Top 70 Quotes & Sayings by Alan Cumming

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

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.

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.

Macbeth was the first play I ever read.

I'm not a fan of Twitter.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

I think American actors are much more intimidated by Shakespeare.

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.

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

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 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.

Finally, the scariest thing about abuse of any shape or form, is, in my opinion, not the abuse itself, but that if it continues it can begin to feel commonplace and eventually acceptable.

It's exciting to be with really, really good people. Some people make you feel like you've got to up your game. Working with good people is always good.

It's actually quite a good ethos for life: go into the unknown with truth, commitment, and openness and mostly you'll be okay.

I think American actors are much more intimidated by Shakespeare. I actually want to do this Shakespeare play in New York, but I think it's interesting that there's this gaping hole in the repertoire in the American theater, which is Shakespeare. It's hardly ever done, compared to how often it's done in other companies, not just Britain. Someone from the Roundabout Theater Company - I said, "You never do Shakespeare." And he said, "Yes, we're not very good at it." And I thought, "What a terrible thing to say.".

I've actually found - especially doing my cabaret show - I'm connecting with people in a way I haven't connected with them. I've found that when you're open and honest, people respond to that, whatever you're being open and honest about. You could then, when you lay that as the groundwork, say, "Here I am. This is what I think. I come in peace." Then you're able to push out, to be able to talk about more things. And that's been a really heartening thing about my life, actually.

I wouldn't do my roles if I really hated it. I've done things I hated, but I didn't go into them thinking I would hate them. I want to have fun. I don't want to go to work and not enjoy it. So if I'm swirling around on some wires, talking to Fred Flintstone, I make it the funnest I can. I also want to be good at it. I don't want to be a crap cartoon character. I want to be proud I'm a vitamin!

Most people will never know anything beyond what they see with their own two eyes.

I actually find in America, there's a slight snobbery about actors who go back and forth between big heavy dramas and popcorn fare. That always intrigues me, because that doesn't exist in the same way in Britain. And I imagine it would be worse. In terms of the sort of class, and the sort of snobby, slightly on the back-foot thing Britain has. But it's much more prevalent in America. I'm really intrigued by it. I don't know why that is. But I'm aiming to break down those barriers by being in a Shakespeare film and a Smurfs film within six months of each other.

You should *have* an experience; it shouldn't just *be* an experience.

Be who you like as long as you mean it.

Sometimes people do you a favour when they drop out of your life.

I think people deny themselves by putting themselves into categories.

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

If the president of the country is not actually saying something, allowing equality to happen, how could you expect to counsel kids not to bully other kids? If they're not seeing that their society sees gay people as equals, how could you tell them what they're doing is wrong? With all this stuff going on, with the "Don't ask, don't tell" and things like that, we are second-class citizens, definitely. It just seems to me that it's hypocritical for us as a culture to say, "Bullying is a terrible thing," when really, they are just reflecting what the society is doing.

Some things are just really difficult to do. That's what I find hard. 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.