From enthusiastic fans hailing from the realms of music and science to actors nearly deterred by grueling makeup sessions on “Star Trek: Enterprise,” unexpected cameos abound in this beloved franchise. Keep your remote ready, as you may find yourself pausing frequently to catch these hidden gems on screen.

One particularly memorable appearance is that of Iggy Pop, who portrayed Yelgrun, a Vorta clone, in the episode “The Magnificent Ferengi” during the Dominion War saga of “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.” Renowned for his punk rock legacy, Pop delivered a performance as a Dominion representative negotiating Quark’s Moogie’s release, marked by a deadpan demeanor that suggested he was beyond caring. Initially, series writer Ira Steven Behr, an avid Iggy Pop fan, had envisioned the musician for a different role in the two-parter “Past Tense.” However, a scheduling conflict due to Pop’s tour in Spain led to Clint Howard taking the part instead.

Despite the challenge, Pop’s portrayal of the more subdued Vorta clone was met with acclaim, even as he performed in visible discomfort. For Behr, having one of his musical idols grace the series was a dream fulfilled, further enriching the Star Trek legacy with a unique and unforgettable cameo.

But Behr, who reportedly had Iggy Pop posters on the walls of his home at one point, didn’t give up on his dream of having “The Passenger” ride on his space drama. He got his chance after Pop suffered a shoulder injury at a concert, freeing up a little space in his calendar for something less physical than throwing himself around onstage. “I knew that the role was going to be tough for Iggy, because he’s a very kinetic performer,” recalled Behr in the “Deep Space Nine Companion.” 

Although it might have seemed difficult for a musician with such an over-the-top stage presence to play a more sedate Vorta clone, Pop absolutely nailed it despite performing while in visible pain. For his part, Behr was on cloud nine to have a favorite musician appear on his show.

It takes a very special kind of actor to enjoy working in prosthetics. Take Doug Jones, who plays Saru on “Star Trek: Discovery.” He has built his career on his gift for magically harnessing physicality and emotiveness from beneath layers on layers of some of the most complex prosthetics in show business. But Jeffrey Dean Morgan, the charming, dimple-faced dad on “Supernatural” and the Lucille-wielding villain of “The Walking Dead,” is not that guy. 

Long before Morgan’s casting on “The Walking Dead” would change his life forever, the actor had a less-than-ideal experience working on “Star Trek: Enterprise” as a Xindi reptilian — an experience so profoundly miserable it burned him on working with heavy prosthetics. In fact, the experience was almost miserable enough to make him permanently throw in the towel on acting, he told Entertainment Weekly in 2012. He added that he was physically unable to eat in the getup and reduced to tears each night after work. 

Expanding on the experience on “Hot Ones” in 2021, Morgan emphasized that part of the problem was his claustrophobia, a condition he hadn’t realized he had until he found himself sitting in the makeup chair for hours every day with straws in his nose. “I had a really hard time doing the makeup process,” he said. But for Morgan, who needed the money when he landed the Xindi gig, quitting wasn’t an option. During his short time on the series, the actor said he would spend every night questioning whether he should consider quitting acting altogether. “Like I was sure that this was just wrong, and it almost made me quit. It was horrible,” Morgan lamented on “Hot Ones.” Although his persistence eventually paid off, Negan deserves a prosthetic-free Trek redo. 

By the time of his uncredited 1991 appearance in “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country,” Christian Slater was already well on his way to becoming a household name. And yet the same year he was appearing in “Young Guns II” and “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” the then-young actor — a huge Star Trek fan — was thrilled to quietly show up in the latest Trek movie, courtesy of his casting director mom Mary Jo Slater. “My mommy cast that,” as Slater reminisced to Conan O’Brien in 2012, practically glowing as he recalled working as a communications officer under George Takei’s Captain Sulu onboard the Excelsior. In his brief but memorable role, Slater’s officer wakes up his irritable captain to deliver the news that Starfleet is on the lookout for the Enterprise’s whereabouts before getting rudely dismissed. 

To say Slater is a huge fan is to put it mildly. The actor, a virtual walking compendium of Trek knowledge, even collects Star Trek memorabilia. One of his favorite pieces is Captain Kirk’s chair, which he told O’Brien “has an air of mystery about it… It’s a powerful chair.” The actor also claims to have swiped his uniform from the movie, which he alleges was previously worn by William Shatner in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.” When Slater was asked in 2018 by the Los Angeles Times what he would choose if he could go back and be on any TV show, he quickly responded, “This is easy… Star Trek!” before explaining in detail why “Star Trek: The Original Series” is his comfort series.

