‘The Orville’ Star J. Lee Reveals How He Met Seth MacFarlane

“The Orville” star J. Lee has known series creator Seth MacFarlane long before he was cast on Fox’s sci-fi dramedy. But how exactly did the two meet each other?

In a recent interview with Cheddar, Lee said that he met MacFarlane after he was hired as a receptionist at the production office of “Family Guy” — an animated series also created by MacFarlane. “A friend of a friend knew the woman that worked on the front desk got a promotion. She called my buddy and said, ‘Do you know anybody that needs a gig?’” Lee recalled. “I’d never seen ‘Family Guy’ before so I didn’t know who Seth was or what the show was.”

When asked if not knowing MacFarlane at the time was an advantage, Lee said that he would like to think about it that way. “I like to treat everybody the same way, so I kind of came to it blind,” he said. “It actually took me about three weeks to know he was. I thought his assistant was Seth for a long time. … Eventually, him and I became good friends and it wasn’t until 10 years when ‘The Orville’ came about.”

Lee previously revealed to The Hollywood Reporter that he and MacFarlane became friends because MacFarlane developed a habit of talking to him at the “Family Guy” front desk to take his mind off his work for awhile.

"Somebody had coined me the bartender of ‘Family Guy,’” Lee told the news outlet. “People would come up and just have a conversation with me. And Seth and I became cool because when he would come out of his office or the writers’ room just to get a break. We would just talk about regular life and laugh.”

On “The Orville,” Lee played Lt. John LaMarr, an engineer and the navigator of the titular spaceship. John was already part of the Orville crew when Ed Mercer (MacFarlane) was appointed as the new captain of the ship. When John first met Ed, John sort of took him in and sized him up. But when Ed has proven how great of a captain he is, John has learned to respect him even more.

In tonight’s Season 1, episode 7, two Union anthropologists go missing on a planet similar to 21st-century Earth, so Ed sends a team led by Commander Kelly Grayson (Adrianne Palicki) to find them. But the mission quickly goes awry when they find out that the society’s government determines one’s punishment based on a public voting system.

The trailer for the episode reveals that John, Dr. Claire Finn (Penny Johnson Jerald) and Lt. Alara Kitan (Halston Sage) are the ones who accompany Kelly in the mission. For reasons yet to be known, the quartet is mobbed by the planet’s inhabitants at the start of the video. And as they try to get out of the crowd, people appear to be taking photos and videos of John. One man off-screen is even heard shouting, “That’s the guy!”

While it’s unclear why the planet’s inhabitants are seemingly upset with John, Ed acknowledges that the Orville’s navigator is in a really bad situation.

“The Orville” Season 1, episode 7, titled “Majority Rule,” airs on tonight at 9 p.m. EDT on Fox.