You’d hardly recognize Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos in the super-heavy makeup he wears as an alien Starfleet official in “Star Trek Beyond,” the latest big-screen voyage of the Starship Enterprise.
But just to make sure you’re able to spot him, Bezos posted a Vine video in which you can see him getting a bite while waiting for his scene. “Cheers,” he says into the camera.
In a Twitter update, Bezos said the “Star Trek” appearance checked off an item on his bucket list. He also gave a shout-out to director Justin Lin, the cast and the crew.
Bucket list. Cast, crew and Justin Lin @trailingjohnson were amazing. #StarTrekBeyond https://t.co/VJ95D8pQeK
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) July 20, 2016
The feeling was mutual.
“He was awesome,” Lin told The Associated Press. “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.”
Lin followed up with a tweet today, praising Bezos as one of the “passionate people” who added to the experience of directing “Star Trek Beyond.”
The movie is due to open Thursday night, and word has it that some of the folks at Blue Origin are already getting a preview.
Great thing about making Trek is having passionate people drop by, like @JeffBezos. Here he is with Lydia Wilson. pic.twitter.com/bKkEAmwjDS
— Justin Lin (@justinlin) July 20, 2016
We found out about Bezos’ screen time last weekend, when word filtered out from movie previews and cast listings. AP reported that his character appears in a single tracking shot. But Chris Pine, who plays Captain Kirk in the rebooted “Star Trek” franchise, said Bezos’ presence on the set still loomed large.
“I was there for the bit with his, like, nine bodyguards and three limos. It was really intense. … I had no idea who he was. Not a clue. But he was obviously very important,” Pine told AP.
Bezos has been a “Star Trek” fan since his childhood, and he’s also said the voice-enabled computers on the show helped inspire the Amazon Echo speaker and the Alexa voice recognition agent.
In addition to founding Amazon, Bezos started up a rocket venture called Blue Origin that is in the midst of testing a suborbital spaceship. Bezos’ ultra-long-term goal is to have millions of people living and working in space. Just like in “Star Trek.”