Top 40 Alan Cumming Quotes

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

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’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?

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

‘Macbeth’ was the first play I ever read. In fact, I remember my brother Tom, who is six years older than me, coming home from school and telling me about it. He was the one that really got me going.

There are some days when you don’t feel like being Alan Cumming.

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.

Macbeth was the first play I ever read.

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.

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

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

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

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 think you can be as big as you like as long as you mean it. I really do.

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

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

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

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

Sometimes with people I know, they’re playing the hunky action guy and there’s resistance to them coming out because it’s so connected to straight masculinity. There’s a plastic kind of movie star who has a very short shelf with very small kind of ambition. I see that but I still don’t agree with it.

I don’t avoid anyone but I always think some people hate me.

I’m not a fan of Twitter.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Performing a one-man Macbeth feels like the greatest challenge.

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 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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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 think American actors are much more intimidated by Shakespeare.