'The Orville: New Horizons' Stars Peter Macon and Chad Coleman Detail Season 3 Move From FOX to Hulu (Exclusive)

By Stephen Andrew

The Orville: New Horizons kicked off over at Hulu this month, marking a big move from FOX for Season 3 of the hit sci-fi series. Recently, series stars Peter Macon and Chad Coleman spoke exclusively with PopCulture.com about the change and offered some details on the differences between filming the show as network series now as a streaming series. Macon and Coleman play Lieutenant Commander Bortus and his mate Klyden, respectively, two Moclan race members of The Orville's crew.

"I couldn't tell. I mean, other than the fact that we had more like the scripts were longer which is cool," Macon offered. "There was more time for unlayering, things like that. But we're still shooting on the same lot, you know? We're still shooting, you know what I mean? Like through the COVID protocols and all that, which was really cool. But yeah, I personally didn't, other than like what we had to shoot, it had more to work on." Coleman then added, "For me, honestly, it felt like it was like, 'Let's hit it. Let's just get to it.' You know what I mean? No luxuriating and not a lot of over-tinkering with it. It felt like we were like, 'Let's hit it, get it.' We all understand these characters, and we know where we are. The writing, is obviously off the chain. So it felt just a little bit more like, 'Let's get right to it.'"

One of the biggest things Macon noticed with filming Season 3 of The Orville didn't come until after they were done and he saw the episodes edited together. "It was also really cool to be like, 'Oh, this is part of that same episode? Oh, s—.' There's so much more that we're shooting in this one episode, so much is happening in this one episode. And you'd be like, 'Oh no, this is for 307 again.' And I'm like, 'Wait a minute. I thought we finished 307 two months ago. No, no, no. We still got to get this like extra little piece in here, put this in there.' So you know, that feeling of ... And so, when I watched it, I was like, 'Oh damn, yeah, this is full. This is really full.' I mean, this is more full than like the episodes because you have an extra 12, 13 minutes to throw in."

Notably, Macon and Coleman have the most makeup effects of anyone from the main cast of The Orville, which would make one think they have to spend hours in a makeup chair that they may not have been very eager to return to. It turns out, however, this isn't the case. "No, right now Howard had me down. Howard Berger, KNB, the greatest special effects house out there, especially makeup house, it's so efficient," Coleman explained. "Just drilling down on it, an hour and 10, an hour and 15, I was done with Howie. So that was always a gift to me that I didn't have to be going into two and three hours. And that's just off of his brilliance of how he was able to put it together."

For Macon, the makeup prep wasn't so much the issue as simply having to exist in it for lengthy periods of time. "Sitting around in that makeup, I think the longest I went was like 17 hours. And that was just one time that happened. But on average it was like 12, 14 hours. And I'm not going to say I missed that, but I do miss looking in the mirror and being in that makeup and just being like, "Where's Peter?" Because it's such a molded to my face, seamless transition. You can't tell where I begin and the makeup ends. And that was fun, but yeah, I'd wear it again." He then joked, "I mean, I wish I could, I wish I had it for Halloween. You know what I mean?"

The Orville: New Horizons premiered Thursday, June 2, on Hulu, with two episodes now streaming. Fans can also go to Hulu to catch up on past seasons of the series. For more coverage of The Orville: New Horizons, including more exclusive cast interviews, stay tuned to PopCulture!

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