Alan Cumming

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

“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.”

“Macbeth was the first play I ever read.”

“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.”

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

“We both lacked the same thing in our childhoods - the love of a father... We both sought to fill that lack in our adult lives with family and love, as everyone does, but also with thrills and sometimes periods of recklessness. Luckily, I have always come back from my recklessness. Tommy Darling did not.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“'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.”

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

“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.”

“Once in a while it's good to challenge yourself in a way that's really daunting.”

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

“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.”

“I think American actors are much more intimidated by Shakespeare.”

“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.”

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