Alan Cumming on his new book and ‘normalizing hotmessness’

of the world's greatest espionage agents. Oh, rolled into tiny packages I calls the good wife. Can I say son of a bitch? Or is that too salty? Oh? It's got to be cabaret. There are almost too many to count. Alan Cumming is a renaissance man of his own making, from theater to TV and film. He's a chameleon who melts into every role he takes on. But he doesn't stop there. He owns a club in New York, club Coming I Went There Once. He also started his own

perfume line, Coming the Fragrance. He's an outspoken advocate for lgbt Q rights. He's also the author of a book of fiction, one memoir, and now a second memoir called Baggage. I just constantly talk about myself from a moment I wake up to moment to go to bed. Alan and I spoke right before his book came out, And no offense to everyone else I've interviewed. But he's just about the most charming human on the planet who really knows

how to tell a good story. I did have another tattoo that was on my body, but I removed by Lazer that has had a young gentleman's name on it. Yeah, but I've done that, Katy never done that. Never got met someone a two weeks later, had their name tattooed on your body. Wanted to know were you? Were you intoxicated at the time in a way because I when I write about this in the book, I could. I called him Adonis and I was. I think it's just

this man I had a short lived relationship with. I feel like I was the victim of a chemical attack, you know, like that sort of chemistry that you have with someone in the sort of you know that the in doorphins or whatever is released and you'r you find yourself doing things you're completely out of control with desire or lust or whatever it is. And after two weeks of knowing each other, we decided we'd get our names tattooed on each other's groins. And I thought that was

the most sensible thing I've ever done. I really did. I thought it was completely sensible. And then four months after that we split up. When I was left with the with the with the name Raven on my on my groin, and I got what's hilarious is that I got? I got it. I went. I was in l am in a film and there was a there was a special you know, tattoo removable place at Cedar Sinai Hospital. So I went, and I have to go several times.

It's really so they laser it off and you can hear this and it's the it's the sound of the ink exploding in your body. Is it more painful getting it removed than to actually get a tattoo? Yeah, because then also you keep You've got to keep going back, you know, it's not just once. You do it several times and it is more painful. And then also because it goes all scabby and yucky and that as well.

And so, but the thing was when I went. When I eventually saw him afterwards, so you got a year afterwards. He said you still love your tattoo and said no, i'd mind wrenched from my body by laser. And he said, I said, you used to love yours? He said kind of, and he he pulled down his pants and where it used to see Alan, it now says balance. That's very clever. Yeah, it's that good. I was going to say, what could you have done with his name? Ravenous? Craven? I've taken

a wee bit of the end often been raver. It was all my friends are delighted and telling me the things that I could do, and you know it was yes, done done. Oh my friend David wanted to done Raven. That's what he was like, do you end at the beginning of I was like, all right, I feel polish enough, you don't need to do. But instead you got it removed. Well, let's let's talk about your memoir because it's so exciting, and I know you're tired of talking about it, but

I don't know. Let's give it. Let's give a dry So it's called baggage. And I feel like, Alan, you've spent a lot of time in your adult life unloading yours because this is your second memoir, of course, and and the first was really powerful about your dysfunctional relationship with your father, who was who was terrible, and I thought it was incredible that it had such an impact, and you from so many people who were able to to deal with or or metabolize their own dysfunctional relationships

with with a parent. So so that was really the focal point of your first memoir. And you wanted to do another one because well, mostly because a couple of reasons, of course, but mostly because I as a reaction to the reaction to my first one, because I think the first one it was, you know, I had this very violent and abusive father, and I felt the way that

it was. I mean, look, I was so excited ultimately by the way that it helped so many people and people keep writing me and I'd be able to talk to my abuse or I've talked all that stuff you just mentioned. But also there was a retric which sort of said Alan has triumphed, Alan has overcome Alan has

you know, Alan has conquered this terrible, dark past. And I feel like that's a very American things sort of try and tie up things and make it all like it's done, that we've done this, instead of just thinking I have you know, I am happy and I have a life that I but I've not overcoming. It's still a part of me. It's always going to be a

part of me. And they but all like that. Oh, we all have baggage or trauma shipped in our lives and we don't the moment you ignore it and say, oh I don't and deny it, then it's just going to fester and come back to bite you in the bomb. And actually it's you just have to be open about and honest and you know, like then in the pandemic. I think it's been really interesting how we've all understood the value of discussing our mental health and checking in

on each other's mental health. It's it's something we don't haven't done as a culture before. And so actually, I think that's all that I'm asking people to do, is to not think of me as someone who has absolutely triumphed over something and killed it. I'm actually living with

something and I've managed it. I've managed to make my life, and I think I just want to normalize the trauma and that damage that we've all got we all and not to Let's just not pretend that we can get over something and just you just get better at dealing with it. How do you think, I mean, obviously there's a multitude of ways, but when you think about how your abusive father, how how that relationship continues to manifest itself, and the demons that you have to continue to fight, well,

