Photo credit: - @naomipq
PayPal’s very own Head of Ecosystem Security is set to be an extra in the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Awakens. That’s right, Episode VII of the mega-franchise is starring Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Adam Driver, Chewbacca, and now PayPal’s Trent Adams.
Adams was invited to be an extra by his good friend D.C. Barns, who won two spots in the film after donating to the “Force for Change” initiative, supporting UNICEF Innovation Labs.
For four and a half years, Padawan Adams has worked hard to protect payments at
PayPal. But for over a year, he’s had the nearly impossible challenge of protecting all the details of this visit to Pinewood Studios where he was on the set of the most-anticipated film of all-time.
The two close friends traveled from Denver to London for the once in a lifetime experience last October. They were on set for five days, one of which was dedicated to their costume fitting and makeup tests. During their stay, they also got to meet director J.J. Abrams and the rest of the cast and crew.
The experience would leave any Star Wars fan star-struck, but for Trent, with his love for film and expertise in everything tech, it was simply surreal.
When we asked him what it was like being on set, Adams said, “It was so much like we were kids, just playing Han Solo. We saw the first-run movie at the cinema growing up, and now we were actually living it.” Adams and Barns, who have known each other since preschool, used to pretend they were flying that “hunka junk” Millennium Falcon. And at Pinewood they got to finally climb aboard and play in the actual ship.
Adams was tight-lipped about his time at the studio, and all he could reveal was that he was in the background of a couple scenes involving some of the iconic cast as well as some newcomers. The film opens worldwide on Friday, so we’ll just have to wait to find out just how critical he is to protecting the secrets of the Resistance.
When he’s not travelling far, far away, Adams protects PayPal and its customers by leading a team that develops technical security standards. They’ve helped create the Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) specification that authenticates PayPal emails, and are now working on a new authentication technology called Fast Identity Online (FIDO).
“Technologists are able to break down the complexity of a situation into a series of simple options,” said Trent. “Star Wars presented this binary choice – good or evil…that even when we don't understand everything, we can be part of something more important than ourselves.”
Adams isn’t the only one excited about the upcoming blockbuster. PayPal’s CTO James Barrese booked 12 theaters globally for PayPal’s technology teams to see the film on opening day. PayPal’s Global Head of Social Media and Influencer Marketing, Dave Peck, has been live tweeting his Force Awakens experience since 3 am PT this morning – he’s attending a Star Wars Marathon of all six movies which leads up to The Force Awakens. (That’s about 18.5 hours of Star Wars for those counting.) You can follow along
@davepeck.
May the Force be with you.