Cumming attraction

Interview, Oct, 1998 by Jennifer Jason Leigh

As he gets ready to take a break from Broadway to do a movie (don't worry - he'll be back!), Interview asked his new Sally Bowles, the equally versatile and dynamic Jennifer Jason Leigh, quiz Cumming about the Cabaret phenomenon, his upcoming movies, and his topsy-turvy life

JENNIFER JASON LEIGH: You know, when I asked you your age the other day I couldn't believe you said thirty-three. I thought you were twenty-two.

ALAN CUMMING: You want to know the secret of my boyish good looks?

JJL: Yeah.

AC: Two mottos: "Water, water, water" and "Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize."

JJL: Where are you from?

AC: I'm from Perthshire, Scotland. My mom is a secretary and my dad is a forester. I grew up on a country estate. It was really remote. It was also very beautiful, but at the time I thought it was shit.

JJL: Do you have brothers and sisters?

AC: I have one brother, Tom, who is six years older than me. He's got three kids.

JJL: Do you want kids?

AC: I would love to have kids. I just have to try to have sex with a nice woman soon who likes me long enough to want to -

JJL: . . . have a kid with you.

AC: Yeah. Because even though I like the idea of having kids, I don't like the idea of having to stay with the person forever. Because I like living alone.

JJL: Did you act in plays as a kid?

AC: In high school.

JJL: Was it weird for you to do Cabaret for a really long time and then suddenly, over the summer, have to stop because of a construction accident? [Nearby scaffolding collapsed and caused the theater to close.]

AC: Yes. But it's been a great holiday. Since I hadn't really had one for a year, I had a good time during the break. Maybe too much so. [laughs]

JJL: But that goes with Cabaret.

The decadence. AC: I am hedonistic rather than decadent, because decadent means you do things that have no purpose. Hedonistic means you love fun. You live life for fun.

JJL: How did you get the part of the Emcee in Cabaret?

AC: I was doing Hamlet in the same theater where Cabaret was to be, and they just asked me.

JJL: Had you worked with our director, Sam Mendes, before?

AC: No. I am not a musical comedy star. So I didn't want to do it. But I had another meeting with him, and I got intrigued.

JJL: What intrigued you?

AC: The way the Emcee's part would reflect the whole production. The way that my character would have to embody the era and the sexuality. I quite liked the idea of exploring this well-worn musical and giving a really different slant to it.

JJL: You've made several movies in Los Angeles recently. Do you like L.A.?

AC: Not so much. The driving's an issue because I am not a good driver. And you can never get away from work. I was in this movie Circle of Friends a few years ago and I went to lunch with the director, Pat O'Connor, when we were doing the press junket in Los Angeles. And the waiter was an actor and he said to me, "I saw you in the trailer for Circle of Friends." and I said, "Oh, year? This is the man who directed it." And I pointed at Pat. And the waiter was like, "You're a director? Gee, our busboy is a director."

JJL: Let's talk about some of the movies you have coming out.

AC: The first one is called Plunkett and Macleane. It's about two highwaymen, Plunkett and Macleane, and Liv Tyler is the girl. In the end, I kill someone. I had never killed anyone before in a film.

JJL: Did you enjoy it?

AC: Yes. I did it with a sword. I just stabbed a man through the neck. This was in the Czech Republic, and it was freezing. I find it impossible to act when you are cold because all you are doing is trying not to shiver. Speaking of which, do you know the David Letterman show?

JJL: It's very cold there.

AC: Do you know why?

JJL: Because he thinks comedy works better in the cold.

AC: Is that it?

JJL: People won't get sleepy.

AC: What I heard is that he has a sweat problem.

JJL: And I always thought it was to make the comedy better.

AC: We'll see who gets asked on the Letterman show next.

JJL: Let's talk about your other upcoming movie, For My Baby.

AC: I made it in Hungary, with a Dutch director [Rudolf van den Berg]. It's bizarre and quite extraordinary. It's a second-generation Holocaust story. I play an Austrian Jewish stand-up comedian who gets possessed by the ghost of his dead sister. It's a really difficult film to sell because it's so many different things - a ghost story, a love story. I think it's so sad that films dealing with lots of different things are hard to sell; we are so used to things that are packaged to sound amazing even though the scripts are so formulaic. If something doesn't fit into the mold, it's to the detriment of that sweet success.

JJL: How do you work on your parts?

AC: I let the role seep in. I pick up things gradually. I don't write things down.

JJL: Do you ever go out and buy things to help you? A piece of music? A book?

AC: For certain things I do. For For My Baby I read a lot about the Holocaust. For example, I read two really great books called Maus [by Art Spiegelman], where the Jewish people are represented by mice and the Germans by cats. But I don't go mad. I don't read everything I can about a topic.