I I get very triggered by angry men. I I used to try and fix people who are angry. I used to have a obsession with trying to fix I've had several relationships. What I was just basically trying to fix angry people. I thought it was my fault. I thought there must be something I've done. I thought there was something I could do to stop them being angry. I was seeking the familiar, and I think that that

I've got I've got over that, thank goodness. But I do get very triggered by by angry angry men, and I just you know, it's something I just got to be vigilant about. Some people. People have a right to be angry and bit out of control. The rational anger I find difficult, and people I find it when people

are sort of trying to bring me down. I feel quite confident about myself, but but I'm aware that people are sometimes, you know, I'm sure you know, there's if when you're well known and sort of seen as being accomplished, sometimes you go into scenarios and environments where people want to bring you down a peg or two and it's sort of just their way of making themselves feel better

about themselves. And I find that that's very triggering for me because I want to allow them to do that and I but also I know it's not fair and I want to so I have to. I really try hard to let people do their ship, but not me, not be affected by it, not to make me sort of bring them down with me. So that are things like that. And then also, you know, another thing that I feel um talk about it, but it is the

fact that I've never had children. I feel that I I did have a spell when I you know, I started the book by talking about trying to have a child with my ex wife and now, in a way, how grateful I am that that wasn't possible or didn't happen because we split up and everything and that and me me, me thinking about being a father is what precipitated me remembering a whole lot of stuff from my childhood that I had repressed and then having an ever

speake down. And so now I did try. I did think about any kids with a couple of people at other partners, and you know, and some people you know wanted my sperm and all that stuff. I was going to do that with the next and all that stuff. But now I'm fifty six, I'm not going to have kids,

and I I don't I don't want to. But in the writing of this book and thinking about it and talking about myself endlessly, I sort of think, well, I write this thing, I say, you know, I have lots of young friends, people who are could be my children. And I have friends holleges. But I actually love having young friends. I think it's really great to sort of find, you know, to keep in touch with what's happening and my assistants twenty six. I think it's great to sort

of think, what's your life like now? And you know, and and and it is like having you know, obviously it's a big grown up but I am old enough to be dad and stuff like that. And I but and so in a way I have become the father I wish i'd had, But it's no accident that he is childless. Are you Are you sorry Alan that? Yeah? I don't. I mean, I'm not sorry. I really love

my life. I don't want, oh God, the idea of having a kid now, ben no, but that you didn't ever I think I'm I wonder if part of the reason are not part of I wonder if the reason i'm I wonder if the reason I didn't was that I was it I would become my father. And so you know, that's how far has reached, still still comes and I I don't like that. I don't like the fact that I have avoided something in my life that

I didn't avoid. I tried, it just didn't happen. Um, But I ultimately stayed away from it because I I have It's triggering for me and it's weird. And you know, if if when I was trying to eight and I was trying to get pregnant with my wife, that's what passivity is of me having a huge my mind completely brought all these images back. And you know it did that for a reason. It did that too, because I had never been able to deal with them before. I had not. I wasn't I was too little and too

young to process what was happening to me. So it waited until I was going to go into that same sort of arena again. Father. Uh, the patriarchy, I suppose, And I feel that in my mind this is powerful to do that and then too, you know, make me have all those images and all those feelings and then to kind of break down. Then I think it is as equally as powerful to perhaps make persuade me not to do something, just in case I wasn't frety. You know.

It's just it's that transparence of the intergenerational transparence of trauma is a is a thing, you know, it's a powerful thing. You can your DNA can be changed. It's been tested. Your DNA can be changed by the trauma that your parents have endured. Do you feel like, and then I want to talk about this new memoir, but do you feel, having written about your dad in the

first one, that you understand it. Maybe you don't forgive him, but that you understand what were the forces that shaped him to be the monster he sounds like he was. I mean, I sort of I think, actually I do forgive him, and I'm not sure. I do understand it all the sports, I mean there's some I'm not I'm not sure, and I'll never be sure and never be able to be sure. I think he had many personality disorders,

and I think he was mentally ill. Absolutely. I think he was abused by his father, yes, and he didn't break that psycle of course. That's also what terrifies me, or terrified me that I would not be able to stop that too. I mean, I feel like pretty much done everything you should do or candy to break a cycle, like talking about I dink there, but who knows, um.

