Rachael MacFarlane Is Ready For Hayley To Take Over ‘American Dad!’

When American Dad! debuted in February 2005, it was viewed as the spiritual successor to Family Guy, a show that had been cancelled not once, but twice in just a few years. However, after Family Guy was brought back from the dead for yet another lease on life, American Dad! became a redundancy. Yet despite hearing rumblings of its own cancellation for years, American Dad! has not only managed to survive but flourish as it makes its way toward its 400th episode. 

While American Dad! may have switched networks in 2014, the show has remained a constant bright spot in the animation world. One of the reasons for that consistency can be traced to the show’s stellar cast, which includes Rachael MacFarlane, the voice of Hayley Smith. After getting her start on an array of popular Cartoon Network shows in the early 2000s, MacFarlane has cemented herself as not only one of the top voiceover artists in the game but one of the funniest as well.

MacFarlane’s work on American Dad! has given her a chance to not only show off her versatility as a voice actress but highlight her ability to bring depth to a character who has been continually evolving since Season 1. As American Dad! is set to debut its 19th season on October 28 on TBS, MacFarlane sat down with Bubbleblabber to discuss the show’s longevity and why Season 19 is her time to shine. 

Matthew Swigonski: It’s crazy because I remember when American Dad! first came out, I just watched it and thought ‘Okay, this show won’t last. It won’t stick around.’ And almost four hundred episodes later here we are.

Rachael MacFarlane: You know, Matthew, if it makes you feel any better, the cast felt the same way every season. I probably want to say until like season seven, we were like, ‘Oh my God, we’re totally not gonna get picked up.’ We’re not gonna get to keep doing this. It just felt like it was so precarious in the beginning. And then once Family Guy came back on the air, it was like, ‘Well why do they even need us? They have Family Guy. We were created as like a replacement and now that’s back.’ 

So I don’t think it was maybe until season seven or eight that we all sort of settled in a little bit. We’re like ‘Okay so we’re doing this, this is happening.’ I mean which is funny because that’s when most even really good shows wrap. That’s a good run for anybody. And now here we are at Season 19. And it’s insane that it’s been on for that long. 

Matthew Swigonski: You’re in the Ring of Honor. You get the ax and then go to another network and then you take off again. I mean, how many shows have done that?

Rachael MacFarlane: Seriously. To have made the jump and continue to find success, it’s kind of like a unicorn. I think both Family Guy and American Dad! are… with what they’ve been through, in a way. But it’s funny because we’ve never actually been off the air. We sort of just made a smooth transition. It makes you wonder. You look at shows like Futurama and King of the Hill. And it’s like ‘Okay, so what if we do get canceled.’ Obviously, after 19 years you start to wonder, ’Are we gonna be back in another five?’

Matthew Swigonski: Well, I’m glad you brought that length up. Being the voice of a character for almost 20 years, do you ever find yourself thinking like Hayley Smith? Thinking about what would Hayley do? 

Rachael MacFarlane: I mean, I know what Hayley would do right here, but yes it’s funny. Her character has changed and evolved so much over the years. She went from being such an idealist and so political to, ‘Yeah, she’s working at Sub Hub and she’s making sandwiches. She is married to Jeff.’ It’s like her character has taken some funny twists and turns. She’s a total contradiction, right? She’s almost a caricature now, which would make sense. 

This season in particular. The one that’s about to air is like the season of Hayley. We all have seasons where it’s like “Oh, God! There are a lot of Steve episodes this year, there are a lot of Roger episodes…” This is my year. There are so many huge Hayley episodes this year, which was really fun.

Matthew Swigonski: Can you tease one episode that you’re looking forward to the most?

Rachael MacFarlane: Yeah, absolutely. There’s one where… it’s like a spoof on White Lotus. It’s called Brown Lotus. Hayley and Jeff wind up at this super luxury resort. I think the premise is something like Roger says you get things if you’re mean to people and Hayley is just positive that you only get things if you’re nice to people. And so it’s sort of this back and forth where just like in White Lotus, Roger is horrible to the people that work at the resort. It’s really funny. Really funny. 

Matthew Swigonski: You kind of touched on it, but can you think of the biggest difference, from Hayley’s point of view, from Season One of American Dad! to now? 

Rachael MacFarlane: It’s the addition of Jeff as somebody who lives in the house that has been huge for Hayley. He was around in the first few seasons but obviously, once they got married it was like ‘Oh Jeff is like a huge part of my character now.’ Which is awesome. I love Jeff Fischer as a character and I love Jeff Fischer as a human. You know the person that plays Jeff Fischer is Jeff Fischer. He is the best and it’s so much fun to be playing off of him almost every episode. It’s been a cool addition to Hayley.

Matthew Swigonski: How does the team record? Are you usually in the booth by yourself or do you have the whole team there? 

Rachael MacFarlane: So once upon a time before the global pandemic, we were all together every week doing our table reads. We would all pile into this conference room and read through the script and laugh our asses off. And then we would record individually. That was always how it’s been done. You’re in the booth alone. Then the pandemic hit and we were all like ‘Oh my God! How do we have…’ We had no idea. Like how do you still make shows, right? If we can’t be in person. And, you know, enter Zoom. So all of our table reads switch to Zoom, which is how all of them are done now. Like all the shows that I work on are Zoom table reads, it’s crazy.

