Quotes By Alan Cumming

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.