But in terms of the actual other stuff that kind of you know, I've talked to doctors and therapists and I think I have got a handle on some of this sort of as I say, personality disorders that he had, but who knows, I don't, I don't know. It's he wasn't an evil person. He was just a very damaged and m m scan and scared person. And actually you know, as much he was this big match a guy, and he kind of he was very charismatic and ber sexy

and all that stuff as well. But he was I think he was scared, and I think he was a coward, and I think that's I'm not a coward, and I feel i'd really I stood up to him, and I, you know, did things he would never do in terms

of facing demons and facing stuff. So I I did, like in the it's just talking earlier actually that you know, when you read the audiobook of your book, it's kind of funny because you sometimes at reading aloud things you've only ever written down and acknowledgements bits, I like, you don't really you just do that at the end and you don't, sort of. And in the acknowledgements to to my Last Memoir, Not my Father's Son, I said in

the acknowledgment that I forgave my father. But I didn't ever read that aloud until I was in the studio recording the body of it and I just lost it, you know, completely was weeping. So I did forgive him because I think I don't want to carry around this ship. You know, I forgive then from me, you know, I forgive you. You did it. It happened like I'm moving on, I'm not gonna. I feel like not forgiving means you're keeping the trauma with you. So I feel it's it's

mine to give away forgiveness. So I did talk about how this this memoir, because it is a really interesting mix. You have hilarious anecdotes about everyone from Faye Dunaway, Liza Manelli, Gore Vidal, and yet it also interweaves sort of more serious topics. How did you How did you approach this memoir when you thought, I'm going to write a second memoir and this, this is my goal, this is what I want to do. Well, it took me a long

time because I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do. Actually, when I started it, I thought it was maybe going to be about me coming to America and having this new life age thirty. You know, been to America at all until I was thirty, and so I had a whole other perspective. Um, But I think I sort of over the years. It took I. You know, I think it takes you a while unless you're writing a story and the story has an ending and you know what

and you plot it out. You know, in a fiction, my story is not ended, and so I wanted I had to find out where what the plot was, what the and I've done it, you know, between two marriages, between the end of my first marriage in the beginning of my second, and I wanted to sort of say I mean, basically, I wanted to say that thing about I don't think I'm oh finished and complete and conquered.

Here's me being a bit of a hot mess a lot of the time in my life, having a great time, having a laugh, having you know, doing all that, but concurrently with all that also suffering and being a bit of making some bad decisions. And I think that's what I want to I want to kind of normalize being a hot mess, you know. I think I think it's entirely possible to have a great, successful life and also be have moments when you're just hot mess. So that's

my ambition is to normalize halt massness. We'll be right back. I know that you didn't really talk at all about your your sexuality, and I know you know, and and that was quite intentional. It seems to me even you have reached queer icon status. Um you well, you don't don't really talk about dealing with I should rephrase that you don't talk about dealing with coming out or or you know, I know that you you talk about the

fluidity of partnerships. You talk about flings with men and women, and I know that that you feel that that whole conversation really needs to be reframed in the culture. I think, I really do. I mean I didn't. I left all the out and purpose. I even felt in my last memoir, you know, they want did me to do a sort of it? When did you know? All that sort of stuff?

And I said, um, and also about you know a bit a thing about grabbed my husband and stuff like that, And I said, you wouldn't ask me to do this if I was straight. You wouldn't say when did I know I was straight? You know, nobody asked it's asked that.

