Actors aren’t stupid, mostly, and if there’s a sensibility and an aesthetic that a director’s going for, if you’re aware of that too, you can do things to help that.
ALAN CUMMINGI started to itch to do a play again and ‘Macbeth’ came to the surface in my mind. I never thought I would do it in a conventional way. A sweaty Macbeth with blood on his arms coming in fresh from the battle doesn’t interest me.
More Alan Cumming Quotes
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I don’t avoid anyone but I always think some people hate me.
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Performing a one-man Macbeth feels like the greatest challenge.
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I’m not a fan of Twitter.
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I was so scared of going back to the theatre after Hamlet. I didn’t know if I’d do a play again because I was afraid of the power of it.
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I think American actors are much more intimidated by Shakespeare. I actually want to do this Shakespeare play in New York, but I think it’s interesting that there’s this gaping hole in the repertoire in the American theater, which is Shakespeare.
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I usually can find a way to do a character to make it real and work. But sometimes it’s a struggle sustaining that, because there’s such a level of personal involvement and personal, physical, and emotional distraughtness.
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I’m Scottish first, and it’s odd to hear that I’m a Scottish-American.
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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.
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Finally, the scariest thing about abuse of any shape or form, is, in my opinion, not the abuse itself, but that if it continues it can begin to feel commonplace and eventually acceptable.
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You can feel it coming and you can see where it is going to take you but you are powerless, utterly powerless to stop it. I know now.
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It’s interesting, for me sappy means sentimental and something that gets you in your heart, gets you emotional. That’s what I mean. Also, of course, it means that I’m slightly setting up the audience that there’s a bit of fun involved, as well.
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Macbeth was the first play I ever read.
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It just seems to me that it’s hypocritical for us as a culture to say, “Bullying is a terrible thing,” when really, they are just reflecting what the society is doing.
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Actually I like working kind of fast, because if you got it, why bother doing it over and over?
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It’s hardly ever done, compared to how often it’s done in other companies, not just Britain. Someone from the Roundabout Theater Company – I said, “You never do Shakespeare.” And he said, “Yes, we’re not very good at it.” And I thought, “What a terrible thing to say.”.
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