Even by his own admission, Tom Conti is more often than not the oldest person in the room these days. And the 82-year-old - an Eighties Hollywood heartthrob - laughs that the women who approach him mostly want to tell him that their mum, or gran, loves him.
So today it is quite a novelty to have sitting next to him on his sofa a lady who is 15 years his senior - and whose story is every bit as fascinating as his own.
The Scottish veteran of stage and screen wowed a new generation of filmgoers last year with what critics gushed was his best performance to date - as Albert Einstein, shortly after the Jewish scientist fled Nazi Germany, in blockbuster movie Oppenheimer.
And that’s one of the reasons that today - in the living room of his impressive, Art Deco home in Hampstead, north London - the actor is hanging on the every word of a remarkable woman, 97-year-old Elsa Shamash, as she remembers her own dramatic escape from Hitler’s persecution, 85 years ago this year.
Elsa was one of nearly 10,000 Jewish children who were rescued from Nazi-controlled territory and brought to safety in Britain - the so-called Kindertransport - during the nine months prior to the outbreak of World War II.
Tom spoke to her - and the Mirror - as he prepares to compere a special anniversary concert held by The Association of Jewish Refugees on May 12 to remember the famous rescue effort, and the continued struggle against antisemitism.
“It's important to do things like this, to keep remembering,” says Tom. “And particularly because of the climate of today, when all hell seems to have broken loose, I think it’s important to get involved.
“It's so hard to imagine what Elsa went through. I mean, even listening to her, you can't put yourself there, you know, no matter how powerful your imagination is. You can't imagine yourself in situations of such fear, when you just don’t know what is going to happen to your life.”
He says he felt the same about playing Einstein in Oppenheimer, a brief yet pivotal appearance in which the genius physicist - himself a Jewish refugee - warns that Hitler could be building a devastating nuclear bomb.
The subject - at a time where the nuclear threat is more real than ever - made Tom even more determined to get his portrayal right, he says.
“I think it's a really important film, some people have told me it’s the most important movie they’ve ever seen.
“I got a biography or Einstein and researched about his life. But the research only tells you so much. I wanted to get his voice right, but discovered something extraordinary, that there is no film of Einstein which has sound. The only piece I could find is a recording of him saying, ‘I agree’. So I had to build his voice from that.”
But he says the hardest part of all was the famous Einstein moustache and frizzy head of hair. “He had a big, horrid moustache. How anyone can wear a moustache I don’t know. You get soup in it, spaghetti sauce, everything, it’s just a terrible thing to have. I’d have to send them photos so they could see how it was going.
“Then there was the hair. On the first day I was in the make-up chair at 5 in the morning, because they had to shape it, it took forever. So at the end of the day when they brought me in to wash it, I said, ‘you know, let’s just leave it’. So I didn’t wash my hair for five days so I wouldn’t have to go through all that every day.”
Once filming was over Tom was told to leave the moustache on in case they needed to reshoot any scenes. He recalls: “They wanted me to keep it for quite a long time. I kept emailing them saying, ‘Can I take this damn moustache off now?’ And they would say no, just a bit longer.
“And eventually I thought, ‘oh this is ridiculous; and shaved it off. I told them if they wanted me in a moustache again they’d have to stick it back on.”
His efforts to look and sound like the famous scientist does mean he rarely gets recognised in the streets by the younger generation. But the actor, a Hollywood favourite in his younger years, admits he still receives fanmail - and even, occasionally, knickers - by his army of older female fans.
Still dapper and handsome with his deep, rolling Scottish accent, Tom chuckles: “You see, life for an actor starts with, ‘Oh I love you,’ then a few years pass and you get, ‘Oh, my mother loves you’, then, ‘Oh, my grandmother just loves you’. So I’m well into the grandmothers now. It’ll be great grandmothers soon!
“I get letters sending me photos and asking me to sign them. But I’ve had knickers too, which is always fun. Sometimes they come in an envelope, sometimes someone gives me them at the stage door. Of course I’m flattered, but the first thing you do is laugh. I mean, am I supposed to wear them?”
More recently, Tom has had to get used to an even stranger reality - that his daughter, hugely successful ventriloquist Nina Conti - is becoming more famous than him.
Famed for her foul-mouthed sidekick Monkey, and using face masks to make it look like audience members are talking, the 50-year-old shot to fame in 2002 after winning the BBC New Comedy Awards.
Tom says: “Yes, I’m not longer Tom Conti, I’m now Nina’s father! She works all over the world. I’m so proud of her.”
He remembers how her neither he nor her mother, Tom’s wife of 57 years, Kara Wilson, had any idea that she had decided to become a ventriloquist until one day when she invited them to come to see her at a theatre in London’s Shepherd’s Bush.
He says: “We asked her, ‘what are you doing?’ And she said, ‘Ventriloquism’. I said, ‘What?’ So we went along win great trepidation because I was really scared for her. I had no idea what she was going to do.
“And she came onto the stage, and someone offstage said something to her, and she replied, and that person said something back. And I realised there was no other person, it was here. And out came a puppet. I was just astounded. And since then she has gone from strength to strength.”
