Alan Cumming famous quotes

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.
-- Alan Cumming

#Dad #Thinking #Grounding

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?
-- Alan Cumming

#Gay #Boys #Thinking

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.
-- Alan Cumming

#Boys #Littles #Should

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

#Ideas #People #Secret

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

#People #Favour #Sometimes

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.
-- Alan Cumming

#Abuse #Shapes #Opinion

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

#Commitment #Ethos #Okay

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

#Men #Challenges #Performing

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.
-- Alan Cumming

#Play #Stories #Television

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

#Growing Up #Adults #Grows

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

#Country #Calendars #Bigs

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

#Feels

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.
-- Alan Cumming

#Team #Insecure #Thinking

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.
-- Alan Cumming

#Kids #Agendas #Piercings

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

#People #Done #Sometimes

Macbeth was the first play I ever read.
-- Alan Cumming

#Play #Firsts

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.
-- Alan Cumming

#Home #People #Different

I'm not a fan of Twitter.
-- Alan Cumming

#Fans

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

#Blood #Battle #Arms

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.
-- Alan Cumming

#People #Helping #Help Me

I think American actors are much more intimidated by Shakespeare.
-- Alan Cumming

#Thinking #Actors #Intimidated

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

#Ease #Stranger #Feels

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

#Drama #School #Kids

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

#Carpe Diem #Should #Carpe

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

#Challenges #Way #Challenge Yourself

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.
-- Alan Cumming

#Thinking #People #Film

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

#Directors #Film #Film Directors

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

#Different #Disguise

I don't avoid anyone but I always think some people hate me.
-- Alan Cumming

#Hate #Thinking #People

I'd been depressed before, of course. But I'm talking about really depressed. Not just feeling a bit down or sad, a depression that has something to do with biorhythms. I'm talking about the kind of depressed that floats in upon you like a fog. You can feel it coming and you can see where it is going to take you but you are powerless, utterly powerless to stop it. I know now.
-- Alan Cumming

#Depression #Fog #Talking

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

#Positive #Mother #Thinking

I have no regrets in my life even the crazy things I've been in. It all made me the I am today and I wouldn't change anything. I'm happy with who I am!
-- Alan Cumming

#Regret #Crazy #Who I Am

Be who you like as long as you mean it.
-- Alan Cumming

#Mean #Long

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.
-- Alan Cumming

#Thinking #Missing #Example

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.
-- Alan Cumming

#Dames #Film #Sitcom

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.
-- Alan Cumming

#Play #Theatre #Scared

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.
-- Alan Cumming

#Character #Thinking #Play

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.
-- Alan Cumming

#Stupid #Directors #Actors

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.
-- Alan Cumming

#Scotland #Choices #Realizing

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

#Tragedy #Way #Comedy

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

#Thinking #Outsiders #Feels

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.
-- Alan Cumming

#Feelings #Vices #Miserable

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

#Over You #Kind #Bother

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.
-- Alan Cumming

#Tired #Long #Perspective

He ... knew, in that instant, that his life would not be an easy one-he was different, he looked different, he thought differently.
-- Alan Cumming

#Different #Conformity #Easy

I think people deny themselves by putting themselves into categories.
-- Alan Cumming

#Thinking #People #Deny

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
-- Alan Cumming

#Lying #Gay #People

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

#Air #Two #Film

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.
-- Alan Cumming

#Blood #Play #Mind

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

#Firsts #Odd #Scottish