Family Guy’s Seth MacFarlane turns to alcohol to deal with stage fright: ‘I definitely get nervous’

‘Family Guy’ creator and star Seth MacFarlane “definitely gets nervous” before a performance and has turned to alcohol to cope.

Seth MacFarlane “definitely gets nervous” before a performance.

The 51-year-old star is best known as the creator of the long-running animation series ‘Family Guy’ but has also released eight studio albums during his career and admitted that he has previously had to turn to alcohol to cope with stage fright.

Speaking on ‘CBS Sunday Mornings’, when asked if he sees himself an introvert, he said: “Oh hell, yeah! I don’t even wanna be here! No, I’m just kidding!

“I think I had, like, four Scotches before I walked out on stage at the Oscars. I do get…I definitely get nervous.”

After graduating with a degree in animation from Rhode Island School of Design, Seth was all set to study a graudate programme in musical theatre but was then suddenly recruited to work on the carton series ‘Johnny Bravo’ ‘Cow and Chicken’ and ‘Dexter’s Laboratory’ for Hana-Barbera so jumped at the chance, but admitted there was a his signature creation may never have come to fruition at all.

He said: “My sister at the time was going to the Boston Conservatory of Music for musical theatre. She has a beautiful singing voice. I had gotten it into my head that I was going to go to grad school for musical theatre as well, so I applied and got in and was all set to go for their grad programme, but then I got this offer from Hanna-Barbera to come do an animated short for a series they were doing so I just had to take it and I moved out to California.

“There was an incident there where I could have diverged into a completely different career and never even thought about something called ‘Family Guy’.”

Seth also voices the roles of Peter, Brian and Stewie Griffin on ‘Family Guy’ and admitted that after more than 25 years on air, he has now begun to “analyse” the near-the-knuckle comedy in the programme in a way he hasn’t done so before.

He said: “When I started the show, my attitude was ‘It doesn’t matter, none of it matters. Let’s do it…’ and now that I’m older, I look back at the shows that we’ve done and think it’s a little more complicated than that.

“Comedy and jokes do have an impact. I have to figure out a way to maintain what the show is, and maintain this thing that people love but at the same time recognise that I am analysing it now in a different way than I did when I was younger.”