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

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

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.

I was really awful at auditions. There's something about sitting down and saying into the camera: "I'm Nina and this is the name of my agent." That makes me just die inside.

I thought people would think I only wanted to be an actor because my dad was, rather than because I had an innate calling.

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.

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.