Last week, Super Penguin made its first convention appearance at Indy PopCon. While we were there, I had the pleasure of meeting actor, J. Lee.
J is best known for his role as Chief Commander John LaMarr on the Hulu sci-fi comedy, The Orville, which previously aired on Fox. My wife, Halley, and I are big fans of the show, so when we found out J was going to be at Indy PopCon we were pretty excited to meet him.
We had the opportunity to talk to J for a few minutes. We talked about the show and it’s new season coming out, a little about the midwest (he’s from St Louis and graduated from Indiana University, Go Hoosiers!). And we also talked about how his acting career started, which is a very cool story, and a great example of dreams coming true in unusual ways.
Before he was on television screens, J sat behind a desk. More specifically, a receptionist desk at Fuzzy Door Productions, Seth MacFarlane’s production company. As he spent time there, he would frequently have chats with actors and writers. His desk became the go-to place for people, especially Seth, to hang out between meetings. Conversations led to friendships, friendships led to parts, parts led to bigger roles, and when it came time to cast The Orville, Seth offered J his biggest role yet. If you’d like to read more about that journey, you can read about it here)
J was super cool to meet. He was so friendly and fun to talk with (I can see how he made so many friends at his reception desk) But what made meeting J really neat for me, was the parallels between his story starting up, and where I’m at on my journey with Super Penguin. My best friend Gardner and I talked about how we were “planting seeds” PopCon weekend. Each book we sold, or bookmark we gave away can lead to all sorts of future possibilities. And just like J didn’t know his receptionist job would lead to being the Chief Commander of The Orville, I don’t know what the weekend at PopCon will lead to, but I am very excited to find out what’s next!
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