Shorty heartbreaker' LOVE BROUGHT ME TO NZ

NOW SHE’S GOT A SPECIAL REASON TO CELEBRATE

Cloe Willetts

When Shortland Street beauty Nivi Summer was cast as a cardiologist on the drama just two months after graduating from acting school, she didn’t have to look far for advice. The mum-of-one comes from a family of doctors back home in India and now her son Jed might be following suit!

“I’m the only actress in the family – all my cousins are either engineers or doctors,” says Nivi, 38, who joined the TV2 show as Dr Zara Mandal two years ago. “That’s probably why my son is so bright! He’s the cutest, brightest little boy and started writing letters and numbers when he was just over two. His day-care teacher says he’s ready for school now.”

The brown-eyed pre-schooler, who turns four next month, is the apple of his mum’s eye and she enthuses, “As well as my side, his dad also comes from a family of doctors and his grandfather was a surgeon. It seems Jed’s taking after them.”

More into fitness and fashion, Nivi says she has always been an entertainer. “I’ve wanted to be an actress since I was little. I used to sit in front of the TV and replicate what the actors said. I’d watch BBC and repeat everything in their accent, and Mum and Dad would laugh.”

Her first taste of the limelight was winning a Miss Hyderabad pageant at 16, followed by Miss Andhra Pradesh two years later. “I wanted to keep moving up to do Miss India, but it never ended up happening,” tells Nivi, who was born in Kerala, Southern India. “I met a boy when I was 20 who was half Indian and Irish and visiting from New Zealand and, after being together six months, I moved back with him. I didn’t know what to expect!”