Alan Cumming

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Macbeth was the first play I ever read.

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

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?

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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