After decades of work in secondary roles, Taylor Sheridan began to see real success as a screenwriter with the 2015 film “Sicario.” But he would ultimately rise to global prominence as the quadruple-threat creator, writer, director, and executive producer of his wildly popular series “Yellowstone” with its ever-growing list of spin-offs and in-universe series. 

Rewind his career a couple of decades before Sheridan found his true calling, though, and you’ll see an actor landing a minor spot on a TV drama every year or two with appearances on shows like “Walker, Texas Ranger,” “Party of Five,” and “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.” It was during that period that Sheridan showed up on an episode of “Star Trek: Enterprise,” appearing in the 2004 episode “Chosen Realm.” 

Sheridan played Jareb, a cult member from the suspiciously Bajoran-coded Delphic Expanse race, the Triannons. The Triannons narrowly miss the destruction of their planet, thanks to a well-timed pilgrimage amid a religious schism that leads to the near-total annihilation of their species. A handful of survivors who didn’t get the memo manage to hijack the Enterprise, and Sheridan’s Jareb is among that group. He has only a handful of lines, all of which pertain to relaying ship information. Even so, it’s fun to see the future Mayor of Yellowstone aboard the old NX.

As one of the world’s wealthiest people with a net worth of more than $250 billion dollars, Amazon mogul Jeff Bezos is one of the few human beings with the means to build and launch a real-world spaceship. Not only has that immense wealth allowed him to found Blue Origin, the spacefaring venture that flew William Shatner himself to outer space, but it also landed Bezos a spot on the long-awaited Kelvin timeline sequel “Star Trek: Beyond.” 

Bezos has never been shy about sharing his lifelong love for Star Trek. As a sci-fi-loving kid growing up in Houston, Texas, he couldn’t get enough of the show. In fourth grade, Bezos watched every Trek episode repeatedly; he and his friends even made their own little papercraft phasers and tricorders so they could play Star Trek together after school. Their favorite three characters? Spock, Kirk, and the ship’s Computer — all roles they would fight over in their daily play. Bezos would later cite the latter as his inspiration for creating Alexa.  

In a 2016 panel interview with Boeing Flight Services’ chief pilot Steve Taylor for Seattle’s Museum of Flight Pathfinder Awards, Bezos confessed he got the gig by begging for it. “I said, look, I’ll put any amount of makeup on, I’ll be invisible, nobody will know it’s me,” he said. The only catch? Bezos wanted to be cast with a speaking part so essential to the film that it wouldn’t get cut. The director conceded, giving Bezos a two-word speaking role as an unrecognizable alien toward the beginning of the film. “Do not blink — you will miss me! My role is very tiny,” Bezos laughed, adding that his lifelong dream of being in “Star Trek” was a bucket list item for him. 

One of the weirdest, most amusing hidden cameos in the “Star Trek” franchise is that of the co-founder of Fleetwood Mac himself, Mick Fleetwood. He appeared as a sleepy fish guy who turns out to be a DL terrorist in the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episode “Manhunt.” The role featured the musician as one of two nameless Antedian dignitaries getting space Ubered to a Federation conference on Pacifica. It required Fleetwood to exchange his signature beard for an embarrassment of riches in favorite “TNG” fabric lamé. 

Fleetwood’s sister Susan, a Shakespearean actor who was college buddies with Captain Jean-Luc Picard actor Patrick Stewart, helped hook him up with the role. Recalling his time on set to Vancouver Sun, the musician said Stewart went out of his way to be helpful. Like Jeff Bezos, Fleetwood was a massive Star Trek fan before taking the role. He loved Spock, who intrigued the musician with his intellect and logic. Likewise, Fleetwood didn’t care what he had to wear or do to appear on the show. And like Bezos, Fleetwood’s appearance came with one caveat: in this case, that he’d be allowed to use the transporter in some way.  Although he didn’t have any lines other than a mindless plea for food, Fleetwood’s rigid movements behind those unblinking, murder-plotting fish eyes made for a pretty memorable role. 

Guitarist Tom Morello of the alternative metal band Rage Against the Machine came to his Star Trek fandom as an adult in the mid-1980s while looking for work in Los Angeles. Like a lot of folks who found themselves up late with not much else to do but flip on the TV, Morello was pulled into syndicated episodes of “Star Trek,” and he loved it — especially “The Next Generation” with its thoughtful Captain Jean-Luc Picard. In a Loudwire short about his relationship with the franchise, Morello says he admired that “a television show could be that smart, could also be set in a science fiction way, and yet have such humanity about it.” And it doesn’t hurt that he looks just a little like his favorite captain, Morello laughed, adding, “I’m sort of like the Black version of him is how I see myself.” 

