Alan Cumming is not a fan of dwelling on the past. “I don’t really have prepared ideas or thoughts about things from the past so much,” the actor, singer, novelist, activist, and general polymath says on Zoom as he prepares to embark on his upcoming one-man tour for Uncut, a one-man cabaret (yes, the title is a circumcision joke). “I try to pull the rug from under myself all the time, and not hearken back to things that I’ve done.”
That sort of attitude is what has enabled the 59-year-old to reinvent himself time and again: first as a character actor, appearing as a slew of sundry villains and stand-out supporting roles in Goldeneye, Eyes Wide Shut, and Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (in which he played both the little green alien the Great Gazoo, and rockstar Mick Jagged: “I did a little homage to Ginger Spice with the furry Union Jack tunic I wore,” he says gleefully, showing me a picture on his phone). After becoming a household name with his Tony-winning role in Cabaret, he continued to stay booked and busy with turns in cult classics (Josie and the Pussycats, Burlesque), big-screen crowdpleasers (Spy Kids, X2) and soapy network dramas (The Good Wife and The Good Fight).
At no point throughout his eclectic, decades-long career, Cumming says, has he given much thought to audience or industry expectations of him. “I don’t really listen to advice,” he says. “I mean, if I was to ask for it, I would listen to it, but it’s just people spouting bon mots about things. I’ve never really done anything in my life that way.” That gut instinct paid off last year, when he appeared as the flamboyant master of affairs of his Scottish castle in Peacock’s surprise hit The Traitors, a twist on the traditional Mafia parlor game that enables Cumming to flaunt a series of increasingly extravagant costumes (his favorite is the black cape he wore during a funeral scene, where three cast members were buried alive — “I can’t believe i’m saying those words out loud,” he says, describing it) and the velvet-rich purr with which he pronounces the word “murder.”
“I can’t tell you how much I love doing it,” he says of the show. “I get to play this crazy character, in this really fun game. Everybody loves it, it pays really well, I get to go to Scotland, and it doesn’t take too long to shoot. It’s completely surprising, but I’m really happy with it in my life.” From the surprise success of Traitors, Cumming says, he has learned to avoid “doing the thing that seems to be the right thing to do, or the logical thing, or the nice offer. [Now] I just think, well, what do I want to do?” Rolling Stone caught up with Cumming to discuss his iconic past roles, his favorite sad songs, and his BFF-ship with Monica Lewinsky.
You seem like you’re constantly working. What do you do to relax and unwind?
Just this weekend, I was up in the Catskills and my house there. I love it. I was working a little bit but you also go walk in the woods, chilling out and cooking and stuff. I love seeing my friends and hosting them, and not necessarily being out in public. I love going out and having fun and drinking or whatever, but it’s also nice to do it in an environment where you’re not observed. I’m not going to, like, shoot up heroin or anything like that, but the level of self-consciousness you live with is massive. To take that away and have a home that is big enough for your friends to come over and do all that — that’s one of the best things about being successful is that you can make your own space if you like.
What are some of the worst things about being successful?
The lack of anonymity and the huge level of self-consciousness. I had to walk out earlier to get something and a man going past gasped and said, “You’re famous. Can I shake your hand?” You have to sort of galvanize yourself to open the front door and think, “Okay, I’m going out into the world now.” And that’s tiring, on those days when you don’t feel like it. People are usually very nice, their reactions and things. I do feel sort of beloved. But it’s just constant. So that’s why I like having my own sanctuary, my own space, and I can have friends over or not, or just go on my own or with my husband. That’s the biggest downside — it’s just a constant, and it’s not something you can really turn back.
When I was 40 — so, you know, a long time ago — I was at Sundance and I was having a bit of a freakout. Sundance is like that — people are constantly grabbing you, literally. And I was just over it, and I was going to turn 40. So I’d been drinking, and I was crying, and I remember Grant [Shaffer, my husband] saying to me, “Is this because you’re about to turn 40?” And I said “No, I just don’t want to be famous anymore.” And then I just thought, even if I stopped working right then and there, that part of it would still carry on for years. And it would probably get even more annoying. So you might as well enjoy it.” That’s like life, I guess. Unless you kill yourself, of course.
