Nina Conti Quotes

I'm a pretty good ventriloquist, but it's the entertainment value and the laughs that keep people sitting there and wanting more.

Stand-up keeps you alive. It is definitely the most specialized field in comedy because you need to stay sharp and well-tuned every night.

Acting is all about timing. I mean, who has better timing than the MCs?

The magic in performing as an entertaining ventriloquist happens when the characters come to life and the interaction between the separate personalities on stage becomes 'real.' Then don't forget that the act has to be funny, and to me, being funny and entertaining any given audience is more important than anything.

Standup led me to acting because I liked standup, and I saw people on a stage, and the closest, nearest thing to me was doing plays. It was like, that's the same thing as standup - people are on a stage; they're being seen and saying things - so, because of my love of standup, I moved towards acting.

When I was in third grade I taught myself ventriloquism... What's hard is to learn to be an entertainer and make people laugh. I was a few years out of college before I felt I had enough material. Then in 1988 I moved to L.A. and started to do some shows at comedy clubs.

I was always the lead role in plays. I like entertaining people. I like when you're on stage doing crazy stuff and the audience gets it.

Up until college age I was using the typical little-boy dummy that sits on the knee and makes woodpecker jokes. My first original character didn't happen until later, and that was Jose the Jalapeno on a Stick.

I started doing standup when I was in college, and I would incorporate a lot of characters into my act.

Wrestling was like stand-up comedy for me. Every night I had a live audience of 25,000 people to win over. My goal was never to be the loudest or the craziest. It was to be the most entertaining.

When I was eight years old, I got a dummy for Christmas and started teaching myself. I got books and records and sat in front of the bathroom mirror, practising. I did my first show in the third grade and just kept going; there was no reason to quit.

I started doing comedy because that was the only stage that I could find. It was the pure idea of being on stage. That was the only thing that interested me, along with learning the craft and working, and just being in productions with people.

I started performing non-professionally at birthday parties and family gatherings doing 'Saturday Night Live' impressions at four. Then I started for real at seven.

I started standup at age nineteen. I decided that the only way I was going to try show business as a career was if I could make total strangers laugh.

The biggest impact that acting and theater had was, of course, stage presence, but it also had a big impact on my writing.

One time, it was really funny, I was going on stage... and they were like, 'Oh, we didn't mic the puppet! Mic the puppet!' So, that's how I know that sometimes I do a very good job, because they think that the puppet is actually, like, real.

I like stand-up. I've done it since I was a teenager, so it's kind of my first job and first kind of creative way to express myself.

Sometimes when I'm performing, whenever my puppet cracks a joke, it actually makes me laugh.

That's the one thing I think I have figured out pretty decently well is I'm a performer. I've always been an entertainer; y'know, growing up, that's all I've ever done.

Being an entertainer includes knowing how to connect with an audience.

I knew what I wanted to be at 8 years old - an actor!

One place that I really feel comfortable is being a comedienne. I'm very socially inept. There's so many things that I can not do in life, and this is, like, the one thing that I have mastery over. It's my world. And anybody who's coming to the show, it's like they're coming because they know that this is my world.

'The Voice' gave me a chance to show people the side of me that is an artist. People didn't know what that would look like or sound like. It allowed people to see that potential.

I find what I do for a living really funny. I mean, acting is kind of a hilarious thing for a grown man to call a job.

I've always been a performer. That's just what I know.