Growing Up MacFarlane: Rachael MacFarlane talks 'American Dad', and Her Relationship With Seth
The MacFarlane name is synonymous with Adult Animation, and Rachael has been with her big brother Seth almost every step of the way, including celebrating 25 years of Family Guy this year.
The Baldwins. The Cusacks. The Hemsworths. There are so many famous sibling dynamics in Hollywood both on and off camera that it can make one question if talent is genetic. Lost in the shuffle of all the Skarsgårds and Gyllenhaals (aside from how many people are lost trying to spell Skarsgård and Gyllenhaal) is that the adjacent world of Animation can occasionally produce siblings that change the face of the medium as well. The Warner Brothers did it, and many will remember that when Walt passed the torch of his empire, it was to his younger brother Roy. As the Vocal Qs podcasts continues its look at women in the industry of voice acting and animation, we would be hard pressed to think of a better guest than Rachael MacFarlane, who can give a unique perspective about not only a tremendously successful career of her own, but being the little sister of mega-creator Seth MacFarlane.
If you were to ask Rachael to define her relationship with older brother Seth, it might be that latter Disney bond. The two siblings are seemingly very close, but Rachael doesn’t even hesitate to give Seth all the credit when it comes to the modern day, Fox-driven animation kingdom that is associated with the MacFarlane name. One would be remiss not to address the fact that the crown jewel in the MacFarlane crown, ‘Family Guy’ celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, and while an outsider like this writer would look at the early days of Family Guy’as very collaborative between the two siblings, (especially considering one of Seth’s first acts was to ask Rachael to be a part of the show) Rachael is extremely gracious about who the credit should go to.
“It was all his. It was all his” MacFarlane admits. “I know where the humor came from, because it was the humor of our youth. I know where the characters came from, because anybody who is from our family, understands the show on a different level. But no, It was all him, truly. He literally sat alone in his apartment in West Hollywood and drew all the pictures and for the pilot. He had no life for a really long time because he was just creating the show.” MacFarlane chuckles as a younger sister would, teasing her older brother for having no life, but MacFarlane is obviously very proud of her older brother.
Rachael is no stranger to the world of animation either, and while the career path into voice acting wasn’t an obvious choice, Saturday mornings, like for so many of us, played a major part in shaping the MacFarlane children. “I mean, Saturday mornings? Forget it.” Rachael confesses. “We were constantly watching cartoons. He-Man, the Smurfs, the Snorks, Gummy Bears, you name it. I was definitely brought up on animation and had an appreciation for it, but never really thought about the voice acting piece of it.”
As mentioned, that journey of becoming a successful voice actor started at a much different point, but one that’s perhaps strangely familiar for many within the field. MacFarlane wanted to be a musical theatre performer, she considered herself a singer and a songwriter, but suddenly realized maybe the dream wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
“After I left school and I moved to New York, I sort of realized that the lifestyle of a musical theater performer wasn't what I actually wanted to do. It didn't fit. And I remember, for the first time, being 22 and flailing because I had never not known what I wanted to do. All of a sudden, I don't have a path. I don't know what I want to do anymore. Coincidentally, I went out to California to visit Seth in August of 1998 and I was like, ‘I don't know what I want to do with my life’. I was moving back to New York. I was going to try doing some singer songwriter stuff, and he was the one who said, ‘You have a really great voice, and you're a great actor. You should try voice acting. I think you'd be good at it’. I had never even thought of it.”
So while Seth was only months away from debuting ‘Family Guy’, where he would eventually ask Rachael to be a part of the early days of the phenomenon, Rachael had a little time to discover her own route.
“I decided I wasn't going to go back to New York and I was going to just stay in Los Angeles, because I had nothing waiting for me in New York City.” MacFarlane recalls. “I got a job as a production assistant at Cartoon Network, and that was when I really started to understand animation. It was on Johnny Bravo. I took Seth's advice, and I asked our casting director if I could audition and she was amazing, and I wound up doing a bunch of voices for ‘Bravo’. That transitioned into the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, which I was on for a long time, and which is where I met my husband and yeah, it was a perfect fit for me, and I literally fell into it.”
MacFarlane never forgot those musical roots, those days at home watching and listening to Gilbert and Sullivan or Roger’s and Hammerstein. In fact, as much as she is too humble to admit she had an influence on her brother’s creativity, she was the one who made Seth a more well rounded appreciator of old school movie musicals and musical theatre.
“I was a huge musical theater dork all through my youth” MacFarlane admits with pride. “There was a deep love of the classics through high school, Gilbert and Sullivan, Rogers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Lowe and that wasn't necessarily Seth's focus at the time. He was born to movie scores. He loved John Williams. He loved, you know, so when we were fighting for the tape deck in the car, he would have been listening to the soundtrack to ‘Jurassic Park’, and I would have been wanting to listen to ‘Oklahoma’. But I remember he said when he was in high school, he found one of my tapes of ‘South Pacific’, and I said ‘wait, what are you kidding? I introduced you to that?’. I didn't know that”.
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Both MacFarlane siblings are accomplished vocalists, not just voice actors. Yet it’s funny to see how people change and evolve over the years. It’s now been 12 years since she put out her album “Hayley Sings” - a tribute to the traditional jazz classics she has sung for years, and several other songs she thought related to her character from ‘American Dad’.
So what does the future hold for MacFarlane? Another album? Another children’s book? Fostering the MacFarlane bloodline as Berle kids now start their own voice acting career? “The exciting news is the new season of American Dad that's airing now, I would say, is the season of Haley” MacFarlane gleams. “We all have these seasons where I feel like our characters get a lot of storylines and for whatever reason, this was totally Haley's year. So there are really, really, really funny episodes coming up, and hopefully we'll be announcing soon that we're back to work making more episodes of Family Guy and American Dad”.