What role would you say you get the most recognized for?
Spy Kids is a massive one because young adults probably saw that when they were little. I love that because people come up to me, saying I’ve been a magical part of their childhood. It’s really nice. I used to do a thing where someone would come up to me, and before they said anything I would try and scan them like some sort of spy film. “Well–put together woman in her mid-30s: probably The Good Wife,” or, “The geeky guy with a beard and a cut-off shirt: probably X-Men.” Broadway people, you can sort of tell ahead of time as well. But it’s hard now because I’ve been around the block for so long. And then people say things like, “I love your soap.”
I knew you had a body fragrance, but I didn’t know you had a soap.
I don’t anymore. This was a long time ago. But everyone talks about it, because it was pretty nuts. It was sort of a project about celebrity endorsement and mocking celebrity endorsement, whilst at the same time actually being a celebrity endorsement. I really liked that. That’s right up my street. And so I had the fragrance and we also had the soap, which was called “Cumming In a Bar.”
In high school, I used to listen to your version of “I Don’t Care Much” off the Cabaret soundtrack and I would ugly cry. What’s the song that never fails to make you ugly cry?
There’s so many. “To Make You Feel My Love” — the Adele cover of the Bob Dylan song. That gets me partly because my brother told me that was the song he played with his ex wife when they were nearly going to split up, and then they did, so there’s an added sort of resonance there. Also “And So It Goes,” by Billy Joel, which I used to sing. That was really hard to sing. I have a whole album called Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs, so that’s my wheelhouse, as they say.
What do you think draws you to sappy songs?
Because you can act to them. I can only sing songs that I can act. You’re joking about “I Don’t Care Much,” but it’s about a character that is saying something about someone, and in quite an intense way. You could do that song in lots of different ways, but I did it in the character of the someone who was losing it at the time and just in a hot mess of their life and was just saying, “Fuck, I’m done. I don’t care.” I like songs that I can actually inhabit. It’s partly because of my sort of inferiority complex about singing. You don’t come to see me do a concert because of my mellifulous tones, you come to see me act songs. And I also am not interested in singing nice songs. Do you know what I mean? Songs that don’t have balls don’t really interest me. One of the things that Liza Minelli talked to me about was, if you’re scared to tell people, “Oh, come and see me in a concert,” think of it like the song is a play and you’re a character in a play.
In your cabaret, you joke about name dropping celebrities — and you just mentioned Liza.
Name dropping is seen as a negative thing, like you’re trying to show off. I’m not. I’m just telling you a story. It sets the scene better. Do you know what I mean? But I remember, Jeff Goldblum, he was filming this thing with my friend and I went to visit them on the set. I had one of those Russian hats on, the things that flap up like that. And he goes, “I really like your hat.” And I said, “Gosh, you know who gave me this hat? Faye Dunaway.” And he said, “You know who told me never to namedrop? Bobby De Niro.”
I was surprised to read that you and Monica Lewinsky are such good friends. How did you guys meet, and what did you connect over?
I had gone to Paris to write about the haute couture shows for Marie Claire magazine. That’s my life, I suppose. When it came out, they had a party for me — those were the days when a magazine would throw a party for an article. Monica was invited because they had done something about her the issue before or something. We sat next to each other at dinner, and we’ve been friends ever since. I’m seeing her tonight, actually. From that first night, I’ve always felt really protective of her. She’s a really good person and I’ve been so, so happy that she’s had this “phoenix rising from the ashes” moment of not only making her own work as a producer and as a model, but all the stuff she does in the anti-bullying, activism world. The world has absolutely changed its mind about her, compared to what it thought 20 years ago, and how I the emphasis has gone onto the men in the story who actually were the ones abusing their power. Obviously, there was #MeToo, but even before that, she did that TED Talk, and she did that totally on her own. She really started that change because she was strong enough to do so. She did that on her own. She had to go away for a long time and recover, because she has had the most trauma of anyone I know. It’s incredible that she is as lovely and well-balanced and kind a person that she is, considering what she’s gone through.
