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
He ... knew, in that instant, that his life would not be an easy one-he was different, he looked different, he thought differently.
I like working on things that are very different and that involve different disguises.
When you're on TV, you come into people's homes. In theater and film, they go to you - to the temple of the cinema or theater. And it's very different.
It's a sort of anti-Broadway musical. It's odd, disjointed and spiky.
'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.
Sometimes with people I know, they're playing the hunky action guy and there's resistance to them coming out because it's so connected to straight masculinity. There's a plastic kind of movie star who has a very short shelf with very small kind of ambition. I see that but I still don't agree with it.
With 'Urban Secrets,' I just really liked the idea of wandering around chatting to people.
I think you can be as big as you like as long as you mean it. I really do.
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.
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.