The actor who has played fussy android C-3PO in all those Star Wars flicks—Anthony Daniels—not long ago complained that being stuck in that shiny-gold costume can leave him feeling “slightly separated from everyone else.” But Mark Jackson, who inhabits Isaac, the hilariously humorless robot on Fox’s spoofy Star Trek riff The Orville, is only too happy to slip into his shiny silver work outfit (catch him in it in season two, premiering December 30). “It's pretty cozy,” says Jackson. “It’s designed well and is incredibly practical. I often whip it off at lunch and go for a swim."

Chipper and cheeky, Jackson is having a blast on Orville, an unlikely mix of Grey’s Anatomy soapiness and Spaceballs irreverence created by and starring Seth MacFarlane (mastermind of The Family Guy, of course). Being from a planet of bots who don’t quite get humans, Isaac (and Jackson) provides some of the show’s funniest moments (trying his hand at a practical joke, he severed a shipmate’s arm while they were sleeping). “When you compare us to a robot or an artificial intelligence,” says Jackson with a laugh, "you can see how we humans can screw ourselves up.”

The actor’s had his own far-flung journeys. Born in Rotterdam, England, he was two when his engineer-dad’s work sent his family to the Southeast Asia island of Borneo. “I was quite an outdoorsy kid," muses Jackson, but after the clan moved back home eight years later, “it took me a while to sort of catch up and adapt.” He dove into TV, for one, and “fell in love” with Star Trek: The Next Generation—enough to dream of starring in it one day. Handily enough, he landed the part of Eddie in a high school production of Funny Girl (here’s to Isaac singing someday!), studied English lit and drama in a Brit university, and dazzled in London stage productions (Noises Off, War Horse) before he wowed MacFarlane via a video audition.

Now, he’s enjoying L.A. life—and that costume. Playing Isaac sure beats the time Jackson went au naturel for an Edinburgh Festival play he’d rather not name. "It was a new comedy celebrating the male form. And, briefly, I was nude. It went down very well—the show, not me!” Here, for Caavo-ites, the droll actor shares his favorite shows and movies that are really out there . . .

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