Captain James Kirk’s space adventures kicked off on television in 1966, as he led his aides to defend the United Federation of Planets in Star Trek: The Original Series. In 2023, the sci-fi franchise is still going strong, having made the headlines with the third season of Star Trek: Picard, which sees Jean-Luc Picard meet a mysterious young woman who holds the key to the secrets of his past.
In between the two series, the Gene Roddenberry-created franchise has captured the hearts and minds of countless fans and strongly influenced popular culture across five decades. As a result, it also holds a special place in the lives of many famous individuals of our time. Some of them have been lucky to venture into space to explore the Milky Way for a brief moment through cameo appearances in the engrossing shared universe. Here are five such unexpected Star Trek cameo appearances.
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Mick Fleetwood – Star Trek: The Next Generation (1989)
The 76-year-old musician is revered all around the world for being the drummer and one of the founding members of the iconic band Fleetwood Mac. As such, there’s little doubt about his popularity.
However, many Star Trek as well as Fleetwood Mac fans missed his appearance in the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1989 because he wore a prosthetic head during his small cameo. He portrayed an Antedean and posed as a delegate in an attempt to bomb a conference.
The fact Fleetwood didn’t utter a single dialogue also made recognizing him virtually impossible. Nevertheless, he did get a credit at the end of the episode and permanently etched his name in Star Trek history books.
Tom Morello – Star Trek: Voyager (2000)
Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello is perhaps the biggest Trekkie in this list and he was so keen to make an appearance in his beloved franchise that he got in touch with producer Rick Berman to explore the possibility. Berman, whose son was a big Rage fan, handed Morello the chance to feature in Star Trek: Insurrection. He played a Son’s officer in the movie.
His experience was so good that he took another dive into the universe of Star Trek – this time as crewman Mitchell in the sixth season of Star Trek: Voyager. He even got the chance to speak to Captain Janeway in the episode Good Shepherd.
Bill Hader – Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
Saturday Night Live star Bill Hader‘s entry into the franchise was more dramatic than his cameo, which sees him voice the computer of the USS Vengeance in Star Trek Into Darkness.
His voice was recorded at the eleventh hour after J.J. Abrams got in touch with him in a panic and requested he needed his assistance with an additional voice. Hader agreed and made his voice immortal in the Star Trek universe by raining down on Benedict Cumberbatch’s Khan Noonien Singh.
Adam Scott – Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
Adam Scott, who is mostly known for his light-hearted performance as state auditor Ben Wyatt in the sitcom Parks and Recreation, portrayed a much more serious character in Star Trek: First Contact, which also proved to be one of his very early stints on the big screen.
He played the unnamed USS Defiant’s conn officer, who reports that the Defiant has sustained heavy damage to Lt. Commander Worf. Interestingly, the Big Little Lies star also auditioned for the part of Lieutenant Hawk in the same film but had to settle for a cameo appearance.
Jeff Bezos – Star Trek Beyond (2016)
Jeff Bezos is one of the most successful entrepreneurs of our time, having founded and led Amazon to unimaginable heights. While everyone is aware of his love for computers and books, what many don’t know is that he’s also a huge Star Trek fan, so much so that when actor William Shatner flew to space, the business mogul asked him to take some of his Star Trek drawings he made when he was 9 years old.
He also made a blink-and-you-miss appearance as an alien Starfleet official in the 2016 movie Star Trek Beyond. Bezos wasn’t bothered about how unrecognizable he was in the sequence (he wore prosthetics and green makeup) but he was adamant to include a speaking part to ensure his bit isn’t dumped from the final cut.
In his eight-second-long performance, he advised a spacefarer to “speak normally” and proceeded to walk off-screen.
