, like a rat or a knapsack or a chair, he can replicate it exactly,” says the actor. “But because he is searching for his identity, even beyond the fact that by the third season he knows where he comes from, he cannot create a face for himself. It’s an identity problem for Odo, because he is a character who believes, in the strictest sense of the word, in telling the truth. And I believe he could make a face like Paul Newman or Quark, but he can’t create something that he doesn’t understand, and he doesn’t understand himself yet.”
— Terry J. Erdmann, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion (2000)
