Although she's best known as the voice of Lois, the put-upon wife of Peter Griffin on Seth MacFarlane's Family Guy, Alex Borstein is a jane-of-all-trades. She's done improv, stand-up, sketch comedy on MADTv, and wrote for the '90s cartoon Pinky and the Brain.
Though she likes the freedom of going to work in her pajamas, Borstein says voiceover work has its drawbacks. It can get lonely, and so Borstein is glad to be back on-screen in HBO's dark comedy Getting On, which explores the realities of patient care in the geriatric wing of an LA hospital. Borstein calls this the "role of a lifetime."
Our VIP brought Lois Griffin to the Sketchfest stage for a Family Guy-inspired game, in which we imagine Lois nagging other famous Peters.
Interview Highlights
On fans' reactions to Family Guy plots
"When Brian Griffin, the family dog, died in an episode, I received so much hate mail on Twitter. [They were] so angry and not really attached to the reality that it's a cartoon. I didn't respond to many of them. I mean, I found out where each person lived. But I haven't responded yet."
On crafting Lois Griffin's voice
"It's a direct rip-off of a cousin of mine on Long Island. Her accent is a little different. She's Hungarian so it's Hungarian and Long Island mixed together. It's like a cat dying. It's terrible."
Heard in Sketchfest 2015: Alex Borstein, Brad Bird and Dan Savage
This segment originally aired on April 9, 2015.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. 9(MDAxODc1NzUzMDEyMTgyMjc0NzUxZmVhMQ004))