Peter Macon

Peter Macon
Biographical information
Plays	Bortus
Born	~1980
Nationality	American
Gender	Male
Eye color	Brown
Hair color	Bald
Height	6'2"
Career
Years active	1994 - present

Peter Macon is an American actor and voice-over artist who plays the role of Bortus the second officer aboard the The Orville.

Background

Peter has played roles in Jonny Zero, Dexter, The Shield, Bosch, and Shameless, among other roles. He has also done several voice-over roles for franchises such as Twisted Metal, Cool Boarders, and Wolfenstein.

He describes his childhood as one filled with Japanese anime and the movie Blade Runner, which he credits better prepared him for The Orville than his training in fine theater.

The Orville

Peter Macon and The Ants, Starfest Denver 2019

Macon has enjoyed telling the story of ants inside his costume on many occasions.

Prior to The Orville, Peter Macon worked in southern Oregon with a Shakespeare theater company. He quit and returned to Los Angeles but struggled to find work. "For eight months I couldn't buy a job," he recalled. "I wasn't booking anything, and things were getting dire." Macon eventually landed a role on a project in Botswana and prepared to move to the country with his wife and newborn child.

Meanwhile, Macon's agent tried to convince him to audition for The Orville while preparations were underway. The actor was very reluctant at first; and after auditioning, grew angry when the casting team returned "radio silence" for two weeks: "You're going to make me fuck around and lose both these jobs."

Peter Macon auditioned for the role of Bortus and fell in love with the character. He performed the cold opening of Command Performance when Bortus requests leave from Captain Ed Mercer to nest his egg before the casting director, and a couple days later performed a screen test.

Creator Seth MacFarlane texted Macon with the news that he was hired the same night of the screen test: "I want to be first to welcome you to The Orville." Macon was at a friend's birthday party with his manager, and he was shocked the showrunner found his phone number; meanwhile MacFarlane was drinking with actor J. Lee (John LaMarr) at the Montage Hotel. Winning the role turned out to be a stroke of luck, Macon said, as the Botswana project "never saw the light of day."

On August 19, 2016, Macon and J. Lee (John LaMarr) were announced as series regulars. Macon comments that he empathizes with his character as dry-humored, unresponsive, but deeply emotional. As a father himself, the tension between Bortus and Klyden over the sex of their child, Topa, strikes a deeply personal chord with him. Further, because Bortus's family is on the ship, Macon intentionally brings the worries of a father and husband to his character; with each battle or near-death experience in the show, he wants to protects lives of his husband and son as well.

Macon's Bortus costume is particularly complicated, itchy, and hot, which led to problems on set. Macon and Scott Grimes recall that on a particularly hot day of filming the first season, the wardrobe department slit a hole in the back of Macon's headpiece to circulate air and cool Macon down while he waited for his scenes. Macon lay on the couch of his trailer, not knowing that his trailer had become infested with ants and five or six ants crawled into his costume through the opening. When it came time to film Bortus, the wardrobe department re-sealed his headpiece with the ants in it. Macon was constantly irritated by the ants, and he began hitting himself in the face to crush the ants under the prosthetic. The ants continued to bother him for most of the day. "That was pretty horrible," he reflected. One ant even crawled into his ear canal.

Trivia

• He bases part of his interpretation of Bortus on Sam the Eagle, a character from The Muppets, particularly his posture.
• Macon has an Emmy for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance, won in 2002 for his work on Animated Tales of the World. Creator Seth MacFarlane won an Emmy in the same category two years prior.
• He says his first reaction after reading the script of Command Performance was: "Damn, now I got to sit on an egg."
• When MacFarlane texted him with news that he won the part of Bortus, Macon's reaction was, "How did you get my number?"
• Macon is so frequently in costume as Bortus on the set that craft services staff sometimes do not recognize the actor and attempt to bar him from food.
• After Bortus grew a mustache in A Happy Refrain, makeup artist Garrett Immel made Macon a t-shirt that said "Mustache Ride," which Macon says his wife now wears around the house.
• His favorite episode of Season 3 to film was Midnight Blue because his character got to be "stealthy."
• Macon was so frequently in his Bortus costume during Season 2 that co-star Jessica Szohr (Talla Keyali) did not see him out of costume for the first two-and-a-half months. Szohr recalls:

Our trailers are right next to each other, so one day I’m leaving work and I went to say ‘bye’ and ... introduce myself, and he said “It’s Peter, I’m Bortus”, and I was like, “Wait, what? What do you mean?” I thought he was messing with me.

• His favorite episode is Primal Urges.
• He hopes the show will do an Avenue Q-themed episode.

Interviews

• September 2017: Interview with Planetary Union Network
• February 2019: Interview with Planetary Union Network

See also

• The World of the Orville, page 74