» A life on stage
Tom Conti takes time away from rehearsals of Romantic Comedy – showing at Theatre Royal Brighton soon – to talk to Andrew Kay
You’ve had an extraordinary career as an actor, but you actually started to train as a musician pianist…
That’s what I wanted to do, yes.
What made you change?
A sign in the music college said ‘College of Drama’ and I thought, what’s that about? I’d done stuff in school – even a bit of amateur dramatics in Glasgow. I went in and talked to this really nice lady and it just sounded really interesting. It’s odd but that’s what happened.
So it was a whim?
Almost, but not quite. It also could have been laziness because music is a very hard life. So is theatre, but it is a hard life in a different way.
Did you think that long periods of rehearsal, touring, living in digs, endless nights in the West End, getting home at midnight, and all the worries of not working would be easier?
No, but the world is full of pianists.
There were indications that you were, perhaps, going to be a piano prodigy…
Oh, Christ, no – that is just legend. I still play, but badly. I was probably better when I was nine.
When you changed from music to drama school, were your family happy?
This was the 50s and all my friends became lawyers and doctors or accountants – you know, all the normal things – and that’s what they wanted for me too. But my father was Italian, and it was kind of his fault – and my mother too – because they were fond of music. They took me to concerts and the theatre from as soon as I could sit quietly, so it was their fault that this passion for performing arts developed. They were really supportive. But, they would rather I had gone to medical school.
