Amazon CEO’s Dream Comes True, Cast As Alien In ‘Star Trek Beyond’
Even billionaires still got dreams, and Star Trek has granted Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos’ dream to star in Star Trek.
We all have that one (or more) franchise that we would love to get casted in, even just for the most minor role in its canon. It seems these kinds of dream are not only dreams of us, regular folk, but also of bigger people who have already much in life.
Jeff Bezos has played, for the most part of his life, a huge role in the growth of e-commerce. In fact, he is the founder and CEO of the biggest and most popular online merchant, Amazon.com. Now, thanks to Star Trek, he is taking on a different role, even if just for a second.
Lin reminisces the day they shot Bezos’ scene. Bezos came to the Star Trek set with tons of security, and everyone instantly knew he was someone important. Bezos, however, was very patient throughout the day and waited without a fuss for the crew to shoot the single Star Trek tracking shot that would include his character.
“He was awesome. It was like a president was visiting, you know? He had a big entourage. But it didn’t matter because he was so into it. He had to wait around all day because it was one day we were shooting like three different scenes and, it was also credit to Jeff because … he just nailed it every time.”
According to the Washington Post’s interview with Star Trek co-writer Doug Jung, it was interesting to see Bezos at the shoot.
“I remember that day when we shot, he was in a ton of alien makeup. I remember hearing him say, ‘This is so great.’ … I just got a big kick out of that.
“Someone like Jeff Bezos—where you’re like—you imagine the world is his oyster. But he got such a thrill out of something that was a day or half a day on set. It was great.”
Chris Pine, the actor who played Captain Kirk in Star Trek Beyond, adds that he did not know Bezos at all. But seeing how he came to the Star Trek set with a huge entourage, he knew, instantly, that Bezos was someone important.
“I was there for the bit with his like nine bodyguards and three limos. It was really intense. had no idea who he was. Not a clue. But he was obviously very important.”
Bezos has been very open about his love for Star Trek. In fact, in May, during the Transformers technology conference where Bezos appeared in a stage interview, he admitted that he was a huge fan of the original 1960s Star Trek TV series. Star Trek, later on, inspired him to create Alexa/Echo, Amazon’s robotic voice-recognition assistant.
“Our vision was, in the long-term, [Alexa] would become the ‘Star Trek’ computer. You could ask it anything, and ask it to do things for you—ask it to find things for you—and it would be easy to converse with, in a very natural way.”
#posttransformers live event: @JeffBezos confirms to @PostBaron that #StarTrek was an inspiration for Amazon Alexa. pic.twitter.com/hJ92GUDH3j
— Michael Cavna (@comicriffs) May 18, 2016
The Post’s executive editor, Martin Baron, then proceeds to ask Bezos about being a fan of Star Trek and Bezos reveals how playing Star Trek became a huge, nostalgic part of his childhood.
“When I was in fourth grade, we would—me and my friends Dean and Kyle, who lived next door, a couple houses down in Houston, Texas—play Star Trek almost every day. And we would fight over who got to be Captain Kirk or Spock or—and somebody usually played the computer, too. And you know, it actually was very fun. We made little cardboard phasers and cardboard tricorders and, you know—good days.”
Bezos has also previously appeared in the 2004 film Tooth Fairy, where he stars as a security guard.
Using reason as a weapon.???? #StarTrekMovie pic.twitter.com/94EI8NIyXG
— Star Trek (@StarTrekMovie) July 14, 2016
[Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images]