So when the music legend got a chance to be immortalized in the franchise, he was thrilled at the chance. In fact, he’s a repeat customer in the Star Trek costume department. Morello got his first Trek franchise appearance in “Insurrection,” the Star Trek movie that almost made Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner quit. For his uncredited role as a Son’a officer, the guitarist says he had to arrive on set around 3 a.m. for a five-hour stint in makeup. While the other actors playing Son’a saw it as just another gig, Morello recalls feeling like it was Christmas morning. A couple of years later, Morello landed a speaking role as Crewman Mitchell on “Star Trek: Voyager.” Although he was exceptionally nervous about saying his lines, Morello says Kate Mulgrew, who played Janeway, helped him get through the experience. 

NBA star “Big Game James” Worthy was an absolute legend in his time with the Los Angeles Lakers. He was inducted into both the College Basketball Hall of Fame and the Basketball Hall of Fame and was named the NBA Finals MVP for 1988. And at a whopping 6 feet 9 inches tall, Worthy made an excellent Klingon warrior in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” — the tallest in the franchise’s history, if you ask Worthy. 

Speaking to Boston’s NPR station WBUR in 2014, Worthy says he used to round out his evenings in college by watching an episode of “The Twilight Zone” back-to-back with “Star Trek.” “I was just a big Trekkie back in high school and up,” Worthy told the radio station. “Just looking into the future, you know, that little cool phone they had on their chest. Now we got flip phones, you know what I mean? As soon as we get warp, we’re gonna be good.” And Worthy’s favorite characters on the series, of course, were the Klingons. For Worthy, the chance to play the Klingon Koral on the “TNG” episode “Gambit” was a dream come true, which is really saying something for an NBA pro.

According to Worthy, landing a spot on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” wasn’t easy for most folks, but luckily, he had an in. Per the “Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion” (2nd ed.), Worthy bumped into Gowron actor Robert O’Reilly on a plane, who went to writers and producers Rick Berman and Michael Piller. Piller, like Worthy, was a University of North Carolina alum. They found a spot for him, and Worthy’s Klingon went down smoother than fresh gagh with a side of prune juice.

It’s pretty impressive that Jeff Bezos made his own spaceship company and had a cameo in “Star Trek.” But what’s even more impressive is the actual record-breaking physician-engineer-astronaut Dr. Mae C. Jemison, who studied her way into outer space and the National Women’s Hall of Fame. When she traveled to space aboard the Endeavor in September 1992, where she spent eight days orbiting Earth and performing research, Jemison was the first Black woman to do so. And she did it while being one of the most accomplished Trekkies on (or above) the planet.

As Jemison had grown up watching Star Trek, she looked up to Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), the absolute icon who keeps the Enterprise running with her vast communications knowledge. It was Uhura who connected little Jemison with the idea of a Black woman traveling to space. According to “Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion” (1st ed.), when the NASA astronaut arrived on set for her cameo, her vision came full circle — Nichols showed up to greet her on set, thanks to episode director and Geordi La Forge actor LeVar Burton. While Jemison was on her real space mission, she even began her communications with “Hailing frequencies open” as a tribute to her lifelong hero.

Jemison’s cameo as Lieutenant Palmer takes place on the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episode “Second Chances,” which introduces the replicated Riker twin we eventually come to know as Thomas Riker (Jonathan Frakes). She was offered the cameo by Burton, who knew she was a fan.

In another one of those fabulous blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Star Trek cameos, Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Go’s, the ’80s new wave band responsible for “We Got the Beat,” can be seen on a viewscreen in “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” (or as Trekkies often like to call it, “The One With the Whales”). She’s a communications officer named Trillya, with funky hair and an adorable voice, sending a distress call as her ship, the USS Shepard, is disabled by the whale probe.

For Wiedlin, who grew up watching Star Trek each week with her older siblings, those few seconds of Trekdom were a dream come true. Like so many kids who loved Star Trek growing up, Wiedlin and her siblings would play Star Trek together, even making up their own fan films on Super 8. “I’d kill to get copies of those films,” Wiedlin told StarTrek.com in 2011, adding, “I don’t know what became of them.”

As she grew up, Wiedlin came to value the possibilities of a positive future Trek imagined. She got her chance to be immortalized in that vision after changing managers when her new guy suggested she expand her horizons a bit outside the realm of music. Shortly after Wiedlin started auditioning, she learned about a new “Star Trek” film in the works, and she knew she had to be part of it. She told StarTrek.com she literally begged the casting agent for the role, pleading, “I just need to be in a Star Trek movie.” The fact that the Trek movie was directed by Leonard Nimoy was just the icing on the cake.