“In my first year at drama school, I did this kids’ show called ‘Let’s See.”

I think people deny themselves by putting themselves into categories.

Once in a while it’s good to challenge yourself in a way that’s really daunting.

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.

Sometimes people do you a favour when they drop out of your life.

I’d been depressed before, of course. But I’m talking about really depressed. Not just feeling a bit down or sad, a depression that has something to do with biorhythms. I’m talking about the kind of depressed that floats in upon you like a fog.

I come more to Scotland than I ever used to, so I feel more connected to it, more part of the zeitgeist. You know when you realize you have a choice and I’m choosing my homeland. It’s funny: when you get older these things creep up to you.

It’s actually quite a good ethos for life: go into the unknown with truth, commitment, and openness and mostly you’ll be okay.

So if I’m swirling around on some wires, talking to Fred Flintstone, I make it the funnest I can. I also want to be good at it. I don’t want to be a crap cartoon character. I want to be proud I’m a vitamin!

Working with good people is always good.

Kids are more genuine. When they come up and want to talk to you, they don’t have an agenda. It’s more endearing and less piercing to your aura.

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.

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.

The thing with film and theater is that you always know the story so you can play certain cues in each scene with the knowledge that you know where the story’s going to end and how it’s going to go. But on television nobody knows what’s going to happen, even the writers.

I’m quite good, though I say it myself, at making strangers feel at ease.

I had to be a grown-up when I should have been a little boy, and now that I’m a grown-up my little-boyness has exploded out of me. I’ve lived my life backwards.

There are some days when you don’t feel like being Alan Cumming.

For me, drama is conflict.

I sort of knew I was a bit of a drama queen. I always threw tantrums, so I knew I wasn’t a normal child.

What fiction could match – in drama or suspense – man’s first walk on the Moon?

I’m into parlor dramas. I’m into theatre. I’m trained for the stage. I trained to do Chekhov and Shakespeare, I was trained for the stage.

I really hope someday in Hollywood, some producer or director will hire me only to do drama.

A life filled with silly social drama and gossip indicates that a person is disconnected from purpose and lacking meaningful goals. People on a path of purpose don’t have time for drama.

Drama in our lives is the greatest indicator that we’re not focused on meaningful goals. On the path to purpose you don’t have time for drama.

Free yourself from the complexities and drama of your life. Simplify. Look within. Within ourselves we all have the gifts and talents we need to fulfill the purpose we’ve been blessed with.