Alex Borstein won an Emmy Award in 2018 for outstanding character voice-over performance playing Lois Griffin in “Family Guy.” A year later, she was nominated in the same category once again. She gave TVGuide a little more insight into the origin of the voice she chose for Lois that eventually brought her those accolades.
Borstein said “Family Guy” came to her while she was still working on “MADtv.” She was asked by one of the developers on the animated show to come help out with a pilot presentation for Fox. At the time, Borstein hadn’t seen any illustrations of Lois or even met with creator Seth MacFarlane yet, so she was going in blind. She said she was acting in a stage show in Los Angeles during this and was playing a red-haired mother in one of the show’s sketches. She channeled that character for the pilot presentation, and the rest is history. Lois was born.
Borstein said, “It was a great convenience. It used to be a lot lower and slower, but throughout the years it’s gotten higher and faster.” She told Metromix of the original version of the voice, “It was a really, low, slow, grating voice.” She said she received one note from MacFarlane before she ended up at the final version of the voice. Borstein said of MacFarlane’s voice direction, “He said, ‘Make it a little less f****** annoying … and speed it up, or every episode will last four hours.'”