Rachael MacFarlane
Rachael MacFarlane is an actor, born 1976.
The surname is not incidental. Her older brother Seth created Family Guy and co-created American Dad!, and she has voiced characters in both. What that shorthand misses is that she came into animation partly from the production side, working as a production manager on The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy while also voicing Mindy on it.
Hayley Smith on American Dad! has been the constant since 2005, and it is a harder part than it looks. Hayley is a self-righteous teenage activist whose politics are sincere, which means the delivery has to stay funny for two decades without ever curdling into contempt for her. MacFarlane gives her a wheedling certainty that is very hard to dislike.
She is also Supreme Leader Numbuh 362 in Codename: Kids Next Door and Kate Lockwell in StarCraft II, neither of which is a comic register at all. The rest of the work is a study in vocal utility: the ship's computer on The Orville, flat and helpful; Aphrodite on Krapopolis; the announcer on the 2020 Animaniacs; Hildie on The Tom and Jerry Show; Nightshade and Lady Shiva in Superman/Batman: Public Enemies; Artemiz in a LEGO DC film; Emily Hobbs in Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas. She is a singer as well.
Voice acting rewards the ability to be two people in one session, and the American Dad! and Kids Next Door parts sit at opposite ends of a range most listeners never notice belongs to one performer.
Movies (7)
- Superman/Batman: Public Enemies (2009)
- Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story (2005)
- Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O. (2006)
- Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S. (2008)
- LEGO DC Super Hero Girls: Brain Drain (2017)
- Billy & Mandy's Big Boogey Adventure (2007)
- Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas (2014)
TV (13)
- Family Guy (1999)
- American Dad! (2005)
- The Tom and Jerry Show (2014)
- The Orville (2017)
- The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy (2001)
- ted (2024)
- What's New, Scooby-Doo? (2002)
- Animaniacs (2020)
- Krapopolis (2023)
- Fillmore! (2002)
- Grim & Evil (2001)
- Evil Con Carne (2003)
- Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy (2008)
Where to start with Rachael MacFarlane
The obvious start is American Dad!, and it is the correct one. Hayley is the character she has lived in longest, and the show's willingness to let her be genuinely irritating is exactly what makes the performance work.
The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy is the deeper cut and the funnier register. Mindy is pure playground tyranny and sounds nothing like Hayley.
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O. carries Numbuh 362, the command voice, played completely straight. The Orville is the opposite skill again, an affectless computer inside a live-action series. Krapopolis and Animaniacs are the current comic work, and Superman/Batman: Public Enemies is where she gets to play straight villainy.