What would you say is the best piece of advice you’ve gotten and the worst piece of advice you’ve gotten?
I suppose the best piece of advice was from an old salty sea dog Scottish actor in like 1985, when I was in Scotland when I was 20. He played Banquo in Macbeth at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow, and I was Malcolm. I was fussing over some line, and he said, “When in doubt, do it with a look.” Say what you mean, and do the lines with your face added to that. It’s so simple, but so deadly. Another thing someone in Scotland said, is: “You can be as big as you like, as long as you mean it.” And that, I think, is brilliant and true. [In] Traitors, even, I’m being this insane person. But I’m completely rooted and completely committed to it.
I think I’ve forged my own advice — I’ve had such a weird path. I’ve not really met many people who have had the same path as me or do the same things as me. And also sometimes I think when people offer advice, there’s an agenda of why they’re doing it that I don’t think is always healthy. I think it’s better for you to find your own advice. When you’re new and young — and I’ve been new and young in various countries — people, especially actors, love to sort of proffer things. And I just didn’t listen. Sometimes to my, I’ve made some bad decisions. But I wouldn’t ever give advice to someone unless they came and asked me.
Was there any role you played that you wished you hadn’t taken?
There’s a couple of things I’ve been kind of elbowed into or slightly tricked into doing. There’s been films that I thought were gonna be great that turned out to be terrible. But I don’t have any regrets about any of it. I like flouting people’s expectations and I think it’s really annoying when people are like, “Why are you doing that?” I remember, years ago, I had two press junkets near each other: one was Titus, the Shakespeare film, and one was Flintstones In Viva Rock Vegas. It was all the same journalists, and they were like, with steam coming out of their ears. I was like, “Deal with it, bitches. I’m an actor. And also, how much do you think Titus paid?”
Is there a film you’ve done or a role you’ve done that you wish had gotten more attention?
That happens quite a lot, especially with queer films. They don’t always get into the mainstream. I did one called [2012’s] Any Day Now about a gay couple in the Seventies, trying to adopt a Down Syndrome boy, and it doesn’t go well. It’s a really beautiful film. They brought it out in December, and sometimes you think those films have got a chance for the awards and all that, but it’s kind of detrimental, because it gets lost in the mix. It would have been better if more people had seen it. The whole point of making a film for me is for people to see it, and hear that story. The story that was interesting, for me, was about gay people trying to adopt and how, unless you have money, of course, it hasn’t really changed that much, to try adopting through the state system.
Is there a specific type of role when you get a script, and you’re like, “I’m done with that. I’d rather not do that anymore”?
Over the years, I’ve got lots of drag queens. I’m a terrible drag queen. I’m queer and I can do big performances, so people think, “Get him in.” But they don’t think it through. I’m not a very attractive woman. I’ve not wanted to do that — not because of any anti-drag queen thing, but because I don’t think I’m very good.
You’ve been in a lot of cult classics — Josie and the Pussycats, Spice World. What draws you to those? Did you realize they’d be cult classics at the time?
I don’t think you do at the time. Sometimes a cult classic means it didn’t do very well at the time but it slowly built an audience over time. Spice World was a big hit because everyone was freaked out about the Spice Girls at the time, and now I think it’s a great pleasure that people appreciate it at a more objective distance and see what a fun, clever film it is, and how it’s in that genre of band caper movies that they don’t make any more. In terms of Josie the Pussycats, that was a huge bomb when it came out. They marketed it so wrongly because it’s such a weird film, but actually so clever and ahead of its time. So it varies. I guess what it is is a different audience comes to the film than when it came out, and yeah, I’ve got a lot of those. Reefer Madness is like that to people. When it came out, nobody really saw it, but now they’re doing the stage version of it again in L.A., and I quite like that. I enjoy being old enough that people come up to you and say they’ve seen films that they perhaps weren’t even born when they came out. I really enjoy the cyclical aspect of all that. I think life is like that — life is just the same shit, with different costumes.
