Nina Conti Quotes

It would be quite interesting to use Kermit the Frog to act like a real frog. But it wouldn't produce captivating theatre.

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 dabbled in puppetry throughout college and even had my own traveling puppet show after I graduated.

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

It's strange because even in the vaudeville days, ventriloquists were never the main attraction. They were the guys brought out to stand in front of the curtain while sets were being changed. Ventriloquism wasn't even celebrated as an art until Edgar Bergen came along in the 1930s.

Eventually we want to do a puppet musical with turntables in the orchestra pit.

In preschool, I would plan out my show-and-tell every week to be funny and exciting. Then in first grade I wrote a play, and my classmates and I performed it as a puppet show.

With my mask, I controlled all of the mouth movements with my own mouth.

All through college, I was searching for characters that would make me unique and set me apart from the typical ventriloquist with the typical dummy that was the little boy, cheeky hard figure like Charlie McCarthy.

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 think maybe one reason why ventriloquists are looked down on is because it's very difficult to be funny. I think what happens is that people get a dummy, they learn the technique of ventriloquism, they memorize the script, they think they're in show business.

I have no idea why people want to watch puppets be the slightly meaner version of the weirdo holding them. It's beyond my comprehension.

Puppet camp truly redefined my preconceptions of puppetry... I'll never forget learning that before a puppet can speak... he has to inhale. It's those details that make the characters truly come to life.

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

I make napkins talk in restaurants, socks talk on car journeys. There is an awful lot of puppetry going on in the house.

Once I'm on stage, there's just no time for a sip of water - I've always got my hands in puppets! My voice is raw by the time I finish.

When I was a kid, I never saw a puppet show. I never played with puppets or had any interest in them.

I was very much in my room with my marionette stage, you know, creating these incredibly boring things that I felt were so fascinating, and forcing my relatives to come, and charging money for them to see my little productions.

I do laugh when I hear myself saying, 'I am a ventriloquist.' I am definitely suited to it, though. I took it and ran with it quite hungrily. It is not for everyone, but it is just the chance to write for a character.

I cannot see myself sitting at a desk from nine to five!

I am now known as Nina Conti's father and it's wonderful.

When I was eight, I bought my first puppet. It was a monkey, and I paid five cents for it. I collected some scrap wood and built myself a puppet theatre. I made 32 cents with my first show, which I thought was pretty good, and that's when I knew I would be a puppeteer when I grew up.

What is he? He's a puppeteer and he's got a lot of inspiration all around him, and the fact that they can manipulate the expressions now with ease compared to what it used to be.

There are not that many ventriloquists out there who build their own characters. I love that because they are uniquely mine.

I remember clearly watching a 'Sooty Show' at a theatre and telling my mum I wanted to be up with the puppets, not in the audience.