In 2012, British ventriloquist and comedian Nina Conti told The Independent: “If I could change one thing about myself… this whole deconstructive thing, self-awareness…it’s part of my job as a voice for the Monkey [Conti’s puppet] but it’s self-indulgent, boring—all that doubt is absolutely moronic.” Thirteen years have passed since, and in them, an evolution for Monkey—who has transformed from a forearm-sized puppet to a full-body suit—and for Conti, who integrates Monkey into her recently released directorial feature debut Sunlight. The film is presented by comedy stalwart Christopher Guest, who, of Conti, says: “I just happen to think she’s smarter and more talented than most people out there. And original, which is not easy to come by either, and all those things make her unique.”
“I actually feel a bit out the other side of the tunnel,” says Conti from a backyard in Los Angeles, when asked if she still feels self-doubt, deconstructive. “So maybe, having gone full Monkey has been cathartic in some way… Also I’m older. After 50 something happens. There’s not much time left. You think, ‘Oh, I have to be a little bit economical about what I bother to keep here.’ And so when I talk about the self-doubt, or my ability to be able to be myself through Monkey, that is a younger Nina’s struggle.” Conti has, in the past, been transparent about how the Monkey allows her to be more honest.
Struggle, and how we choose to deal with it, is exactly what Sunlight takes into consideration. It’s a road movie, a buddy film, about Roy (Shenoah Allen) and Monkey/Jane (Nina Conti), where the latter saves the former in the midst of a suicide attempt. Monkey’s on the run from an abusive step-father-turned-boyfriend situation, and takes up the passenger seat of Roy’s RV while the two travel across New Mexico to retrieve the wrist watch of Roy’s dead father, the unburying of which, these two characters believe, will kick-start a new life for each of them. The Monkey suit, for Jane, is a sort of shield, which she believes to protect her from a dirtier version of herself: Monkey is on the right path, so far as he can keep Jane from getting in the way.
Conti admits to the peculiar dichotomy she finds herself in, using the monkey suit as a way of literally and figuratively hiding while simultaneously calling attention to herself. “I guess that’s what I’ve wanted in some way. It’s extraordinary, the scenic route I’ve taken to creating the conditions where attention upon me is welcome,” she reflects. “I’ve been shy most of the time. When I was young, I often did hang out with all guys that were kind of mouthy, and I wanted to hold my own amongst them. But actually, I wasn’t. I didn’t feel quite like I was. And then Monkey makes me feel like I’m one of the guys. I mean, the ease of being without gender in Monkey is also incredibly rewarding.”
Conti and Allen co-wrote the film and shot it in the desert in 20 days, working five days with a “skeleton crew.” Set in the year 2000 with music by Radiohead, Aphex Twin, and The Pixies, Sunlight is, as Conti puts it, “built of our bricks. We started sharing things about our lives [during the pre-script creative brainstorming] that were things we felt ashamed of, crazy behaviors…We just put it all in, and then Sunlight was the result of that.”
In 2008, Conti’s ventriloquism mentor and “sometimes lover,” Ken Campbell, passed away, leaving all of his dummies and dolls to Conti. Blindsided, heartbroken, and ready to ditch her career, Conti took a road trip with Campbell’s dolls to Venthaven Museum in Kentucky—where the puppets of late ventriloquists go to rest—and where an international ventriloquist convention is held. She made a documentary-style film out of her journey, A Ventriloquist’s Story: Her Master’s Voice, which Guest also supported. It won the Audience Award at South by Southwest and was BAFTA nominated for Single Documentary.
Although it’s fiction, Sunlight is derived of some type of truth, or “artful truth with a capital T,” according to Conti. “I built the crew around the cameraman, James Kwan, so that he had his favorite people working with him. I wanted it to have that feeling of like, ‘Should we make a movie?’ ‘You know I’ve got a camera.’ ‘Well, we can shoot it in my parents’ house.’ It was that kind of enthusiasm that I wanted to protect about it.”
And working alongside Allen was an “easy extension” of the stand-up and improv they had previously worked on. She described their scenes together as an “animal instinct,” of knowing when something is working. “We’re making sure it feels within the boundaries of the ridiculous premise when we’re really committed to it, seeming real and truthful… I think the performances have to be real. And then if you’ve got somebody else taking care of the look, then you’re okay with a low budget, I think.”
But when it’s fiction, and it’s acting, then what is “real”? “If you’re lying and you get the feeling like it’s not going over,” Conti considers, “that’s the kind of feeling I’m talking about. It’s not really a nice feeling. It starts to feel like the ice is thin under you, your heart rate’s going. You feel like a bluffer and a fraud. If that’s all happening, you need to go again.”
Almost by definition, Conti’s entire act is one that exists between a truth and a lie. Ventriloquism: an illusion in plain-sight, the audience is in on the trick, but must believe against their own rationale: Look at the way she barely moves her lips!, accepting an absurdity in order to enjoy the joke. But then this is also, almost by definition, the only bearable way to make it through a whole lifetime. “I mean you’ve got to have a laugh sometimes,” Conti declares, “or life can feel a bit grey… it’s like inviting the absurd situation we are in, just even to be alive without any clue why we’re here. I mean you have to be able to laugh.”
Photographed by Exavier Castro
Styled by Jai Simmons
Written by Franchesca Baratta
Photo Assistant: Gilberto Ortiz
Styling Assistant: Yinyara
Location: Aliza Hotel