Alex Borstein

Alexandrea Borstein (born February 15, 1971) is an American actress, comedian, writer, and producer best known as Lois Griffin in Family Guy, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award, and Susie Myerson in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017–2023), which won her two Primetime Emmy Awards.

Borstein also had lead roles as various characters on the sketch comedy series MADtv (1997–2009) and as Dawn Forchette in the medical comedy series Getting On (2013–2015). She had supporting roles in numerous films, including Showtime (2002), Bad Santa (2003), Kicking & Screaming (2005), Little Man (2006), Killers (2010), Ted (2012), A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014), Love the Coopers (2015), and The Bad Guys (2022) as well as its sequel (2025).

Early life Borstein was born on February 15, 1971 in Highland Park, Illinois to a Jewish family. Her parents, Irving and Judy (Grünfeld) Borstein, are both mental health professionals. She has two older brothers.

Her father is from Atlanta and comes from an Orthodox Jewish family of Polish immigrants, Paul and Bessie (Kaufman) Borstein. She has stated her father’s family is also of Russian descent. Her mother, Judy, and maternal grandmother, Vera Winternitz, are Holocaust survivors, born and raised in Budapest, Hungary. They immigrated to the United States after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Borstein has described distant Hungarian-Mongolian ancestry.

Borstein was raised in Deerfield, Illinois, before her family moved to Northridge, California, a city of Los Angeles. She graduated from Chatsworth High School in 1989, and San Francisco State University, where she studied rhetoric. Career 1993–1998: Career beginnings and MADtv Borstein trained in improvisational comedy at the ACME Comedy Theater, near Hollywood, where she met her writing partner and future husband Jackson Douglas. Shortly after they began working together on the animated series The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper and Pinky and the Brain, Borstein left her position at an ad agency – where she had written print ads for Barbie – to become a full-time writer. In 1996, while still writing for Casper, Borstein worked on the show Power Rangers Zeo as the voice of Queen Machina, the queen of the Machine Empire.

In 1997, Borstein became a cast member on the third season of the sketch comedy show MADtv after being discovered by a casting agent while performing with the ACME Comedy Theater troupe at the Big Stinkin' International Improv & Sketch Comedy Festival in Austin, Texas.

Borstein was best known on MADtv for her character Ms. Swan (owner of the Gorgeous Pretty Beauty Nail Salon); her other recurring characters included Eracist Anne, "Stick Chick" Echo, singer Jasmine Wayne-Wayne, child prodigy Karen Goddard, lounge singer Shaunda, News at Six outside-the-studio reporter Sue Napersville, and Cordo the GAP troll. When Seth Green made recurring appearances on the show as mean boss Mr. Brightling, Borstein would play his mother, Mama Brightling.

1999–present: Further success and Family Guy

While working on MADtv, Borstein met Seth MacFarlane, who was then preparing to launch the animated sitcom Family Guy on Fox. MacFarlane was originally supposed to create animated shorts for MADtv but declined in favor of creating an independent series. MacFarlane cast Borstein as the voice of character Lois Griffin, where incidentally, she yet again played the mother of Seth Green, who voiced Chris Griffin. After the show's debut in January 1999, Family Guy was cancelled by the network twice in 2000 and 2002, the latter year the same year she left MADtv after 5 years at the end of Season 7 (2001-2002 season). Family Guy eventually returned after its subsequent cancellation 3 years later in 2005. As well as her role as the voice performer for Lois and several other characters (including a brief appearance as Ms. Swan in a 2005 episode), she is also a producer and staff writer. She was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance for the episode "Lois Comes Out of Her Shell" in 2013.

In 2000, Borstein was cast as Sookie St. James in the WB drama Gilmore Girls. She portrayed Sookie in the pilot but her MADtv contract prevented her from continuing in the role. Borstein made recurring appearances on Gilmore Girls throughout the show's run, first as the harpist Drella and later as the stylist Miss Celine.

As a film actor, she played Ms. Ungermeyer the school principal in The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003), the best friend of Halle Berry's character in Catwoman (2004), and an employee at CBS News in Good Night, and Good Luck (2005). She also had a small role in the movie Bad Santa (2003) and an uncredited cameo as an obnoxious coffee shop patron in the Will Ferrell movie Kicking & Screaming (2005). On some commercials, she sometimes voices Olive Oyl from Popeye and Betty Boop.