The studio is open again. So people who live in LA can just go and record their episodes right where we used to. But most of us moved during the pandemic. So we’re all recording from various places around the country now. You know, alone in our closets or whatever [laughs]. It’s definitely changed for sure, which is why we all love things like Comic-Con in San Diego because we all get to be together, which is a rarity now.

Matthew Swigonski: What do you think is the biggest challenge going from pre-COVID to the post-COVID era as a voice artist? 

Rachael MacFarlane: I can absolutely tell you what the biggest challenge is. I have to be my own engineer. And that is hard! When I was just in the studio recording, I didn’t have to worry about yelling or whispering. Somebody was always going to be there to adjust my mic for me so that I didn’t have to act AND think about volume at the same time. That’s really challenging. It’s just me in my closet. We use a thing called Source Connect, to connect with the writers and the directors and everybody for a record [session]. But now I’m the one who’s operating my board, right?

It’s so funny, the things we took for granted. I totally took for granted having an engineer. And now I have to do it myself. Also, the fact that you are with all of these people on the Zoom call and you’re having so much fun. Then you say, ‘Okay bye, it’s over. And then you’re like alone… in the closet [laughs]. We’re not together anymore. There are parts of it that are great, convenient, and wonderful. I get to live in a really gorgeous part of the country now where there aren’t a lot of fires and it’s really lovely. But I also miss my castmates too.

Matthew Swigonski: So on your resume, do you have like apprentice sound engineer on there somewhere? 

Rachael MacFarlane: [laughs] No! I should. I don’t think I’m good enough though, I think I still suck at it. But honestly, I’m getting there. 

Matthew Swigonski: Well, obviously it’s been working for the past few years. 

Rachael MacFarlane: So it’s usually me being like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna do the first part of the line, and then I’m gonna gain down, and then I’m gonna do the second part of the line.’

Matthew Swigonski: Whatever works.

Rachael MacFarlane: Whatever works, exactly!

Matthew Swigonski: Who were some of your greatest inspirations growing up? Who did you look up to the most? 

Rachael MacFarlane: Oh my God. So I was a huge musical theater fan. You know, shocker. A lot of us are. I mean, certainly in our cast, a ton of us are big musical theater dorks. So I always thought that was the direction I was going to go in. I went to the Boston Conservatory and majored in musical theater. So my big inspirations growing up were incredible and successful musical theater women of that time, like Patti LuPone. 

She was my biggest inspiration, I was obsessed with Patti LuPone. I thought she was amazing and I was so excited to go see her in Anything Goes when I was like 10 years old. This summer, I was in New York with my nine-year-old. We were going to see Wicked and we were at this restaurant called Sardi’s which is sort of like the definitive Broadway… it’s where you go to eat before you go to a show.

There are all these caricatures of all these famous Broadway actors all over the walls. We’re there really early because Wicked started at like 7 or 7:30. So we were there for dinner at like 5 and there’s nobody else in the restaurant, and all of a sudden somebody comes in and gets seated. And it’s this woman and she’s just a stone’s throw from us at like the next table over and then I hear her start talking.

I’m like, ‘Oh my God! That’s Patti LuPone. She’s here.’ She’s just sitting next to me in this restaurant where her picture is up on the wall, right? And I lean over to my nine-year-old, who of course says, ‘No, I don’t know who Patti LuPone is.’ I’m like, ‘That woman right there would be like if you came in and Taylor Swift was sitting at the table.’ She was like, ‘Oh my God, mom! That’s so cool’. It was really exciting. It was sort of the highlight of my summer. That’s a really long answer to say… you know, Patty LuPone.

Matthew Swigonski: [laughs] No, it’s an amazing answer. I guess kind of going off of that. When did you first realize you had that theater talent for voicing different characters or using different accents?

Rachael MacFarlane: Yeah, my brother and I, you know… my brother, Seth [MacFarlane]. He and I did a lot of theater together growing up. A ton. And then, as I said, I was a theater major in college. But voiceover never dawned on me. I had my sights set on New York and theater. Then I moved there after college and I don’t know. I was just like, ‘Ugh, I don’t necessarily think this is where my heart is anymore. But I know I still want to perform. I just don’t know what the outlet is.’

I went to visit Seth in August of 1998 and Family Guy hadn’t aired yet. It was just starting production, I think. He said you should try voiceover. He’s like, ‘I think you’d be good at it. I was like, ‘Huh, I had never even thought about it.’ And so I got a job working as a production assistant at Cartoon Network in 1998 on a show called Johnny Bravo. I talked the casting director into giving me an opportunity to audition for her. And I wound up doing a bunch of voices on Bravo, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, and Codename: Kids Next Door. All these shows from the early 2000s at Cartoon Network.

I realized I loved this. This was absolutely what I wanted to do with my life. Then I remember being with my college roommate years and years later and we were watching this old review that we did in college. We were cracking up because I was like a cartoon character. I was so cartoony in my musical theater and my voice. Then I was like, ‘Oh God, this is what I was always supposed to do. I just didn’t know it.’ I was always headed this way. It just took me a while to figure that out. 

Matthew Swigonski: Amazing. I’m sure you and [Seth] were a complete terror on prank calls growing up. 

Rachael MacFarlane: You better believe it. 

You can check out the premiere of Season 19 of American Dad! on TBS on Monday, October 28 at 10 PM ET/PT.