Fans love Peter Macon as Lt. Commander Bortus on FOX’s hit show “The Orville,” especially since it is known for delivering some socially relevant storylines. The direction of the rest of this second season is headed for more character development, including Isaac, as well as some darker episodes. The show’s numbers are up and the network wants more!
This Creative Arts Emmy Award Winner
CB: Lt. Commander Bortus has become a fan-favorite character on “The Orville.” His storylines are touching and socially relevant. More people need to watch this amazing show! Has it been a wild ride so far?
PM: There’s a hesitation in that in trying to figure out what the show would be, because you have from the mind of Seth MacFarlane, “Family Guy” and “American Dad.”
CB: It reminds me so much of the original “Star Trek” with some of the social topics that Gene Roddenberry touched on.
PM: With Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), you know Martin Luther King actually called her and told her you
I was over at Seth’s last night watching last night’s episode which was really incredible, I thought. The subject matter was beautiful and I forgot because we’d shot that sometime last May last year, and I was like wow, this is really good. I almost forget that this is taking place 500 years in the future, with the domestic issues and political battles. This is where the show wants to live.
CB: Too bad the mustache had to go. Viewers loved it!
PM: Maybe the stache will come back, I mean the memes are out of control! Someone sent me one. I was like Bortus as Freddie Mercury in the “Bohemian Rhapsody” poster. There’s a Bortus PI like “Magnum P.I.” It’s out of control.
CB: Is there anything that you’re allowed to share with the fans about the rest of season two.
PM: I think without giving anything away, things are slated to get a little darker. We’re still riding that line of comedy, it’s a dramedy, right. I mean the jokes will be there. You watch people have to struggle through these outstanding circumstances. There will be some darker episodes, and that’s good because it keeps it from being dismissible or fluffy. There will be more character development, and we’re going to learn a lot more about Isaac–which is really great.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is friends with Seth and I think he might be an advisor because we’re interested as we learn from the science community about what’s going on, we try to apply that to the show. Without giving anything specific away, we keep our finger on the pulse of scientific discovery and facts that helps us try to articulate the known universe. It’s not all fantasy or made it. A lot of the stuff is rooted out of science. It’s ground in the reality of what we’re growing to understand.
This notion that Claire and Isaac having this love affair, which is really strange. I was talking with the guy who plays Isaac, Mark Jackson, and his whole workload changed because he had to convey that he was as still an artificial lifeform in a human skin. Of course we have Talla, Jessica (Szohr) now and she is fantastic and some stuff happens with her and my ex-boyfriend. There’s some zany, wackadoodle stuff that happens.
CB: I love how in the beginning of the season we got to know Bortus more.
PM: Yea, we did all these takes and I guess they didn’t want them. Seth always says you don’t want to put a hat on a hat. The idea that this guy only pees once a year, so let’s unpack that: What does that look like? My mind is very literal minded and it’s probably going to take a while. We were going to cut back–he’s still there (laughs), but for editing purposes, they truncated it. Kind of fun peeing in
CB: You’ve got to do everything as an actor.
PM: You would be surprised. I mean I had to lay an egg, get addicted to porn, almost crash the ship, have an orgy, you know, there’s some fun stuff.
CB: Tell us about your experience filming an episode of CBS’ hit show “SEAL Team.” It must have been nice to switch it up and do something different.
PM: It was difficult because I’ve been playing the same character for like two years. The guy I played was basically second in command on the submarine which was a really trippy experience because the set was amazing. It was difficult because this guy’s in relatively similar circumstances–ya know a submarine and a starship. It’s a well-oiled the machine and they shoot a lot faster than we do. We have all these camera rigs and cranes, and they’re just like guys with handhelds shooting stuff–like a GoPro, so there’s a lot faster, down and dirty.
I felt like on the first day I kind of sucked. I was like this is not Bortus, even though this guy is not mister personality, it was difficult to separate and delineate the characterization of these two. They were similar but with not a lot in common. I was just so used to being on one operation. Then I watched it and I was like okay, it wasn’t so bad. I gave myself a talking to and kind of snapped out of it, and came in with a different attitude. The guys were great and it was cool to be a part of a different team.
CB: You won the 2002 Creative Arts Emmy Award in Outstanding Voice-Over Performance for narrating “Animated Tales of the World.” WOW! What do you find challenging about voice acting in comparison to live acting?
PM: Yeah that’s pretty nuts. I was still in grad school. That’s a good question. I’ve done a bunch of audiobooks, and look at a movie like “March of the Penguins” with Morgan Freeman is narrating these crazy birds and you kind of have to disappear and get out of the way and be malleable and neutral but specific. What I won that Emmy for was a 15 minute long anime about John Henry. Don Cheadle was John Henry and they asked me to narrate it, and much to my surprise I won an Emmy for voice-over. In some ways it’s easier because you have parameters you have work inside of, but it’s a much more fine instrument that you have to bring to the table.