Comedy sitcome star Ellen DeGeneres admits she couldn't face eating fish after voicing the character of Dory in the latest Pixar animated adventure Finding Nemo. The US actress even had to come up with whale-speak for the part. Steve Pratt reports

NO one was more surprised than comedienne Ellen DeGeneres when she was asked to provide the voice for a fishy character in the new animated feature from the makers of Toy Story and Monsters Inc.

She was lined up by writer-director Andrew Stanton to voice an eternally optimistic blue tang fish, a fast-talking character with short-term memory loss, in Finding Nemo.

"I wondered what exactly it was in me that inspired him to write this motor-mouthed fish with memory loss," she recalls.

Her bright and bubbly Dory joins forces with the timid, Albert Brooks-voiced Marlin in search of his little coral clown fish son Nemo, who has been taken from their Australian coral-reef home and put in a fish tank in Sydney.

"When Andrew said he'd written the character for me I was really excited, because no one had done that before," says DeGeneres. "But I warned that it better be good, or I might just forget I'd committed to the project."

In the end she began to see elements of herself in the little fish. "I love that Dory has memory-loss, because that makes her so childlike and optimistic. I'd come out the recording studio feeling like a happy child," she says.

And Stanton adds that after working with Ellen he discovered there was actually more of Dory in her than he ever imagined.

One part of Finding Nemo could have been tricky. DeGeneres has to talk like a whale. Fortunately, she says she knew where to get that from. "There was a girl who used to do yoga to whale-noise albums next door to me. It used to drive me crazy, but it served me well for this."

DeGeneres, 45, is still most famous for her 1997 decision to come out as a lesbian in her sitcom Ellen - and for her high-profile, three-and-a-half year relationship with actress Anne Heche.

In a few short months she came out, took Heche to a reception at Bill Clinton's White House, and forced TV network ABC to let her sitcom character, Ellen Morgan, come out too.

It all ended badly. ABC cancelled Ellen in 1998, after sponsor withdrawals and right-wing pressure. Then Heche left DeGeneres for a cameraman in August 2000. DeGeneres has recovered to gain a second sitcom, The Ellen Show, from 2001-2002, and now her new chat show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show. She's also formed a new relationship with actress Alexandra Hedison.

Despite this spotlight on her personal life, her aim is to concentrate on her career. She certainly doesn't want to be a standard-bearer for gays. "I can't represent a whole segment of anything. I can't represent all blonde women, or gay women, or even women. I don't even have a rainbow flag on my house. I am not a good lesbian at all," she says.

Producer Stanton says what attracted him to cast her in Finding Nemo wasn't her personal profile, but the ditziness of her sitcom character. "I was having trouble figuring out who the character should be and then I saw her on The Ellen Show and heard her change a subject five times in one sentence," he recalls.

"'Suddenly a light bulb went off. I just wrote it completely with Ellen in mind and then I told her, 'I am absolutely up a creek if you don't take this.' She said, 'well then, I'd better take it'."

Playing Dory now makes it a bit hard to eat fish. "I told Andrew in his next one I'd like to play a tub of ice cream. That's something I'd like to be able to resist eating," she jokes.

The actress has fish at home and says they have real personalities. "My fish are incredibly friendly and savvy. When I visit the pond they come right up to the surface. When the cats do the same they stay on the bottom. Having done Finding Nemo, I see more personality in them."

The huge US box-office success of Finding Nemo isn't going to turn DeGeneres into a movie star. Her focus is on her TV career, and she's particularly excited about her new talk show which began in the US last month.

Her live stand-up comedy roots stand her in good stead when it comes to hosting a chat show. "They're all about being funny and talking on your feet, two things I can do well. I hope it's the only thing I'll be doing for a very long time," she says. "To get a second chance at my age is incredible. I'm really hyped up about it."

* Finding Nemo (U) goes on general release in cinemas tomorrow

09/10/2003