Alexandrea "Alex" Borstein (born February 15, 1973) is an American actress, voice actress, writer, producer, and comedian. She is well known for her long-running role as
Lois Griffin on the animated television series
Family Guy, and as a cast member on the sketch comedy series
MADtv. A native of
Deerfield, Illinois, Borstein is a graduate of
San Francisco State University, where she studied
rhetoric. She was trained in
improvisational comedy at the
ACME Comedy Theatre, near
Hollywood,
California, and was selected to join
MADtv after being scouted by
talent agents who noticed her work at the theatre. She was a writer and voice actor for several television shows, including
Casper,
Pinky and the Brain, and
Power Rangers: Zeo, before joining the cast of
MADtv as a featured player, and later as a repertory player in 1997.