The acclaimed actor Tom Conti is to make a surprise visit to the Ambleside Film Festival on Friday.
The screen and West End favourite will be in conversation with the audience at Zeffirellis Inward Eye festival on Friday afternoon. (Screen 1, 4.30).
Famous for playing Charles Bovary in Madame Bovary, the Jewish novelist Adam Morris in The Glittering Prizes, and Norman in Alan Ayckbourn’s Norman Conquest trilogy, Conti has had a wide-ranging career on the stage, in the cinema and on TV.
Born Thomas Antonio Conti in Paisley in 1941 to a Scottish mother, his father was an Italian immigrant.
Conti initially trained for a career as a classical pianist at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, but switched to acting. He began in repertory theatre in Glasgow and London, and then had a number of successful TV mini-series roles before hitting the headlines as the paralysed sculptor in the right-to-die play, Whose life is it anyway? in London and on Broadway.
American audiences loved his starring roles in Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, and Reuben, Reuben for which he earned a leading actor Oscar nomination.
He starred in Shirley Valentine opposite Pauline Collins, Someone Else’s America, and Blind Revenge.
And he earned glowing reviews for his performances in Jeffrey Barnard is Unwell in several different stage productions, and One Helluva Life.
He’s also a writer, and has published a thriller novel. Conti is married to the Scottish actress Kara Wilson, and his daughter Nina is an actress and ventriloquist.
Zeffirellis managing director Dorothy Smith, who is organising the festival along with Hopscotch Films, said: “We are very excited that Tom Conti is joining our list of actors, writers, producers and directors who will be talking to our audiences here. We love his work, and we know that he has appealed to a wide range of cinema and theatre audiences.”
To book tickets for this talk, and for any of the films at the festival, go to https://www.zeffirellis.com/inward-eye-film-festival or call 015394 33845.
