Alan Cumming is an award-winning actor best known for his roles in “Spy Kids,” “Cabaret,” “X-Men,” and the TV series “The Good Wife.” He’s won many awards throughout his career, including a Tony Award for his performance as the master of ceremonies in “Cabaret.”
In addition to his impressive list of accomplishments as an actor, Cumming has also written two books, the most recent being a memoir called “Not My Father’s Son.” In it, he tells the story of the summer of 2010, when he filmed his episode for the hit show “Who Do You Think You Are?” which gives famous people the chance to uncover a piece of their genealogy that they’ve never known about. Filming the episode, Cumming learned about his maternal grandfather’s life and tragic death, which had long been a family mystery. At the same time, his own life had gone topsy-turvy when his father, who had spent Cumming’s childhood abusing him and his brother, called and told him news that shocked and upset him, setting him off on a search for the truth.
In the book, Cumming bravely discusses the abuse during his childhood and the impact it has had on his life. One of the most difficult things to do is to reveal extremely personal details about your life, especially if you know you have a large audience. Cumming unmasked himself to tell his story, and in doing so, he brought hope to all readers.
Dan DiPrinzio and Helen Armstrong sat down to ask Cumming about the experience of writing the book and the ways in which he has bravely opened his life up to the media and fans around the world.
DiPrinzio: So why write this book, I mean, some of these recollections and stories seem to be the kind that can be painful to address. Many people might keep such memories buried, so why share them with the world?
Cumming: I wrote this book for a variety of reasons but one of them was that I had this crazy series of events happen to me. It was an insane summer and I couldn’t stop talking about it and I really couldn’t and I wanted to expunge this story. And throughout my life I’ve done various things both in my writing and sort of in my acting, I’ve had this drive toward being more transparent and more authentic and clear. And that’s been in some of the work I’ve done like Miracle at the Anniversary Party where I wrote [a character] based on [myself] and the other people in the film. And even in the MacBeth I did recently, there was a really interesting crossover between people being worried about the character on stage but also being worried about me as a person. And then even in the concerts I do. So this kind of like, progression, in my work I think, to be more connected with people and to be more truthful and honest and I think when you’re famous people know such a lot about you but they also know such a lot of conjecture about you and I feel that there’s a big part of my life that was kind of much more prevalent and present for me because of these series of events that happened in 2010. So I just decided it was the time, if I was going to tell a story about that summer and all the weird things that happened I needed to go back to my childhood and be very, very frank about what happened there. And I think now I’ve created something where I think people know me in a much more holistic way and it’s only been a positive thing for me.
D: That’s great. Do you think that personal discovery or really knowing one’s roots is important for all of us?
C: I think there’s various different modes of knowing your roots and knowing where you come from. I think I’m very interested about living here because it’s hilarious like right now in this election coming with this topic of immigration being so huge and people saying such inflammatory, bigoted things about immigrants when actually this country’s only just more than a couple hundred years old and we’re all immigrants and immigrants built this country. So it’s very short sighted I think, the notion of keeping people out is a very dangerous thought process. Because it is such a young country. I’m charmed actually by the way people always say to me “Oh you know, I’m Scottish.” and I go “Oh, where are you from?” and they go “I don’t know. But you know, I’m half Scottish, I’m a quarter Lebanese, I’m a bit Russian.” People are very, very conscious of wanting to understand where they belong and where their roots are and what their provenance is and I think that’s a very good thing and I think as countries get older it doesn’t matter so much because you’ll be American first and those things will be in the dim and distant past. So I think that in this country I really understand and I’m aware of how important it is to know such a detail about where their from. But also in my case it wasn’t just “I know where I’m from.” This was like much more detailed behavior of my circumstances of my near relatives and I think actually sometimes stories in families, it’s always good to know the truth. But you have to be aware as I was or as I became on the road to that truth there’s some very, very painful things, potentially. So it’s a bit of a lottery.
D: I’m one of the people, I love the idea of the one book where like a large group of people are reading the same book and they can have a conversation about the book and it sparks conversation and it inspires thought. Do you have any feeling about how a lot of these students on campus are reading the book, it’s inspiring conversation, it’s sparking discussion. Is there any one or two things in particular that you would like students to take away from the book or do you have a feeling on just the fact that everyone’s talking about it?
