It is not hard to feel like an outsider. I think we have all felt like that at one time or another.
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.
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.
A sweaty Macbeth with blood on his arms coming in fresh from the battle doesn't interest me.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Actually I like working kind of fast, because if you got it, why bother doing it over and over?
It's really rare for film directors to be that interested in things other than themselves.
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.
Sometimes people get really sniffy about the films you choose if you've done more dramatic projects or you're classically trained.
I love a film where I get squished by two dumpsters or I fly through the air.
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.
There are some days when you don't feel like being Alan Cumming.
Pantomime is a big thing in the cultural calendar of my country, you know. So subtlety's not my forte.
I think you can be as big as you like as long as you mean it. I really do.
When there's an adult person who's scaring you, you grow up pretty quickly.
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.