And you don't even ask someone who's writing a memoir to talk about about about your partner in the way that I'm You're wanting me to do that, And it didn't feel organic or authentic to me, so I said no. And I feel like with this I talked about, yes, I'm with a woman and now I'm with a man, but that because that's just how it was. And then I was back with the women as well. You know, I just talked about my life as it was. I

don't I just feel I'm so bored. I mean, I said this the other day, like straight people don't know how lucky they are not to be constantly probed about their sexuality and you never, you don't never get asked about you know, do you find it a problem being straight or do you know do you um uh, when did you know you were straight? And you know, has your straightness of you know, do you think being straight

in Hollywood is all that? It would be so funny, Um, that would be a good snl skit Wait, yes, And I so that to me is really boring. And also I think, you know what, I think it's really interesting about the time we live in right now, at this sort of time of non binary nous and fluidity and I and the notion that I think is coming into our culture much more that you don't have to be one of the other. You can go you can go back and forward between gender and sexuality and everything. That's

kind of something I've always sort of felt. I've always felt that I was I would always define myself as bisexual. People comming gate. I don't mind queer. I totally I like queer. Actually think it's a good thing sort of it's an umbrella that's not just about sex, you know, it's much more sort of about sensibility as well. But also I think I I think that I have this thing. I say, it's kind of a joke, but I think it's true. Is that, you know, sexuality to me is

like it's great. It's not black and white as sexuality is like like a vacation. You don't always want to go to the same place twice. And I think that's something that people are more able to understand now. And I don't you know what am I supposed to say, like, oh, well, at school, I you know, I had sex with this boy and then I had sex with this girl. I mean, I don't That's not what my books about. That's not what I want to talk about. Uh. I don't feel

that that's what that's what you know. I feel I have talked so much about my sexuality and being so open about it. That's my what I have to say, That's what I have to I I am open and I have no shame about sexuality. I think that's the biggest thing I can give to society. I just I'm not interested in you know, when did you know and what affects is that as all that stuff. I do think it's so interesting Alan, how how you can look

back on the last forty years. You know, when I wrote my book, I was talking about sort of some of the cluelessness I had early on in my career.

I remember interviewing Matthew Shepherd's parents, Judy and Dennis, who I became very friendly with, and they're so nice and I know they've honored you and at their foundation, and you know, I remember I write in my book about asking the Shepherds if they were disappointed when Matthew told them they were gay, he was gay, and were they disappointed that they weren't, you know, possibly going to have any grandchildren or I think Dennis volunteered that it sounds

so dated now and so just like what that's the thing that we've grown, We have changed, Our culture has changed about sort of. I mean, it's actually although it's su precatious and I feel so scared about America actually about how there was so much awful stuff bubbling under the surface, you know that we saw during the time of Trump and could easily come back again and could be more. You know, I don't take my rights and

my life in this country. For granted, I think I could easily be persecuted if things went slightly the other way. But I think was so much actually has changed, and since you know, and and and then of course Matthew Shepard was a huge turning point, I think. And that was actually right when I first came to New York. That's when I was doing cabaret, remember it. And but I think those things, those it's like it's like, you know,

stuff pre me too. Stuff. It sounds now so like how insane could we have put up with all that? But actually what you're talking about when you said that to him, that is very much how people thought in those days. It it's it does it is dated, but it's it's not it's not offensive. It wasn't offensive. I meant, from any peace of offense. It's just really interesting how

things in certain areas sometimes changed so far. It's emblematic, I think when when you look back, you know, I'm eight years older than you are, and you know, when I was growing up, we sort of vaguely probably knew a gym teacher was gay, or somebody was gay. My French teacher, Mr. Holt, who I loved, was gay. I suspected, but it was just so not spoken about, or maybe

a wink wink here and there. And then I fast forward it to two thousand and fifteen when I interviewed jim O Burghafell, who was the plaintiff in the same sex marriage case in the Screen Court. And you know, that was only six years ago, and that almost feels like a lifetime ago. So to me, I think all these issues that you talk about are the things that I wanted to talk about. And the the really seismic

shift we've seen in the culture. You know, yes it's precarious, I agree, but thank god, thank god that's that that that we're having these these reckonings, and thank God that we have got a generation of young people who are coming up who don't I think in the same way that we who weren't brought up in the same way that we are, who have grown up with the possibility of otherness all around them, an example, because of the Internet,

like they see so many different things. They have people in their classes who are transitioning, or have two dads or too much. You know, it's just we live in a world that has changed so much, and for young people, they've always grown up with the Internet, and I think that's completely changed people. If you've never not known the internet, not known that you have access to anything in the world, a couple of cliques, that is that completely changes, must

change hugely how you see the world. I mean also, I think it's certainly gives you different concentration skills, but it also it puts you in a way that into a thing of you've had so many options, you've had so much Obviously there's room for misinformation here, but I just I am so kind of heartened by by the young right now. I agree, and I agree with you. It's a double edged sword because for every thing it's exposed and normalized, it's also created a platform for the

