Phylicia Rashad's Daughter Has Grown Up To Be Gorgeous

Anyone who watched The Cosby Show knows Phylicia Rashad's TV family, since the Emmy nominee played the NBC sitcom's matriarch, lawyer and mother Clair Huxtable. But what about the actress' real family?

Turns out, one of Phylicia's daughters followed her footsteps on stage and screen — and even co-starred with her in a Lifetime movie! Born in 1986, Condola Rashad watched her mom and her other famous family members take the spotlight and then charted a path of her own. After attending the California Institute of the Arts, Condola returned to New York City to take the city by storm, earning multiple Tony nominations for her Broadway performances and landing a buzzy part on a Showtime drama. 

And as if that weren't impressive enough, Condola then turned her attention to music and released a solo EP. From baby daughter to Space Daughter, check out Condola's life so far and her evolution as an actor.

Talking to Town & Country, Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen said they were encouraged to explore the arts, so they did the same for their daughters. (Allen's daughter, Condola Rashad's cousin, is dancer and actress Vivian Nixon, who boasts a recurring role on Grey's Anatomy.)

At 4 years old, Condola apparently said, "Mommy, I need a piano teacher, a reading teacher, and a dancing teacher," and Phylicia agreed to her terms. "We were included in whatever they were doing, and I aspired to that level of professionalism and love for what they do," Condola explained to Town & Country, reflecting on her idolization of her famous mom and aunt. And a 2017 WSJ. Magazine profile revealed Condola took weekly piano lessons for 11 years, from when she was 7 to when she was 18.

Even though she's Hollywood royalty, Condola made her own success. "I've never made a single phone call for Condola," Phylicia told Town & Country. As Condola explained to W magazine in 2017, she toes the "very fine line" of making a name for herself and embracing her lineage: "I'm not going to pretend that's not my family but I'm also not going to ride anybody's coattails, either."

Condola Rashad went by her middle name, Phylea, as a young girl, only switching to Condola in college. "It's my paternal grandmother's name," she explained to Essence in 2020.

"My family and all of my friends — anybody that I knew before college — actually called me and still calls me Phylea," she added. "I decided to utilize, finally, my real first name because as a professional artist, I knew that Phylea was going to be very close to Phylicia." She admitted going by Phylea Rashad would "be a little too confusing," so, since she was going to college and no one knew her yet, she decided to reinvent herself with a different name.

Phylicia Rashad's daughter isn't the only person in her family to change their name. Her dad changed his name, too: Born Bobby Moore, the football star adopted the name Ahmad Rashad in 1973 after he converted to Islam, according to Sports Illustrated.

Condola Rashad and mom Phylicia Rashad finally worked together when they co-starred in Lifetime's 2012 adaptation of Steel Magnolias. Condola played the role of bride Shelby, the part played by Julia Roberts in the 1989 film. But Phylicia didn't play Condola's mom in the TV movie — that part went to Queen Latifah. Instead, Phylicia played "busybody" Clairee.

During the production, Condola filmed her characters' wedding scene eight times, as she told Broadway.com in 2012. "My mind was definitely blown," she said, noting, "I thought, 'This is how it will feel to get married,' which was a little bizarre, especially because my mother was sitting there looking at me. And as a different character!"

Fun fact: Condola and Phylicia have another shared credit on IMDb. Mother and daughter — and Condola's dad, too — had uncredited roles in a 1994 episode of Ghostwriter.

After guest-starring roles on The Good Wife, Smash, and Master of None, Condola Rashad landed a starring role in the Showtime drama Billions in 2016. Playing ambitious Assistant District Attorney Kate Sacker, she's shared the screen with Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis.

"Kate is a person who is highly intuitive, a problem-solver, but she's often quite... she's kind of panther-like," Rashad told W magazine. "She notices everything but she doesn't say everything. Everything that happens in the room or outside of the room, she clocks." Regardless of her character's skill, Rashad noted that "she can't really do all that she's able to do" because of her position.

With so many legal issues to unpack on the show, Rashad told Stephen Colbert in 2017 that her sister, who was working as an attorney for the mayor of Atlanta at the time, is her "go-to" resource for any questions that spring up during production. "She's like, 'Way to get the job that I wanted,'" Rashad added with a laugh. "Totally frustrated by it."

Condola Rashad has twice earned Tony Award nominations two years in a row, according to BroadwayWorld.com. In 2012, she was recognized in the Best Featured Actress in a Play category for her performance in Stick Fly. A year later, she was nominated in the same category for her work in The Trip to Bountiful. She earned a place in that category again in 2017 for her part in A Doll's House, Part 2. And in 2018, she was nominated in the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her version of Joan of Arc in Saint Joan.

"I'm so filled with gratitude to have been recognized in this way, and it's a very interesting emotion because taking on the role is a huge reward in itself," Rashad told Deadline after that fourth nod. "After the show there often will be girls outside [the stage door] who are, like, 17, 18, and they always say that since they were young, Joan of Arc has been a part of their life, and they are so moved by our story. That, to me, is the biggest gift, to be able to tell this story."

In 2020, Condola Rashad released her EP Space Daughter under the name Dola. "That title came to me before I even created the music," she told Broadway.com. "I didn't quite know what it was going to be. I knew it was going to be a conceptual and visual EP; this is my playful ode to the Divine Feminine." Rashad explained to the site that she's been working on music for a while. She even recorded an album with her former band, Dola and the Stoop Kids, while she was performing in Romeo and Juliet, but she put her music career on the back burner while her acting career took off.

The multi-hyphenate star released her music independently to preserve her artistic vision, and she decided to donate all of her personal proceeds from Space Daughter to various charities. The single "What I Said," for instance, benefits Campaign Zero. "What I really appreciated about Campaign Zero is that there are concrete ways that we can all contribute to actually ending police brutality in this country," she shared.