And Tom, who is no stranger to making people laugh, appearing as Miranda’s father in the hit BBC sitcom, says he might soon join her. “Nina got me to try ventriloquism, and she said I was good at it and that we should do a double act. So we’ve talked about it and I think it would be a really a fun thing to do.”
Born in Paisley, Scotland, Tom’s father was Italian and both his parents worked as hairdressers, but managed to send him to a private Catholic boys’ school.
He trained at Glasgow’s Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, before shooting to fame as Scottish poet Gowan McGlad in 1983 film Reuben, Reuben - which earned him an Oscar nomination - then as Greek lothario Costas in opposite Pauline Collins in Shirley Valentine in 1989.
More recently Tom has starred in 2012 superhero film The Dark Knight Rises and blockbuster Paddington 2, in which he plays an irate judge who puts the loveable bear in jail. “At first I was a worried kids would hate me forever,” he says. “But thankfully my cantankerous character turns out to be all right in the end and makes amends.”
Tom says that while his own two grandsons, Arthur, 20, and Drummond, 13, have never been that impressed with his fame, his hilarious two episodes of Friends alongside Jennifer Saunders, playing the tipsy, obnoxious parents of Ross’s second wife Emily, have earned him precious grandad points.
He says the 1998 role was one role he knew he couldn’t to turn down. “Everyone was watching it back then and, of course, when I said to the family I had been asked to do some episodes, they all went crazy.
“If I had come in and said I've just been offered a movie with De Niro and Pacino, they would have said, ‘oh, that's terrific’. Come in and say, I've just been asked to do an episode of Friends, and oh my God, it was like winning the lottery.
“All these year on and my oldest grandson is a big fan of Friends, he’s very impressed that I was in it.”
Some would be quite happy to retire having achieved so much, and especially with his collection of vintage Rolls Royces parked on his driveway.
But Tom, who recently ‘downsized’ after selling his previous home, a sprawling Edwardian mansion, to film director Tim Burton for £11million, says he still hasn’t ticked off all of his acting dreams.
Tom, who is working on a new production of Anton Chekhov play The Seagull, opening later in the year. “There are still many things to do, terrific actors who I’d love to work. I still haven’t realised my dream to work with Nicole Kidman. No, no, actors never retire.”
Elsa Shamash recalls her 'terrifying' childhood as she recalls dramatic escape from Hitler’s persecution
SHE is just three years shy of her centenary, but Elsa Shamash still has a spring in her step - and brushes off all offers of help - as she walks unaided into Tom Conti’s house.
Most impressive of all, the 97-year-old remembers every single detail of her childhood as Germany fell under the grip of the Nazis, events which are now part of the history books.
Elsa’s father was a pioneering radiologist and her family, who lived in Berlin, was wealthy. But after Adolf Hitler came to power everything began to change.
Her and brother Heinz had to leave private school and transfer to a Jewish school, the family’s non-Jewish maid had to quit - Jews and non-Jews were no longer allowed to work together - and one by one, her non-Jewish friends’ parents stopped them from playing with her.
“From an early age I knew that we were hated just because we were Jews,” she remembers.
Elsa also remembers Kristallnacht, the night of November 9-10, 1938 when Nazis attacked Jewish persons and property.
She says: “I remember every moment, it was terrifying. They were taking Jews into concentration camps. The next morning the phone rang and I answered it. The person said they were Gestapo and were coming to get my dad. He quickly left and hid for three days.”
The next morning her parents decided to get their daughters after, and Elsa and her brother got places on the a Kindertransport train and left Berlin in March 1939. She remembers: “I was only 11 but I had to look after children younger than me. The carriages were packed but we were all quiet because there were no other adults, just the Nazi guards, until we crossed the border to Holland.
After arriving in Britain with just a shilling and a suitcase, Elsa and her brother were put in a boarding school as they waited for their parents to find a way to escape. She says: “I used to cry myself to sleep. When war broke out I thought I would never see my parents again.”
Her parents were able to escape in April 1939, and eventually settled in Cambridge and after the war her dad was one of the first GPs in the new NHS. Elsa, who went on to marry have now has two children, six grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren, says: “I’m so sad when I look at the world today. I feel very strongly about the plight of refugees today. I feel that politicians haven’t learned the lessons of history.”
Michael Newman, CEO - The Association of Jewish Refugee (AJR): says: “On behalf of us all at The Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR) and the Kinder, who were able to come to this country - we are enormously grateful to Tom Conti for his support and personal interest in this compelling story and the lives of the youngest of the Holocaust refugees. The concert marks both the rich tapestry of family and heritage the Kinder left behind and the chance they were given to make a new life in Great Britain. It will be deeply moving to listen to the music of continental Europe, 85-years since the historic rescue of some of the youngest victims of Nazi terror – it is our fervent wish that this important commemoration will help to further remembrance of the Kindertransport and the Holocaust”.
For more information visit www.ajr.org.uk and to book tickets for the concert marking 85 years since the Kindertransport, visit www.wigmore-hall.org.uk