kinds of things we don't want. But you know, I was thinking as we talked about the arc of history, Cabaret was a huge moment, not only for you personally. You know, you won the whole Broadway production when a slew of awards people were obsessed with the show and with you, and you have an interesting analysis about why and why that show was so embraced, which I think

is a little bit about what we're talking about. Yes it is, Yes, it is it's because you know, in writing this book, I that time for me was so incredible. Coming to New York, my first job in New York, I'm starting at Blood of the School. It comes to sensation. I went all these awards, I'm just fetted everywhere. It was overwhelmed by this wave of love. The city kind of opens its arms to me. I have no kind of touched on. I have nothing to compare it to.

It's it's very difficult, and it was a lot happening, and I suddenly I was thirty three, and I was suddenly becoming a certain you know, sexually objectified in a way that I've never been before. Um my body was discussed in a way that was fascinating to me but also really weird. I just had no and it was

out of nowhere. But what I you know, when I was writing this book, and also because I'm actually really very close friends with Monica Lewinsky, and I because when I first came to when I remember being in rehearsals for Cobalt in my little flats in the West Village and turning on, turning on the TV and all this blings about something big happening in Washington and that the president was having an affair, and I remember just thinking, what's what the hell's wrong with these people? That why

was this such big news and what's going on? And you know, so over that time, when I was doing cabaret and becoming this sort of saucy, sexy, sensational thing, the kind of real life of America was about looking at this um sort of forbidden relationship to an older man and younger woman and getting gratuitous details of their sex and being putting shame and scorn on it. And you know, like we all know that Monica had this the first person in the world to be sort of

shamed by the Internet on a global scale. And I just think it's really interesting that in that year she had all that a woman, a young woman, was so ashamed about her sexuality. And I and me in this role being like a know, almost like a sexual deviant was what how I was described being absolutely lauded and

praised and just everyone thought it was just great. And I think in a funny sort of way, it's because people were we were escapism, and we were it was all this shame and stuff heaped onto sexuality and people having to tell their kids what a blow job was and all this stuff people being furious about that, and then actually here in other way, as oh, look, we can just we can pretend it's all not happening, and look at this young, skinny European boy plastered across buses

and being all naughty. As I do think there was a connection. But that's why, in a way the production was so successful at that time. You I'm fascinated by your friendship with Monica. You know, I knew her dad, Bernie, who's her radiologist. Yeah, because during that whole thing, we needed to get to know some of the people who were involved in that story. I wasn't I wasn't super in mesh did it because this was right around the time my husband died and I was sort of kind

of just holding on for dear life. But but it's so interesting to me, so important and still so challenging for people to re conceive that that even as a word, what Monica Lewinsky was and how she was treated in

the culture. And I was just reading an article in Slate about how Moreen Dowd, who you know and friendly with, but how she vile, vile and brutal and having Yeah, and we're we're really I think coming to terms or you know, many people are coming to terms with how she was vilified and portrayed and you know how feminists turned their backs on her, and um, and I'm curious.

I would love to know if you feel like it's not betraying any confidence sort of how you got to know Monica and what you've what you've learned from her, and and what your impressions are, because I know you're very good friends, are very good friends. Yeah, I love her.

We met at a party in two thousands. I had written an article for Marie Clair magazine and Glenda Bailey was the editor then and she had a party for me and and and she invited Monica because Monica had done something about Monica in the previous issue or something. So that's how we met. And we went to this dinner afterwards, and I have I have a picture of that night actually, of the of us meeting, you know, because there was Papa there. And then we went to

dinner and it was just incredible. There was people leaning over the bunquette trying to touch Monica's hair, and it was it was just incredible. And I was just sitting getting to know this really lovely girl, incredible, incredible, like weird, super weird, super weird stuff going on leaving the restaurant. I spoke to her recently about this, and she said, I just don't remember that, and because I've blocked out so much, you know, and I understand up from being

you know, having repatro pressed memories with my dad. I was leaving the restaurant with her. It was like a mob scene, and I was just I immediately felt so protective of her, and I, yeah, I really feel it came from I. Just as we got we hit it off with it, really had nice chats, and then I just helped her get home and I just was like, wow, she's got And then I read Then I read the book, the book that what's his name wrote the man who

wrote the down a book as well, you know that one. Yes, I read that book and I was just, you know, I obviously known what what the sort of headlines, weren't watching things on television, but hearing it from her point of view, I was like, what the hell? And so then then we just stayed friends and I went you know, it went to various stages of when she the first couple of years your friends, she kind of would come out to things, and then she kind of hid, hid away.

