Peter Macon

Peter Jerrod Macon is an American actor born on May 18, 1982, who is widely recognized for his role as Lt. Commander Bortus in the Fox/Hulu science fiction comedy-drama series The Orville, which ran from 2017 to 2022, and for portraying Raka in the 2024 film Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.

Macon grew up in Minneapolis and attended North Community High School, where he participated in school plays. His mother worked as a teacher and his father as a truck driver. He went on to study at the San Francisco Art Institute before enrolling at the Yale School of Drama, where he earned a master's degree in acting.

His stage career spans nearly three decades and includes work at several Twin Cities theaters, among them Penumbra, Illusion, and Children's Theatre Company. He took on the title role in Othello at the Guthrie Theater, and performed in productions of the same play in Dublin, Colorado, and Oregon. In 2004, Macon made his Broadway debut in Drowning Crow.

On television, Macon has appeared in episodes of Nash Bridges, Law & Order, Without a Trace, Supernatural, The Shield, Dexter, Bosch, SEAL Team, and Shameless. His recurring role as Bortus on The Orville, created by Seth MacFarlane, began when the series premiered on FOX on September 10, 2017. In 2021, he joined the voice cast of MacFarlane's animated series Family Guy, voicing the recurring character Preston Lloyd. Earlier in his career, in 2002, Macon received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance for narrating the episode "John Henry, the Steel Driving Man" from the television series Animated Tales of the World.

In film, Macon is best known for his performance as Raka in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. In a 2024 interview with Hollywood.com, he described preparing for the role by attending what he called "Ape School," and noted that he experiences relief at not being recognized for the character, given that his performance was rendered through motion capture animation.

Macon married actress Lucia Brawley, a fellow Yale alumna, in 2005, with former New York City Mayor David Dinkins officiating the ceremony. The couple filed for divorce in 2009, and the divorce was finalized in Los Angeles in March 2010. In 2018, Macon married Jacquelyn Woods.