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.
ALAN CUMMINGThe 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.
More Alan Cumming Quotes
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I love a film where I get squished by two dumpsters or I fly through the air.
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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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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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I think American actors are much more intimidated by Shakespeare.
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I 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.
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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!
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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.
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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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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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It’s about how you exist as a person in the world, and the idea that your work is more important than you as a person is a horrible, horrible message.
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When there’s an adult person who’s scaring you, you grow up pretty quickly.
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It is actually important to do songs they’re familiar with. Also, I love those songs. In a way, I think I’ve changed people’s perceptions of what a cabaret show like this could be.
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If you are a cabaret artist and you are mostly singing other people’s songs, you’re asking them to rethink a song, listen to it in a different way. The most impact you can have while asking them to re-listen to a song is if it’s a song they know very well.
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Be who you like as long as you mean it.
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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.
ALAN CUMMING