Then she went to London and did her course in psychology, and then she then she then she kind of hid and kept her head down and tried to figure out what to do with her life. And she knew that, you know, it was she was on that hiding to nothing. Whatever she did, it was always going to come back to that. And oh she should she know. If she tried to do anything with her life, then it was like, oh, she was using all that as a stepping stone and it was just a mess. And then she I think

she just waited and got better. And also she was going through a lot of stuff herself. She was trying to deal with the fact that she had been shamed and abused, violated in this incredible unlike anyone else in history actually, And so that's why I want to think about her. I think she is a remarkable person. To have gone through everything she's gone through and to come out of it so kind and well balanced. It's a miracle,

you know, she is. It shows what an incredible person and the sort of strength of her character and our upbringing and our values because she you know, it's it's inconceivable too to think what it just it's in you know that some of the things I've experienced with her early on, the way people reacted to her, and so for that to be your life every single day, and then to be so wronged in such a public way, and also to see the person who betrayed you denied you.

I mean, I guess it was Lindership who ultimately betrayer, but for the President to say on television that she was lying, to see him kind of be you know, for his reputation to be restored, and to be like, oh, what a great guy very quickly, really very quickly, to if that will happen, I think that must have been such a you know, a total mind funck, and that that's must be I And also to have been in a lot of you have been in love. She's young, you're in early twenties. You love and you get you

get that happens to you. How what does that do to how you think about relationships and your possibility of that you. I mean, it's just so to have for her to have been so eloquent and elegant in the way that she's come back and talked about it given her blessing to this TV show, talk about to use her platform for other people who are Internet shamed and

and you know, bullied online and everything. It's just I just I think she's an incredible person and also you know, also hilarious, one of the funniest people you know, and just unkind and love and she's you know, my she was at my wedday. She knows my mom, you know, my family or lover. She my mom had this friend called Jack who was a sort of partner and he died sadly but he he once said, and Monica loves that.

As I said, he said, you know, you should tell of all the famous people I've met with you Alan, not Tina Turner. It's Monica, who is my favorite one like that. I love Tina Turner gets Puss to the cab. Well, I just you know, I I would you know, you cannot only imagine the trauma that she went through. And also I think you know this TV shots on right now, the impeachment, and it's very interesting because it tells it

from the point of view of the world. It's mostly about you know, obviously because a big, huge character in it. But it's mostly about Linda trip Uh and about it. I think what's really interesting. You see how all these women are manipulated into behaving the way they did and tricked and you know, and it's so sad. What nothing it's wrong? Is he not able to bring you back? It's not happening, Oh Monica, to wait this long and it doesn't have the power to bring you back? What's

the problem? An affair? It's over? I think right now. It's a very triggering time for one actually, of course, yes, of course, reliving the most traumatic time of her life and having the rest of the world see it as being worrying. The last time they saw it, they judged her in a very different way. It's a it's you know, she's I think it's still a tough time right now,

just because of all that. But I keep saying to her, you must understand that it's it's such a positive thing for you, the way that we everyone is so sort of both ashamed at how they brought into the whole thing twenty years ago and also so proud of you for coming back and dealing with that, and Ted doing it face on and making sure that other people benefit from the retelling of what happened to you? She I mean,

it's it's amazing. She's you know, she's in the process of reclaiming her narrative, but she's still she's coming out the other side. And that's an uncomfortable place. But it isn't difficult. It's so difficult. We'll be right back. Do you find writing obviously you like to write, Um, it's fun for you. Have you always sort of been drawn to the written word that way? And or is this kind of something that happened later in life? Well, I

used to write, Um, you know. I started off. I did a stand up thing with a friend at college and we wrote all our own material and we wrote sort of lots of stuff actually were we went from being sort of like, you know, drunk students making things up at college into sort of national treasures in Scotland and we had to own TV show. It's nothing. We wrote all that, and then I wrote more. I wrote more performative things. I want a sitcom and Britain and

stuff like that. And then and then you know, it's so in terms of the right thing I do now, which is much more bookie. That's I wrote a novel that came out two thousand and two, and I think I want to get back to that. Actually, I think the next thing I want. I actually really enjoyed finishing

