With Urban Secrets, I just really liked the idea of wandering around chatting to people.
ALAN CUMMINGThere are some days when you don’t feel like being Alan Cumming.
More Alan Cumming Quotes
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I think people deny themselves by putting themselves into categories.
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I actually find in America, there’s a slight snobbery about actors who go back and forth between big heavy dramas and popcorn fare. That always intrigues me, because that doesn’t exist in the same way in Britain. And I imagine it would be worse.
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Some things are just really difficult to do. That’s what I find hard. 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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For example, Americans seem reluctant to take on Shakespeare because you don’t think you’re very good at it – which is rubbish. You’re missing out here.
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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 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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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.
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You could then, when you lay that as the groundwork, say, “Here I am. This is what I think. I come in peace.” Then you’re able to push out, to be able to talk about more things. And that’s been a really heartening thing about my life, actually.
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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.
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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.
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Sometimes people do you a favour when they drop out of your life.
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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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I always think about a little gay boy in Wisconsin or a little lesbian in Arkansas seeing someone like me, and if I cannot be open in my life, how on earth can they?
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Sometimes people get really sniffy about the films you choose if you’ve done more dramatic projects or you’re classically trained.
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Often for me, if I hear a song I know, it clicks for me and I hear it in a different way and I think, “I could sing that song. I’ve got something to say about that song. Wanting to connect with an audience and wanting them to rethink songs.
ALAN CUMMING