page_title: Lois Griffin
section_title: Voice
hierarchical_section_title: Lois Griffin / Character / Voice
caption_attribution_description: English: Alex Borstein speaking at the 2016 WonderCon in Los Angeles, California.
context_page_description: Lois Patrice Griffin is a fictional character from the animated television series Family Guy. She is voiced by writer Alex Borstein and first appeared on television, along with the rest of the Griffin family, in the 15-minute short on December 20, 1998. Lois was created and designed by series creator Seth MacFarlane. MacFarlane was asked to pitch a pilot to the Fox Broadcasting Company based on Larry and Steve, a short he made which featured a middle-aged character named Larry and an intellectual dog, Steve. After the pilot was given the green light, the Griffin family appeared in the episode "Death Has a Shadow".
  Lois is the mother of the Griffin family. She and her husband, Peter, have three children: Meg, Chris, and Stewie, along with the family dog, Brian. Lois is often portrayed as a stereotypical television mother and housewife, despite her admitting to being a recovering methamphetamine-addict and a kleptomaniac. Lois has also had several affairs, one of which allegedly resulted in the conception of Meg.
context_section_description: Lois Griffin is voiced by producer and staff writer, Alex Borstein, who also voices recurring characters such as Asian reporter Tricia Takanawa, Loretta Brown and Lois' mother Barbara Pewterschmidt. Borstein has been part of the main voice cast from the beginning of the series including the pilot, and has been voicing Lois from the start.
  At the time Family Guy was being developed, Borstein was working in the sketch comedy, MADtv. She was asked to audition by a member of the MADtv staff who was helping MacFarlane develop the show. She had not met MacFarlane or seen any artwork and said it was "really sight unseen". At the time, she was doing a stage show in Los Angeles, in which she played a redhead mother, whose voice she had based on one of her cousins from Long Island, New York. She took the voice of the character to the set and use it for Lois. The voice was originally slower, when MacFarlane heard it, he asked her to make it faster and higher. Borstein has noted that the voice of Lois has been changing from the slower original voice to the quicker up tempo voice of the present episodes.
  There have been occasions where Borstein does not voice Lois, such as in the episode "Road to the Multiverse", where Lois is not voiced by Borstein in a scene and instead was voiced by Japanese actress Kei Ogawa, who was required for a scene where everything in the world was Japanese (she also did the voice of Meg for the scene).
caption: Alex Borstein is the voice of Lois Griffin.
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