Features
Drop Dead Hilarious: the Alex Borstein interview
By Andy (Monday, November 27, 2006)
With the recent release of her new one woman show DVD, Drop Dead Gorgeous, we thought it about time to catch up with Alex Borstein. Read on to hear Alex talk about comedy cocks, the word “cunt”, and Olympic gymnastics!
This interview contains language of a mature nature!
Andy: Let’s cut straight to the point of this interview, what can we expect from your new Drop Dead Gorgeous DVD?
Alex Borstein: If you like the word “cunt,” then we can safely assume that you will enjoy my DVD. I absolutely adore the word cunt! If you find nothing interesting about whores and why most women are whores, then you might not want to buy my DVD. This DVD is pretty much an hour of me flushing out all the whores in Hollywood.
You worked with your husband on this latest project. Do you work well together?
My husband, Jackson Douglas, was kind enough to direct this comedy special and then edit it, mix the sound, do all the design and artwork and deliver the final product to 20th Home Entertainment… and service me in the sack, all the while! How fucking lucky am I? We work pretty well together in this capacity, but god forbid we veer try to write together. We tried it once for a TV show called KWIK WITZ, and we almost stabbed each other in the anus’ with #2 pencils.
How did you get into comedy? Do you come from a funny family?
I come from a neuritic Jewish family, which has become almost synonymous with funny, hasn’t it? We Jews are known for our love of the desert and our jokes!! My parents are both pretty cynical and way too honest, so I turned out to be a fast-talking woman with a huge ego and terrible self-esteem (if that makes any sense?) My grandmother (who Ms Swan is based on) is a very funny woman. She was an immigrant to this country who learned how to use that to her advantage whenever she could. She is a strong, survivor who has been known to switch price tags at department stores. Shhhhh…
Stand-up comedy is a rather male dominated world. Has this effected you, and what do you think of the dominance?
Stand-up is predominatntly male, which is why I had this huge cock attached last year. It has been very handy on long walks, serving as a cane. But prior to having my comedy cock, yes, it was always difficult to try and “hang out” backstage at comedy clubs with the guys. They never really let me in their circles, which is probably why I never toured doing stand-up. I did some in LA, SF and when we were gearing up to shoot this DVD special, we toured to Seattle, Aspen and Denver. My act does much better in a theater as opposed to a night club with drunk assholes, although there’s nothing more fun than whippin’ out my huge comedy cock and smacking a heckler upside the head with it!
What do you prefer, stand-up comedy or acting/voice over work?
This question is almost impossible to answer… I’d have to say that each area is great in it’s own right. For instance: stand-up is great because you are your own boss. You write what you wanna say and at any minute you can edit, rewrite or alter the material. The laughs are immediate and the high is INCREDIBLE!!! Television and film acting is really fun because you are working with other people and you are not completely responsible for the outcome of the project (Catwoman). You get to travel to great locations like when I got to go to Rome and Vancouver (The Shitty McGuire Movie). And of course the voice over work is amazing because you don’t need make-up or wardrobe or to have your hair pulled and poked for hours every day. It’s so much fun to work in the booth with Seth M and I work on the show as a writer as well, so I get some imput as to my dialogue. So basically, I’m the luckiest gal in show business!!
In recent years you have started appearing in movies like Good Night, and Good Luck and, dare I mention it, Catwoman. Is this something that you want to get more involved in?
I will keep doing small parts in films for as long as they’ll have me! It’s so much fun and especially rewarding when the film is GREAT as was the case with GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK. I will be in a new small film in March called, THE LOOKOUT. So be on the lookout for that… wow that was gay.
Seeing as this is an interview for a Family Guy site we can’t let you go without asking you a few Family Guy questions…
Family Guy has been on some what of a roller-coaster ride since it began. You’ve been with the show practically since the beginning, so what’s it been like riding it?
It funny that you make the roller coaster analogy because that’s what I always say in interviews. It was like being in a bad relationship with an abusive prick! We were on the air and it was like a honeymoon, then we get cancelled and it was like a shitty break-up with some, “back-o-the-hand slaps” to the face. Then I get a phone call from Seth M telling me that there’s talk of the show being made into a movie. I think it was February 2004, and I said shut the fuck up! He said, “Okay,” and hung up. Then in March he calls and says that the TV show might be coming back and I said, “Fuck you!” And he said, “Okay,” and hung up. I called him back and said that I couldn’t take the roller coaster and to only call me when it’s for real. I think he called the next day and said, “Okay, it’s for real.” He asked if I would not only ome back to the show as a voice actor, but also as a writer, and I didn’t even wait for him to finish, “YES!!!” And here we are.
You’ve become more involved in writing for the show, has this lead to a little more of “Alex Borstein” appearing in the character of Lois?
I think that my being there full-time as a writer has helped to put a lot more of Alex into every character. What most people don’t realize is that every writer in the room is responsible for every character in the show. When you go off to write an episode, you are writing every line of dialogue, not just your own character or the ones you may be partial to. When it’s time, the script that you spent two weeks grueling over is almost literally torn apart by all of the writers and you hope and pray that your lines (or some of them anyway) will stay in the final draft. One of my favorite lines that I wrote, that actually stayed in a script, was in the Stewie three part movie, when Brian asks Quagmire if the word “country” isn’t spelled with an “O.” Told you.
What are your five favourite Family Guy scenes?
- Lois on the red carpet in the Stewie three part movie DVD thing.
- Peter and Lois’ diahrrea moment.
- Stewie, after having made love to a doll he pokes the doll’s belly button and says, “belly button”.
- Stewie sees Tom Brady’s “comedy cock” and responds with a “Bing-bong! Hello!”
- Peter and Lois about to get into some serious S & M in their black leather with ball gag.
... to name a few, but there are millions!
Finally, can you tell us a surprising fact about yourself?
Um, probably not… let’s see… I’m only five feet tall, SURPRISE!!!!! What else, um, I was going to try to be an olympic gymnast when I was younger, but then my tits got too big and it kinda threw everything off balance. Um… let’s see… oh did I mention I love the word “cunt?”
Thanks for your time.
Alex’s new DVD Drop Dead Gorgeous In a Down-to-Earth Bombshell Sort of Way is out now in the US. The Lookout is out in March next year; Good Night, and Good Luck is available to buy on DVD; and of course Alex can be heard each week as the sexy Lois Griffin on Family Guy, Sundays at 9pm on Fox.
Did I mention that Drop Dead Gorgeous is out now on DVD?
Related links
- Drop Dead Gorgeous trailers
(C) Planet Family Guy 2006.
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