My dad is a Friends legend and movie star – but I’m famous for a very different career path
WHEN it comes to acting accolades, very few Scots come close to Tom Conti.
The Paisley-born star, 81, has earned Tony and Laurence Olivier awards as well as being nominated for Oscars, BAFTA’s and Golden Globes.
Most recently seen in Hollywood blockbuster Oppenheimer as Albert Einstein, fans of Friends will also recognise him as Stephen Waltham, dad of Emily and former father in law of David Schwimmer’s character Ross.
Another interesting fact about the showbiz stalwart, married to actress Kara Wilson since 1967, is that their daughter has forged a hugely successful career herself too.
Nina Conti, 50, is a very popular comedian and ventriloquist.
She first found success in 2002 when she won the BBC New Comedy Awards and five years later took her first solo full-length show, Complete and Utter Conti, to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Since then she’s toured the world and brought her act to both the stage and television screen.
One of Nina’s most popular puppets is Monkey, a cynical primate who always insults her.
She previously admitted that her dad wished she focused more on acting instead of ventriloquism.
But one of her favourite things to do is prove him wrong.
She said: “My dad sometimes tells me, ‘you’re a great actress, you should do more acting, you should be Nina in [Chekhov’s] The Seagull.’
“I’m not doing The Seagull, Dad, I’m doing the monkey!
“Monkey is, in some ways, a weapon against my father.
“He’s a version of me that can stand up to him.
“He’s not the gabbling, lefty worrier I am – he’s someone who knows his own voice. Solid.”
While Tom once said: “The worry after seeing that first show was: where can you go with ventriloquism?
“You can appear to make a creature sitting on your knee talk, but where does it take one as a career?”
Thankfully, Nina has proven you can definitely make it a full-time profession.