Hollywood star and best-selling author, Alan Cumming, discusses politics, Pride, the inevitability of aging and forgetting who you’ve had sex with.
“I don’t understand why we have made something that is inevitable, into the worst possible thing that can happen to us,” Alan Cumming tells express, over Zoom from California, where he is currently touring his show: Alan Cumming Is Not Acting His Age.
The 57 year old is talking about getting older and the industries that are built around trying to convince people that you are/look younger.
“I like being my age! I think we should,” the actor exclaims, “not just try not to hang on to something that we can’t!”
Cumming’s show, which tours Auckland and Wellington next month, is focused around this very topic.
“I’m talking about forgetting I had sex with people 20 years ago and suddenly meeting them again,” he quips, “because that is part of aging! You forget you’ve had sex with people!”
Alan Cumming Is Not Acting His Age is an old fashioned cabaret about something we’re all doing: getting older. It’s clear Cumming adores performing it, and he’d have too – a quick glance at his filmography highlights Cumming has consistently been able to bag significant film and television roles since the late eighties right up until today. So why is he bringing a cabaret tour to New Zealand?
“Cabaret is such a smorgasbord. You combine different genres, you have to be able to turn on a sixpence. I love that; to be telling a funny story, then immediately go into this intense song. I really enjoy the connection I make with an audience and doing a show like this. It’s very personal and authentic, so you have to be vulnerable which is scary, but it properly connects you with your audience. This show is really fun and still excites me!”
In fact, it excites Cumming so much, he co-owns queer cabaret bar, Club Cumming in New York’s East Village and just last year, curated Adelaide’s thriving Cabaret Festival.
No matter how famous he has gotten, Cumming has remained authentic, open and honest about the things he loves. This was spectacularly displayed in 1999, when he publicly came out as bisexual, posing naked on the cover of America’s Out magazine.
At the time, coming out would likely kill the career of most Hollywood actors, Cumming was an exception to that rule and tells us, “my sexuality has only had a positive effect on my career.”
“I have had to be open about it. I’ve discussed it. I’ve challenged people. I’ve had fun with it. I guess it’s defined me as a person, in some ways, but it hasn’t defined the characters I play or the kind of work I do. I played a lot of gay people, of course, but not exclusively.” He tells us, before admitting he’s relieved that, “we’re coming to a time where that’s not such a big deal.”
Which brings us on to the next generation and what they are facing. “I really admire young people. They are the reason the midterms went the way they did. Young people are the ones who are leading the climate change protests. I’m very heartened by them,” gushes the renowned activist, before confessing that despite his admiration, there are things he feels this generation is getting wrong.
“When I was a young actor, I did not ever have to think about how many Instagram followers I had. My talents were not codified by how much I brought to the table in terms of my commerciality. That’s a huge part of being a performer now, and I think it’s really sad. What if you’re not very good at all that, it’s not really about acting!,” he quantifies.
Cumming will play Auckland Town Hall on Monday 15 and Wellington’s St James Theatre on Tuesday 16 January, narrowly missing our Pride festivals.
His answer is stoic when I ask what Pride means to him. “It’d be nice if we didn’t have to have Pride. If we were proud and respected every day, and people didn’t just support gay causes in Pride month. It should just be part of the fabric of our lives.”
In saying that, Cumming is supportive of the more political tone Pride festivals have incorporated over the past five years. “It’s lost its purpose if all we do is put rainbow feathers on and get drunk,” he tells us frankly.
“That element of protest is coming back, especially in Britain and America, with the trans laws going on, the right wing has taken that up as their next big battle. So there’s lots to protest and be angry and vigilant about.”
The current state of affairs in the world does not sit well with Cumming. Just a few hours before we speak, Poland has been hit with Russian missiles, seemingly intended for Ukraine.
“We’re in such a mess,” exclaims Cumming, making it clear exactly where he places blame.
“It’s these white men that get entitled and inflated with power and just become these ego maniacal nuts. Putin is obviously deranged. Trump, clearly mentally ill. These people shouldn’t be in charge, yet, we keep electing them!”
Despite living in the United States, Cumming struggles to identify with the country’s politics.
“I live in New York which doesn’t really feel like America – indeed it is an island floating off the coast. It’s a little bubble, but it’s still part of a country where the Supreme Court has just banned abortion, where they are having to codify same sex marriage in the Senate, because they’re sure that same court is going to ban that and interracial marriage. It’s terrifying!”
Cumming puts America’s troubles down in-part to their political structure. “Only two political parties in a massive country, makes no sense. It just becomes a team sport, people don’t listen to each other, they just shout all the time.”
However, the Scotland born and bred actor does see light at the end of the tunnel, and it seems to be leading him back to his homeland.
“The midterm elections here were so scary, but the fact that [The Republican Party] didn’t have a clean sweep, has hopefully put the lid on something, I thought it was out of control. It sounds like the end of Trump which is a great relief… In Brazil too, Bolsonaro didn’t get in. So good things are happening in the rest of the world. I go back and forth to Scotland all the time and I feel more rooted there, as I get older, because I want to be in a place where my values are shared by the government of the country I’m living in.”
Don’t we all.
Article | Oliver Hall.
Alan Cumming will perform at the Auckland Town Hall on Monday 16 January, followed by St James Theatre, Wellington on Tuesday 17 January. Tickets from Ticketmaster.
