Alan Cumming
Alan Cumming
Alan Cumming, OBE, is a Scottish character actor, author, and activist who has appeared in numerous films, television shows and plays. His London stage appearances include Hamlet, the Maniac in Accidental Death of an Anarchist, the lead in Bent, and the National Theatre of Scotland's The Bacchae. On Broadway he has appeared in The Threepenny Opera, as the master of ceremonies in Cabaret, Design for Living and a one-man adaptation of Macbeth. His best-known film roles include his performances in...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth27 January 1965
CityAberfeldy, Scotland
It's actually quite a good ethos for life: go into the unknown with truth, commitment, and openness and mostly you'll be okay.
'Macbeth' was the first play I ever read. In fact, I remember my brother Tom, who is six years older than me, coming home from school and telling me about it. He was the one that really got me going.
It's a sort of anti-Broadway musical. It's odd, disjointed and spiky.
I'm Scottish first, and it's odd to hear that I'm a Scottish-American.
I think people deny themselves by putting themselves into categories.
He ... knew, in that instant, that his life would not be an easy one-he was different, he looked different, he thought differently.
You do get really exhausted doing films. You work such long hours, and after a while, things can get out of perspective, just like if anyone's tired, things get on top of them.
Actually I like working kind of fast, because if you got it, why bother doing it over and over?
My feeling about work is it's much more about the experience of doing it than the end product. Sometimes things that are really great and make lots of money are miserable to make, and vice versa.
It is not hard to feel like an outsider. I think we have all felt like that at one time or another.
I like working on things that are very different and that involve different disguises.
It's really rare for film directors to be that interested in things other than themselves.
Nowadays people don't know how to handle it if all the ends aren't tied up and they're not told what to think in films. And if they're challenged, they think it's something wrong with the film.
I was horrified when Richard Chamberlain and Rupert Everett said gay actors should stay in the closet. They were saying to people that they should live a lie and not be liberated, to live in fear of being found out