Nina Conti
Nina Conti
Nina Contiis an English actress, comedian and ventriloquist. Among many characters, her primary on-stage puppet sidekicks are a white-haired Scottish grandmother named Granny and a deadpan and somewhat sinister monkey named Monk...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionComedian
Date of Birth5 June 1974
journey car house
I make napkins talk in restaurants, socks talk on car journeys. There is an awful lot of puppetry going on in the house.
dad character thinking
My dad is a much more flamboyant character than I am. I think that's why I couldn't see myself going into straight acting. I always just felt daft.
writing thinking giving
I think acting is overrated. I'm not sure I enjoyed it. You never get to write your own roles. It's wonderful for some people, but I found it nerve-wracking. I was too busy worrying that no one would give me their words to speak.
real puppets way
The way I talk to the puppets is real, and it's in the moment, and it's seeing what will happen. It's not something that is scripted.
puppets way opinion
Having a puppet is a way of having opposing opinions - I say a thing; he says the other.
laughing comedian watches
Because I'm around comedians all the time, in my downtime I tend not to watch comedy. Something the whole family enjoys is 'You've Been Framed!' It satisfies all of us. It's universal, and we all laugh a lot.
thinking puppets nine
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.
shoes red jelly
I like my squishy, red, high-heeled Vivienne Westwood jelly shoes. They make you seem like you're much more of a go-er.
running ideas three
I've started running three or four times a week, which prompts millions of sketch ideas.
thinking gigs evening
If I have a gig in the evening, I get 'the doom' at about 5 P.M., when I think I'm getting flu.
dad thinking people
I thought people would think I only wanted to be an actor because my dad was, rather than because I had an innate calling.
taken years body
I looked into studying psychoanalysis, wrote to the governing body and was about to start the year where they psychoanalyse you, four times a week, before you get to do it yourself. I just thought I'd taken the ventriloquism as far as I could. My act is so deconstructive, and I'd made all the monkey jokes anyone wanted to hear.
dream baby hands
I had a terrible dream when I was pregnant; I dreamt the baby had a ventriloquial mouth, but there was no hand hole; I had to flick the mouth down to get words out.
puppets stage humans
I could never be on stage on my own. But puppets can say things that humans can't say.