Beam Me Up "Medea!"

Tyler Perry is boldly going where no man has gone before. Not drag... Space!

J.J. Abrams --director of the upcoming $150 million dollar Star Trek movie -- went out on a limb to cast Perry in the film.  Perry is, of course, best known for his hilarious gender-bending turns as Madea on the big screen, but he's never appeared in a movie apart from his own.

In Star Trek, the 39-year-old, hulking 6 ft 5inch actor plays straight-laced Admiral Richard Barnett.

“It was funny because after Tyler ran a few of his lines he instantly said: Cut! - without me saying a word because he is so used to doing that himself,” revealed Abrams. “But when he looked over at me I just smiled because I knew exactly where he was coming from. To tell you the truth I am jealous of the way he operates with his own movies and we were all thrilled to have him in Star Trek because he has never appeared in anything else. Tyler was a lot of fun to work with and he was perfect for the part – I’m just relieved he agreed to do it.”

Abrams believed the most important ingredient in getting the new Star Trek movie just right was casting the correct crew. He added: “I was happy with the script and all the design aspects but for me the biggest worry was casting the right crew. This was such a vital component as I knew they all had to be believable, smart and funny too. It wasn’t enough that they could impersonate or look like the original crew because the actors had to make it all very real for the audience. Fortunately, I think we got the mix just right as all the cast gelled really well – in fact the first time Chris Pine (Captain Kirk) and Zachary Pinto (Spock) ran their lines together I knew they would be great.”

(Photo: Wenn)