C: Obviously when you write a book and you know, it sells quite a lot, and people come up to you and say they’ve read it. It’s a great thing because you put your story out there, you want it to be read, you want people to read it. Coming here is an unusual thing because I’ve never come to a place where everyone’s read it and there’ll be a whole tonight with a thousand and something people who’ve all read it. So it’s actually great because you don’t have to explain everything all the time. When I was doing all these book events you have to kind of assume that not many people will have read it and had just bought it that night. So it’s actually great to just not have to do all that boring stuff. But I think actually, what I found the most satisfying thing about my book is the idea that people can see someone like me, I’m successful, I’ve got this life this is, you know. I’m just really glad that I’ve been able to say to people “Hey, perhaps you’re surprised by my story, but actually I’m a survivor and terrible things happened to me but I overcame them and you can overcome things in your life too.” Also I don’t think not everyone can do what I did, you’re not going to become a famous actor necessarily just because something bad happened to you. But it is possible to overcome great despair and great pain and you really can turn things around. And so I think it’s inspiring in that way. And also I would like people to take away the fact that what is really important is the idea of truth and authenticity and to not let bad things in your past cloud your vision and the idea that it’s always really much better to know.
Armstrong: So you may have heard, there’s a famous saying: “It’s really simple to write, you just sit down at a typewriter, open a vein, and bleed.” And I was thinking, that must be really difficult to write a memoir like this about something so personal. Did you feel like this was really difficult and how did you cope with that and also talking about it ad nauseum to everyone?
C: It was difficult to write, and once I made the decision I was going to do it and I was going to be as frank and go as deep as I did I stuck to my guns. And also the thing is there’s certain passages that are very disturbing and were very disturbing for me to relive. I had to almost hypnotise myself to remember to sirines and how afraid I was. And so that was difficult and upsetting, but obviously that was only certain parts of the book, the whole book wasn’t like that. And some of the book was very therapeutic in terms of just reliving a story and connecting the dots for myself. So I think anything you do in an artistic endeavor you’ve got to imagine the parts that are going to be difficult and painful and upsetting and the parts that are going to be surprisingly easy but ultimately it’s going to be a catharsis and something you’re proud of. And talking about it ad nauseum, you know, I’ve been around the block a few times. I’m used to selling my wares in terms of doing publicity tours so it’s actually good to have something to talk about that’s actually substantive that I like that I’m actually engaged with instead of some dopey film and I’m being asked questions like “If you have a superpower what would it be?” So in a way the journey of me writing the book has continued and having a discussion with other people about it.
A: So do you think that being an actor, your career has sort of prepared you writing this book and then talking about publicizing it?
C: Certainly from the publicity side, I think I’m better at that than a lot of other writings just because I’m more used to it. In terms of does being an actor prepare you for writing a book like this, I don’t know, perhaps maybe you have more of an understanding of what people think of you in the first place. You know, people know quite a lot about me so they come to this book thing “Oh I like him.” So you have to kind of like try and take that on board while you’re writing it and assume that there’s some level of knowledge about you so in a way that’s a really good thing that you can kind of like, it’s like a trampoline you can like, go to another level more quickly. So I don’t think that prepares you but it certainly is a burden to writing a book like this.
A: Another aspect about being in the public eye is that everyone knows about your sexuality and you said you never felt any shame in it and I think that it is very important for young bisexuals to have good representation in the media, sort of telling them that they’re not wrong and that it’s OK. But what was the thought process behind deciding to come out to the public and did you worry about the reaction?
C: Hopefully one day nobody will have to come out, actually I’ve been meeting some young people over the last few years and they said they never came out, they just said everyone knew and it wasn’t an issue, it wasn’t like they had to tell their parents, their parents were very well aware. And I think we live in a different time now, we’ve met sort of a cusp in sexual understanding and how that’s dealt with in society. But I did it because I felt that it was going to be intrusive into some of my family and the person I was seeing at the time. It was the first sort of proper boyfriend I had, that’s when I kind of made a public thing about. Because it’s an interesting thing, when you are bisexual and you have sex with different people over the years, it’s kind of weird that “Hey, press release, had sex with a boy last night.” And also, I think coming out in public is only really relevant when there’s enough people interested in you for it make a difference. So for me it was a lot to do with speculation, starting to become more famous in America and people actually asking me all the time. I was kind of a bit shaken by that, not because I was ashamed but just because I was like “Oh really, you don’t want to talk about my work?” Because, you know, for all that Britain is more scandal ridden in its press. There’s not such a [focus] on the whole coming out thing, I think America still got the lead in terms of the shame front in terms of sexuality. But, so I did it because I thought it would behove me actually to just say it and get it out there. And I guess maybe because I knew I was probably going to have more boyfriends than I had in the past. I actually only thought I was going to have one boyfriend at that time, but of course I was sadly mistaken.
