Alan Cumming

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

“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 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.”

“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 don't avoid anyone but I always think some people hate me.”

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

“Actors aren't stupid, mostly, and if there's a sensibility and an aesthetic that a director's going for, if you're aware of that too, you can do things to help that.”

“There are some days when you don't feel like being Alan Cumming.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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?”

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

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

“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.'”