Borstein was a co-host of GSN's Celebrity Blackjack in 2004. She made at least three guest appearances, once as Lois Griffin, on the Comedy Central animated program Drawn Together.

Borstein was cast as a press secretary in the 2007 sitcom pilot The Thick of It, but the series was not picked up for broadcast. She was seen in the 2009 comedy For Christ's Sake, which was directed by her then husband Jackson Douglas.

Borstein's production company is called Crackerpants, Inc. In 2007, it released the DVD Drop Dead Gorgeous (in a Down-to-Earth Bombshell Sort of Way), a recording of a live performance at the Alex Theatre with Teddy Towne as the opening act. The title comes from one of many female character breakdowns Borstein reads from to illustrate sexism in the industry.

2010–present: Getting On and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Borstein has made several supporting appearances in such comedic films as Killers (2010), Dinner for Schmucks (2010), Ted (2012), ParaNorman (2012), A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014), The Angry Birds Movie (2016), and The Bad Guys (2022).

In 2010, Borstein joined the first season staff of the Showtime comedy-drama series Shameless, as a writer and supervising producer. In its second season, she held the position of writer and consulting producer. She also guest-starred as Lou Deckner in numerous episodes of the series, beginning in the first-season episode "But at Last Came a Knock."

She also appeared as a comedian contestant on IFC's short-lived comedy-driven game show Bunk in 2012.

Borstein starred as Dawn Forchette on the HBO comedy series Getting On, which is a remake of a British series with the same name. The series has gained positive reviews and earned multiple Primetime Emmy Award nominations. It aired from 2013 to 2015.

From 2017 to 2023, Borstein starred as Susie Myerson in the Amazon Prime Video historical comedy-drama series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, for which she received significant critical acclaim and won two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.

Personal life Borstein met actor and writer Jackson Douglas while she was studying improv at the ACME Comedy Theatre. Douglas proposed to her during the taping of a MADtv sketch and they were married in 1999. Douglas filed for divorce in October 2014 and it was finalized in 2017. Borstein and Douglas have a son and a daughter.

Borstein, who is a carrier of hemophilia herself, is a longtime advocate for the National Hemophilia Foundation.

Religious beliefs According to Borstein, "We do Shabbat every Friday night. I'm not [someone] that goes to temple all the time—I'm a High Holidays temple goer, and that's about it. But there are traditions", she said in an interview. "Having a mother and a grandmother who are Holocaust survivors, I feel a large responsibility to continue that culture and those traditions—not necessarily the dogma, but what it feels like to be Jewish. I want to instill that in my kids."

Filmography Film + Year Title Role Notes 2000 Coyote Ugly Bidding Auction Woman Uncredited2002 Dawg Darcy Smits Showtime Casting Director 2003 The Lizzie McGuire Movie Miss Ungermeyer Bad Santa Milwaukee Mom 2004 Seeing Other People Tracy Catwoman Sally Billy's Dad Is a Fudge-Packer! Betty Henderson Short film2005 Kicking & Screaming Obnoxious Hummer Lady Uncredited Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story Lois Griffin / Various voices Direct-to-video; Also writer and co-producer Good Night, and Good Luck Natalie 2006 Little Man Janet 2007 The Lookout Mrs. Lange2010 Killers Lily Bailey Dinner for Schmucks Martha For Christ's Sake Mrs. Marcus2012 Ted Helen Bennett ParaNorman Mrs. Henscher (voice) 2014 A Million Ways to Die in the West Millie 2015 Love the Coopers Angie 2016 The Angry Birds Movie Sophie Bird / Peggy Bird (voice) 2021 Extinct Mali (voice) 2022 The Bad Guys Chief Misty Luggins (voice) 2025 The Bad Guys 2 Commissioner Misty Luggins (voice)

Television

Video games + Year Title RoleNotes 2006 Family Guy Video Game!Lois Griffin / Various voices 2012 Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse 2014 Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff2022 Warped Kart Racers Lois Griffin Archived recordings

Web ”ATM”2024 Hot OnesLois GriffinEpisode: "Peter Griffin Bares It All While Eating Spicy Wings"

Radio + Year Title Role Notes 2015 Special Relativity Nox / Lucinda

Awards and nominations