off this book during the pandemic. I've been working on it for a few years, but getting the chance to actually really sit down and do it every day and think about it and work out what you know, you have too many distractions for exactly exactly not fit it

into fifteen other things in a day. So I I really I sort of think now i'd like to go try and you know, if I do a book, if I read the next book, I think i'd like it to be a novel, and I think I'd like to try and really take the time off to do it and not just try and fit it into between films. Although next year is looking a bit busy, which is good. Yes, yes it's good, Yes it's good. But it's also I'm doing a thing that's completely nuts I'm in which just

takes me out for like four months. Next year, I'm going to do a solo dance piece and and it starts off at the end festival and then you know, the tour and then comes to the Joyce Theater in New York and I'm I mean, I love it because it's sort of the fact my my stage, you know, cabaret show I'm doing right now. One of them is called Alan Coming is not acting as age, and that's

totally what I'm doing in this thing. But it's and it's I love the fact that I'm I'll be fifty seven and I'll be I've been doing a dance but I'm not a dancer. But I just you know, I'm just I'm able to, I'm allowed to. I'm working with great people. I'm going to give it my best shot. I think that thing of sometimes you know, dating yourself, to challenging yourself to do something you might fail at, is actually for me a really important part of how

I live. I every now and every few years I see a pat and I do something like that I think scares me, like up the wire zoo, like even like right, you know, physically I might not be able to do this. I'm nearly sixty and that I'm going to do a dance piece, a solo dance piece. It's not even other people aren't they can sort of people, they can do a bit. Whilst I clutch my play, We're gonna have video and things anyway that I think

is really exciting. I'm really excited by that, but it takes me away for many months, and I it's sort of I'm missing I'm missing the idea of being in my place in the Catskills and you know it's going downstairs in my pajamas and writing. It would be great? Have you ever thought, you know, as I've read more memoirs, I've thought about like Billy Crystal's uh one man show that he did kind of tracing his his life on

Sunday is something someday? Yes, Yes, that was great and and it seems to me, Alan, your life would really lend itself two something like that. Would that ever interest you? Well? I mean I start to feel that's what my cabalt Is shows are like the one like I did these shows, I mean I sing songs, I tell Stuart these, and they're going there. They've got a theme. Like the last one was called Legal Immigrant. It was about me being, you know, becoming a citizen of America. This one's called

Alan Coming is Not Acting as Age. That's about aging and stuff. And the one before that was called Alan Coming sings sappy songs And I talked a bit about my dad and stuff and that, so I kind of think I do that, and I really like that. It was I really like that sort of connection you get with an audience when it's you, not a character. You know, you're it's really you talking and I sing as myself and I sing in my own Scottish accent as well,

and I really enjoyed that. But I I don't know, you know, something, after It's Not my Brother's Son came out, people said, okay, we're my agents. At the time, We're like, okay, what about the film? Right? So I was like, what do you mean, because well, we've got I said, what, We're not going to sell the film rights of my traumatic childhood. I don't think writing the books fight. I think,

you know, choose your medium. Well. I love talking to you and I could just talk to you all day because I love your accent and I just love it. I love what you're saying. But your new book is called Baggage. I think people are going to love it, and they already love you. Well most people. You can't you listen, Allen, you can't bad a thousand. I mean, we live in this crazy world, and I think I don't like everybody to expect everyone to like me. I expect me though, Yeah, I saw that on Instagram. Why

should everyone like you when you don't like everyone? Yeah enough, you know. But on the other hand, like like, let's not shoot on people. You may not like people, but you don't have to be so aggressive. It's like, is like, you know, I'm not asking for just whatever, but just take your boot off my neck. Yeah. I love that exactly exactly. Anyway, thank you a great to see you. Thank you. Good luck with yours, but not as much luck as mine. Bless you for that magnanimous finish. I

just love him, don't you. By the way, Alan Cummings memoir. His second is called Baggage Tales from a Fully Packed Life. Nice title, right, Go check it out everyone. Next Question with Katie Kurik is a production of I Heart Media and Katie Kurik Media. The executive producers Army Katie Curic and Courtney Litz. The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements, Adrianna Fasio, and Emily Pinto. The show

is edited and mixed by Derrick Clements. For more information about today's episode, or to sign up, For my morning newsletter, wake Up Call, go to Katie currek dot com. You can also find me at Katie curic on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.