CNBC reports that during an interview at the Ignatius Forum in Washington last week, Jeff Bezos responded to critics of billionaires spending big on space, that space and earth are connected.

Also that he spends big on Earth, too.

Having earmarked $1 billion a year of Amazon stock per year for Blue Origin, in 2020 he also established a $10 billion fund for climate change research and activism.

During the forum he mentioned his role in Star Trek: Beyond, saying:

That was not an easy gig to get. I insisted on a speaking role which complicated the whole scenario.

It would be tempting to assume that by complicated the world's second richest person meant that he had to pay more, but a non-actor speaking during a film would be risky.

Any poorly delivered dialog could drag the whole film down.

Did he have to audition?

Doesn't seem so according to what he said of it in this interview.

Years of begging Paramount to give him a role.

Then when they did he offered to wear any amount of makeup to be unrecognisable but insisted on a speaking role in a scene central to the story so that he couldn't end up on the editing room floor.

He ended up with two words of dialog:

Speak normally.

Perhaps a line also intended as instruction, which might not have been easy through that makeup.

[ Main Image: Jeff Bezos in Star Trek: Beyond. Credit: Paramount via Twitter. ]

References

GeekWire (October 24, 2016). Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on how he got a role in Star Trek Beyond. YouTube.

Lin, Justin [@justinlin] (July 21, 2016). Great thing about making Trek is having passionate people drop by, like @JeffBezos. Twitter.

Palmer, Annie (November 15, 2021). Jeff Bezos says he spends more on climate than space travel and recounts the time he played an alien. CNBC.