“I don’t want to keep doing the same thing day by day,” says the actor, writer and TV host Alan Cumming, reflecting on his wildly eclectic CV. “At 61, I have a more youthful spirit than most people my age. I’m curious and fascinated by life, and I don’t believe in staying in your lane. I want to be thrilled and provoked and I want to feel alive. Doing all these jobs allows me to do that.”
An LGBTQ activist and stalwart of the stage and screen, Scottish-born Cumming is a sharply dressed jack-of-all-trades, who has been in children’s films (Spy Kids, The Smurfs), screen musicals (Reefer Madness, Annie, Josie and the Pussycats), costume dramas (Emma, Nicholas Nickleby), superhero movies (X2: X Men United and the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday) and played a baddie in a Bond film (GoldenEye).
He has wowed theatre audiences with his Tony Award-winning Emcee in Cabaret and his one-man show of Macbeth, and won plaudits for his soul-baring memoirs: 2014’s Not My Father’s Son and 2019’s Baggage. In the former, he reflected on surviving his father’s violent outbursts, noting: “You can’t go through sustained cruelty and terror for a large swathe of your life and not talk about it and be okay.”
Alan Cumming and Tony Shalhoub in Spy Kids (2001) (Photo: IMDB)
