I like working on things that are very different and that involve different disguises.
ALAN CUMMINGYou 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.
More Alan Cumming Quotes
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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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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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You do get really exhausted doing films. You work such long hours, and after a while, things can get out of perspective, just like if anyone’s tired, things get on top of them.
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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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Be who you like as long as you mean it.
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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 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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Most people will never know anything beyond what they see with their own two eyes.
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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 think American actors are much more intimidated by Shakespeare.
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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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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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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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So the experts think we could have an AIDS-free generation in Africa by 2015, even if the mothers are positive.
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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.
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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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It is not hard to feel like an outsider. I think we have all felt like that at one time or another.
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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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Sometimes people do you a favour when they drop out of your life.
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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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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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In terms of the sort of class, and the sort of snobby, slightly on the back-foot thing Britain has. But it’s much more prevalent in America.
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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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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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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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