Popular talk show host Ellen DeGeneres says getting the role of Dory in the 2003 computer-animated comedy-drama adventure film “Finding Nemo” helped her through her "lowest point".

While the 57-year-old is now happily married to actress Portia de Rossi and has a successful daytime talk show, she says after her sitcom “The Ellen Show” was cancelled in 2002 she struggled to find work, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

However, being offered the role of Dory proved to be her salvation.

“I hadn't worked at all. People don't know that, because it took three years to do 'Finding Nemo'. In the time that ('The Ellen Show') was cancelled, while I was doing nothing, (writer-director) Andrew Stanton had heard my voice on TV and how rambling I was and how I never stayed on topic, and he wrote Dory with me in mind,” DeGeneres said on TV show “Entertainment Tonight”.

"By the time Nemo was coming out, I had just gotten 'The Ellen DeGeneres Show', but during that time nothing had happened. So (Dory's motto) 'just keep swimming' certainly applies to me and to a lot of people out there," she added.