Alan Cumming Quotes

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.

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. I always think about a little gay boy in Wisconsin or a little lesbian in Arkansas seeing someone like me, and if I cannot be open in my life, how on earth can they?

Actually I like working kind of fast, because if you got it, why bother doing it over and over?

Pantomime is a big thing in the cultural calendar of my country, you know. So subtlety's not my forte.

It's really rare for film directors to be that interested in things other than themselves.

I like working on things that are very different and that involve different disguises.

Be who you like as long as you mean it.

I think people deny themselves by putting themselves into categories.

Finally, the scariest thing about abuse of any shape or form, is, in my opinion, not the abuse itself, but that if it continues it can begin to feel commonplace and eventually acceptable.

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.

It's actually quite a good ethos for life: go into the unknown with truth, commitment, and openness and mostly you'll be okay.

You'll see Dame Judi Dench in a Bond film, in Shakespeare and then starring in her own sitcom. You never see that here with Meryl Streep.

I love a film where I get squished by two dumpsters or I fly through the air.

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.

I'm not a fan of Twitter.

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.

My feeling about work is it's much more about the experience of doing it than the end product. Sometimes things that are really great and make lots of money are miserable to make, and vice versa.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I have no regrets in my life even the crazy things I've been in. It all made me the I am today and I wouldn't change anything. I'm happy with who I am!

Often for me, if I hear a song I know, it clicks for me and I hear it in a different way and I think, "I could sing that song. I've got something to say about that song. Wanting to connect with an audience and wanting them to rethink songs; 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.

I'm Scottish first, and it's odd to hear that I'm a Scottish-American.

It's interesting, for me sappy means sentimental and something that gets you in your heart, gets you emotional. That's what I mean. Also, of course, it means that I'm slightly setting up the audience that there's a bit of fun involved, as well.

Usually, there's a story I've told that leads up to why I'm singing the song. The whole concept of the show was about being authentic and connecting with these songs. The best way to do that was in a room with an audience and for people to listen to that.

So the experts think we could have an AIDS-free generation in Africa by 2015, even if the mothers are positive.

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. 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.

A sweaty Macbeth with blood on his arms coming in fresh from the battle doesn't interest me.

I wouldn't do my roles if I really hated it. I've done things I hated, but I didn't go into them thinking I would hate them. I want to have fun. I don't want to go to work and not enjoy it. 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!

I'm quite good, though I say it myself, at making strangers feel at ease.

In my first year at drama school, I did this kids' show called 'Let's See.

Macbeth was the first play I ever read.

He ... knew, in that instant, that his life would not be an easy one-he was different, he looked different, he thought differently.

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.

I started to itch to do a play again and 'Macbeth' came to the surface in my mind. I never thought I would do it in a conventional way. A sweaty Macbeth with blood on his arms coming in fresh from the battle doesn't interest me.

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.

With Urban Secrets, I just really liked the idea of wandering around chatting to people.

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.

I like the tragedies way more than the comedies because they're so universal.

I think American actors are much more intimidated by Shakespeare.

I don't feel I'm a compulsive person. I multitask. I'm really well-organised, and I have lots of people to help me.

It is not hard to feel like an outsider. I think we have all felt like that at one time or another.

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.

Sometimes people get really sniffy about the films you choose if you've done more dramatic projects or you're classically trained.

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.

I think directing in a team is a really good idea because it stops the cult of the director as God straight away, and also you're discussing things on set so it opens it out to everyone and it becomes a totally collaborative thing. And you have someone who supports you when you're feeling a bit insecure.

Most people will never know anything beyond what they see with their own two eyes.

When there's an adult person who's scaring you, you grow up pretty quickly.

It's exciting to be with really, really good people. Some people make you feel like you've got to up your game. Working with good people is always good.