Alex Borstein, right, voices Lois Griffin in the long-running animated Fox comedy "Family Guy." (Fox/Zuma)
San Diego, Calif. – Alex Borstein has made a career out of developing and voicing one of the most iconic characters in cartoon history.
The Lois Griffin persona displayed for nearly 17 “Family Guy” seasons is easily recognizable, often imitated and almost always invokes laughter.
In addition to starring in the ever-popular animated series, Borstein, 47, also displays her acting prowess alongside the equally brilliant Rachel Brosnahan in Amazon’s comedy “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
Borstein spoke with Fox News at Entertainment Weekly’s Comic-Con Bash on Saturday in San Diego, Calif. and dished on her Emmy nominations, the genius of "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane and monitoring the ongoing social and political spectacle in the United States while living in Spain.
Fox News: You’re nominated for two Emmys. Do you think you can beat out Seth MacFarlane?
Alex Borstein: Well, yes I’m nominated for two Emmys – “Family Guy” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” So, part of me feels like I’ve already beat out Seth because I’m nominated twice.
You know what, Seth is the heart, the backbone and the brain behind “Family Guy” and he’s got a kabillion dollars, so there’s part of me that’s like, "You’re not going to need this Emmy," and then the other part is like, "He’s the only person who should get this Emmy. He’s created everything."
Fox News: He’s not the type of guy who’s going to rub it in your face, is he?
Borstein: No, he’s not. All of the stuff – he doesn’t care about that stuff. I mean, of course, he loves the comforts and he loves the stability, but really what he likes most is having the cache to create other things like “Cosmos," like “The Orville,” that’s what he loves is that it’s given him creative control over other things that he can run with.
He’s making music albums – so, in his opinion, he’s already won every award there is.
Fox News: How similar are you to your "Family Guy" character Lois in real life?
Borstein: You know, one of the things that I liked about Lois is that they let me kind of bring a bit of a dark underbelly to her. I completely shaped Lois.
Giving her some spunk and being a little filthy – like, a woman who’s married, but likes having sex and wants to be a little dirty. You know she’s got a dark past – she’s done some coke, she’s had affairs, she’s been a supermodel and she’s got a rich dad.
So, there’s definitely huge differences from me, obviously. But, I would not put up with Peter as long as she has put up with Peter.
Fox News: Let’s switch gears and talk about “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel." Are you amazed that a show set in the 1950s can be so successful today?
Borstein: It’s interesting, it’s an interesting time period, you know. My mother escaped the Holocaust and immigrated to the United States in 1958. Her experience in New York in 1958 is so far from this Maisel world and this experience and this Upper West Side comfort. You know, anyone that was a minority in that time, it’s a very different animal. You don’t have civil rights; you know what I mean?
So, it’s a fantasy world as it’s showing one aspect of the fifties, and I think in some regard people are nostalgic for that simplicity, but the reality is there was a lot going on. It was a tough time for most people that weren’t living as comfortably as the Maisels and the Weissmans in the show.
But, you know right now we’ve got the #MeToo movement and Times Up and this is a character Midge Maisel who’s pushing for female stage time and pushing to have a female voice and tell stories and have a life outside of the home and outside of a husband. So, in some ways, we’re still telling the same stories and fighting the same fights.
It is interesting that “Wonder Woman” is held up as this powerful story, and we want women to be able to fight like that. And, the reality is all we really want is the right to our bodies, we want the freedom of choices when it comes to making decisions about our bodies and our health care, then we’ll try to fight off other worlds and aliens. But, for right now we would like control of our own bodies.
Fox News: One more question, because you live in Spain. Living abroad, how easy or difficult is it to put effort into understanding what’s going on over here because you don’t really have to deal with it?
Borstein: You know, it’s inescapable though. If you’re on Twitter...it’s impossible to avoid what’s happening. And look, it’s everywhere. You can run to Spain to escape it, but over there they’re having independence issues they’re struggling with between the Catalan and the Spanish government.
In England, they’re dealing with Brexit – the same problems, the same weird fascist nationalist feelings that people are fighting and it’s everywhere. Really, it’s a human condition right now, unfortunately. But, you get perspective being abroad. I’m able to see it with a different lens, which is kind of interesting.
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