Quotes By Alan Cumming

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.

Macbeth was the first play I ever read.

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

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

I think American actors are much more intimidated by Shakespeare.

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.

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?

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.