44 Quotes by Nina Conti

So many actors are lively-minded, creative people who just tread water in this awful way, waiting for the phone to ring and doing their hair for auditions. It feels like a bit of a dreamer's life - as opposed to a sensible ventriloquist's life.

I could never be on stage on my own. But puppets can say things that humans can't say.

My puppets are far more liberated than I am. Ventriloquism is a useful way of expressing myself.

It's sad, the lottery. Good projects get funded by it, but there's an air of desperation about it.

I'm training to become a giggle doctor. It's a kind of hospital clown who changes the atmosphere on the ward and helps recovery. It's about making patients laugh but also much more.

Having a puppet is a way of having opposing opinions - I say a thing; he says the other.

I think I've got it pretty easy compared with somebody who works at a desk nine to five. I'm just working for an hour in the evening. I get a bit breathless, as I have to talk non-stop because of the puppets.

The character of the monkey just grew from something out of his face and my granddad's personality. They fused, and that's what I ended up with! The monkey belonged to a friend of mine, and I saw that it had such a little beguiling face and it grew from there.

I feel Scottish when with English people, and when I'm with Scottish people, I realise I'm English.