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.
ALAN CUMMINGKids 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.
More Alan Cumming Quotes
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I like working on things that are very different and that involve different disguises.
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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 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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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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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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Most people will never know anything beyond what they see with their own two eyes.
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Romeo is the most misunderstood character in literature, I think. He’s hardcore to play because he’s displaying the characteristics of Hamlet at the beginning, and, well, then everything else happens.
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Once in a while it’s good to challenge yourself in a way that’s really daunting.
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I’m quite good, though I say it myself, at making strangers feel at ease.
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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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Performing a one-man Macbeth feels like the greatest challenge.
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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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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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If they’re not seeing that their society sees gay people as equals, how could you tell them what they’re doing is wrong?
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I like the tragedies way more than the comedies because they’re so universal.
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I’m not a fan of Twitter.
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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.
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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.
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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 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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A sweaty Macbeth with blood on his arms coming in fresh from the battle doesn’t interest me.
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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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It’s actually quite a good ethos for life: go into the unknown with truth, commitment, and openness and mostly you’ll be okay.
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There are some days when you don’t feel like being Alan Cumming.
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Be who you like as long as you mean it.
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With all this stuff going on, with the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” and things like that, we are second-class citizens, definitely.
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