Sometimes people do you a favour when they drop out of your life.
ALAN CUMMINGIt’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.”.
More Alan Cumming Quotes
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In my first year at drama school, I did this kids’ show called ‘Let’s See.
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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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He … knew, in that instant, that his life would not be an easy one-he was different, he looked different, he thought differently.
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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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I think American actors are much more intimidated by Shakespeare.
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I don’t avoid anyone but I always think some people hate me.
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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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Actually I like working kind of fast, because if you got it, why bother doing it over and over?
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Pantomime is a big thing in the cultural calendar of my country, you know. So subtlety’s not my forte.
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I’m not a fan of Twitter.
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If the president of the country is not actually saying something, allowing equality to happen, how could you expect to counsel kids not to bully other kids?
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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’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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It’s exciting to be with really, really good people. Some people make you feel like you’ve got to up your game.
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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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Nowadays people don’t know how to handle it if all the ends aren’t tied up and they’re not told what to think in films. And if they’re challenged, they think it’s something wrong with the film.
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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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I’m Scottish first, and it’s odd to hear that I’m a Scottish-American.
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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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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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My mum always told me I was precious, while my dad always told me I was worthless. I think that’s a good grounding for a balanced life.
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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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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 like the tragedies way more than the comedies because they’re so universal.
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You should *have* an experience; it shouldn’t just *be* an experience.
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Performing a one-man Macbeth feels like the greatest challenge.
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