Alan Cumming: “I Worried They’d Deport Me” in 90-Minute Trans Rights Interview
Alan Cumming remembers the moment he realised Hollywood was not delivering the dream he expected. It was the late Nineties, he was in Los Angeles filming Buddy with Rene Russo, and instead of glamour he felt boredom settling in. “I was young and wanted to have fun, but I felt like I was always missing the party,” he says. Russo tried to lift his mood, telling him that he was exactly where most actors dream of being. “She said, ‘Alan, this is as good as it gets.’ And I thought, how depressing.”
He escaped back to London for what he calls “a really debauched few months”, which later inspired his novel Tommy’s Tale. Out of nowhere came a long audition process with Stanley Kubrick for Eyes Wide Shut. The part was tiny, a flirtatious hotel receptionist with only one scene, yet Kubrick filmed it over a full week and demanded more than sixty takes. Many actors would have crumbled. Cumming did the opposite. Kubrick’s meticulousness reignited his passion for acting. “Every detail was so exciting,” he says. “We just had a lovely time together.” He suspects his refusal to defer to the legendary director helped secure him the role. “I went in thinking, I won’t be taking any s***, Mr Kubrick.”
Alan Cumming trans rights advocacy
That moment of renewal was badly needed. Cumming had arrived in Hollywood fresh from two career defining performances under Sam Mendes: the hedonistic Emcee in Cabaret and Hamlet at the Donmar. The acclaim was huge, but the emotional toll was worse. “I nearly had a breakdown,” he says. The collapse of his relationship with actor Saffron Burrows added to the strain. “I was really fragile.” On his return from Los Angeles, theatre felt too intimidating to face. “I was thinking, what will I do? Maybe I’ll start writing a book.”
Today Cumming is speaking from New York during a break from shooting Tip Toe, Russell T Davies’s new Manchester set drama. He wears a striped top reminiscent of a mime artist, his grey hair swept back, circular glasses perched on his face, one hand constantly checking his moustache is still in place. A natural raconteur, he leans dramatically into each anecdote.
GoldenEye was my first encounter with him, I tell him. He laughs. His turn as Boris Grishenko, the jittery Russian hacker in Pierce Brosnan’s debut Bond film, still follows him. The role famously required constant pen spinning, a trick he initially failed to master. “Jason Isaacs showed me how. He used to do magic tricks at kids’ parties. Then on set they handed me a James Bond Parker pen instead of the Biro I had practised with. Suddenly I was f***ed.”
Cumming is also here to discuss his inaugural season as artistic director of Pitlochry Festival Theatre in Perthshire, ten miles from where he was born. As the theatre prepares to mark its 75th anniversary, Cumming’s 2026 programme is bold, personal and eclectic. “My personality and my spirit are at the centre,” he says. “I wanted a season built around people I love, admire or have worked with.” His mission is clear: fill the theatre with people who do not normally go. “A something for everyone vibe.”
The lineup delivers exactly that. The Tony winning musical Once returns with its original Broadway creative team. Douglas Maxwell premieres a new romcom, Inexperience. I Can Die Too, a Jean Cocteau inspired concert play co written by Cumming, Sally George and Frances Ruffelle, joins the bill. Maureen Beattie will play King Lear. Cumming will reunite with Shirley Henderson for A History of Paper, a love story by Oliver Emanuel completed posthumously. He will also direct I’ll Be Seeing You, with Simon Russell Beale starring as a playwright exploring the life of Liberace. And he will return to the stage himself next November as Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady.
Before all that, he will launch “a weekend of queer joy” in January, featuring Ian McKellen, Graham Norton and Tales of the City author Armistead Maupin. McKellen will perform a new one man play, Equinox. Cumming will interview Norton on stage, then star in Me and the Girls, Neil Bartlett’s adaptation of a Noel Coward story. “Not much happens in January in theatre,” he says. “So I thought, let’s create a mini festival, and let’s make it about queer people.”
It will also be an act of solidarity. Hate crimes are rising, the British press regularly targets trans people, and the Trump administration has been rolling out anti trans orders. Tip Toe will explore this climate of hostility. Cumming, who is bisexual, sees the same tactics everywhere. “People use anti trans, anti gay and anti immigrant rhetoric to distract from failing policies and a collapsing moral centre,” he says. “It is a smokescreen. Blame the marginalised. It is a slippery slope. Next they will come for the rest of us.”
He believes the United States is already far down that slope. “Trans people have no actual rights. According to the Supreme Court, they don’t exist. Decency and care have been ripped away.” He points to an ongoing Supreme Court case that could allow equal marriage rights to be ignored on religious grounds. “We know where this is heading,” he warns. “People disappearing, soldiers on the streets. It is happening now. I am terrified.”
Last July he guest hosted Jimmy Kimmel Live and delivered a fiery monologue defending trans rights. “People told me I would be deported,” he says. He admits he felt nervous the next time he travelled. Cumming became a U.S. citizen in 2008, but the anxiety is real. “People fear for their safety. They fear being held at the airport. I feel it too. I am lucky I have another home and another passport.”
He fears that Britain is also drifting into dangerous territory. He criticises the rhetoric of Nigel Farage, the handling of refugees and what he sees as Labour’s caution under Keir Starmer. “He needs to lead. Stop trying not to get caught out. Stop copying the aesthetics of Reform and start standing up for decency.”
He has said before that Labour risks becoming “Conservative lite”. Now he says it is turning into “Reform lemonade”.
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On the subject of hate amplified online, he is asked about JK Rowling’s public stance on trans rights. He keeps his focus tight. “I thought feminism was about equality. Yet somehow trans rights are framed as anti women. That is wrong.” He cites the rape crisis centre Rowling funded in Edinburgh, which excluded trans women. “At the worst moment of someone’s life, you say no because they are trans. That is transphobia.”
The conversation returns to theatre, especially the rise of celebrity led productions in the West End. Some argue it limits risks and squeezes out newcomers. Cumming shrugs. “Stunt casting is as old as time. If a pop star can’t do it on stage, the audience will know. The novelty wears off fast if they are s***.”
Cumming remains remarkably open, with no emotional armour. His bestselling memoir Not My Father’s Son documented the abuse he suffered as a child on a Scottish estate. Its follow up, Baggage, explored its lingering effects. “No one ever recovers fully,” he says. “I have therapy. I talk about it. Every experience is shaped by what happened. I have to monitor it so it does not take over.” Americans, he says, prefer tidy narratives. “They wanted everything tied up with a bow. A happy ending. Baggage was my way of saying life does not work like that.”
Cumming now splits his time between Scotland and the U.S., with an extensive screen career behind him. He is recognised equally for Spy Kids, X2, The Good Wife, and even Spice World, which he adored making. He is also the host of The Traitors US, where he leans into theatricality far more than the British version. “The American version is camper, which is a first. Usually they tone things down. I think that is because of me.”
