Alan Cumming

Speaker 40:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

Presenter0:05

Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were castaway to a desert island. And, for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:43

My castaway this week is the actor Alan Cumming. He's an unusual kind of actor, one who's never been out of work. Not for him, the long stints of bar work while waiting for a role. Well, he does do a bit of bartending, but he actually co-owns the venue, the irresistibly named Club Cumming in Manhattan. Comedy, tragedy, song, dance, and drama, he's done it all. He's appeared in films as diverse as Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, GoldenEye, and Spice World, and in the TV series The Good Wife. He's written a novel and three memoirs, made several documentaries and numerous albums. He's won Emmys, Comedy Awards, and many accolades from his native Scotland, as well as his Oliviers and a Tony for his turn as the MC in the musical cabaret, a role he's reprised in an extraordinary four decades of his life. These sit beside honours for his work as a gay rights activist and as a humanitarian. This followed the publication of an autobiography which detailed the horrifying physical and emotional abuse inflicted on him throughout his childhood by his father. He describes himself as a survivor, though he sees surviving not as a kind of triumph, but as something closer to living and appreciating his life in all its complexity. He says, I am excited by many things, and I keep my mind and my heart open to everything. My lack of desire to be restrained in any form is central to my very being, my taste certainly, my output definitely, but also my sexuality and even my hair. I am as engaged by Beckett as I am by Bananarama. Alan Cumming, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Alan Cumming2:20

Thanks, Lauren. It's so good to be here.

Presenter2:22

Well, hopeful as I am, Alan, of some banana army today, I want to start with Robert Burns first, because I think your latest project about him is proof of that desire that is in that quote, that desire to be unconstrained. So you're playing the Scotch poet on stage at the Edinburgh Festival this year, but with a twist. It is a solo dance piece, quite a challenge. What made you decide to do it?

Speaker 12:35

So yup.

Speaker 12:38

Yeah.

Alan Cumming2:43

For me

Alan Cumming2:46

It was sort of an accident, like most of these things are. You know, when I was doing cabaret the last time on Broadway, I turned 50 during it, and that was one of the reasons why I did it actually. Because I just thought, I wonder if I can still do this, you know, physically. It was a big dance sort of thing. And at the end of the run, I just thought, oh, this is it. Nobody's going to ask me to do this again. I'll never be this fit. I'll never dance this way. And it made me really sad. I just actually felt this is the beginning of the end. And so I thought, I've got one more thing in me. And so I kind of put that out to the universe.

Speaker 12:59

Sure.

Presenter3:00

Yeah.

Speaker 13:00

Uh

Alan Cumming3:21

And then all of a sudden the people at the Joyce Theatre in New York'cause the thing I'm doing is a co-production of the Edinburgh Festival, the National Theatre of Scotland and the Joyce Theatre in New York, the home of contemporary dance in New York City.

Alan Cumming3:32

It's going to be really challenging. I think I do that sometimes in my life. I do things that I think I might fail at. And I think that's what keeps you.

Alan Cumming3:41

Vital. And when you read his letters, you know, he's not just the ploughman poet and he's this soulful kind of romantic

Speaker 13:47

Yeah.

Presenter3:47

Yeah.

Alan Cumming3:51

Florid Person.

Speaker 13:52

Mm-hmm.

Alan Cumming3:53

with great, great sadness too. So that's been really fascinating.

Speaker 13:56

Alan, we've got to get to the music. Just number one, what have you chosen?

Alan Cumming4:00

My first disc on my desert island is a Scottish song. It's by Deacon Blue, a band that I just love. And this is a song called Dignity. And I've chosen it because I feel it really represents a very I mean it's a beautiful song and all these songs actually I have to say I realize I think of music as something that is makes me feel things. So I guess if I was alone in a desert island I would want that all the more. So this song would make me feel incredibly emotional and connected to Scotland because it's about a wee man who is a council worker and it's about aspiration and about no matter what lowly job you have, you've got these dreams and you understand beauty.

Speaker 44:37

And he takes no let up off nobody And litter off the gutter

Speaker 44:41

Puts it in the bag

Speaker 44:43

And never thinks to mutter And he bags his lunch in the sunburst back The children call him Boogie He never lets off But I know cause he once told me He let me know a secret

Speaker 44:57

How about the money in his kitty?

Speaker 44:59

He's gonna bad dinghy

Speaker 45:02

Gonna call her Dignity

Presenter5:09

Deacon Blue and Dignity. Let's go back to the beginning then, Alan. You were born in Perthshire in nineteen sixty five. Your father was head forester on the estate where you lived and Carnusty itself was some way away. So what are your memories of the estate where you spent your early years? Very remote then, presumably.

Alan Cumming5:20

Yeah.

Alan Cumming5:25

Very remote, very sort of old school, feudal, long sweeping driveways, gamekeepers, you know, all that stuff. You know, I went beating on s on weekends. I you had to hit the trees and sort of rich old drunk men.

Presenter5:34

Mm-hmm.

Presenter5:39

That's scaring up the birds.

Alan Cumming5:40

Scaring up the birds and these rich old fat men drunk with guns.

Alan Cumming5:45

Totally safe.

Presenter5:47

You are now very close to your your big brother Tom, perhaps even closer, b because of what you went through as children. And it is heartbreaking t to read what you say about that time. You wrote, There's not one memory from our childhoods that is not clouded by fear.

Alan Cumming5:52

His children

Presenter6:01

or humiliation or pain.

Presenter6:04

What was going on at home? What was going on with your dad?

Alan Cumming6:06

My dad was very violent to us, very violent. He was out of control. You know, now after years of therapy, he's obviously had some sort of mental illness, but he took it out on us. He had lots of very open affairs. I didn't care what m my mum thought or my brother in line. He was very, you know, abusive to mentally, emotionally, very physically to me and my brother. And sometimes I thought I terror for my life. I actually

Speaker 46:33

Uh

Alan Cumming6:38

And you think, oh my god.

Presenter6:39

Mm-hmm.

Alan Cumming6:40

That I'm gonna die here.

Presenter6:42

What would set him off? Was it in any way predictable? Was there a pattern to it?

Alan Cumming6:46

Yeah.

Alan Cumming6:47

No, you just couldn't tell. I mean that's the thing with a sort of a a tiler.

Presenter6:51

So you're constantly on edge.

Alan Cumming6:52

Constantly on edge. I could tell by the clack of his boots, the way he opened the door.

Presenter6:52

Yeah.

Alan Cumming6:56

Often it would be to do with my appearance or my hair. He was obsessed with my hair.

Alan Cumming7:02

When I'd go to get my hair cut as an adult, I would vomit.

Presenter7:07

Your first memoir actually starts with your dad cutting your hair, dragging you into the yard and and cutting your hair with sheep shears.

Alan Cumming7:11

Dragging you in.

Alan Cumming7:15

Shoot shoes, yeah. It would start off sorta like, you know, you need a haircut.

Presenter7:18

Mm-hmm.

Alan Cumming7:18

We go from that to h him dragging me by the collar outside into a shed, getting sheep shears out of a

Presenter7:23

Yeah.

Alan Cumming7:26

Drawer and just shearing my head. I mean, just insane.

Alan Cumming7:31

He seemed to get great pleasure from hurting me.

Presenter7:33

And what about your mum? Sh you you call her Mary darling'cause it's her name, but also because, you know, as you say, she is. How did she deal with the situation back then? And and, you know, she must have tried to protect you, to shield you?

Alan Cumming7:46

It shows you

Presenter7:46

Uh

Alan Cumming7:46

to make up for what Uh

Presenter7:47

Yeah.

Alan Cumming7:47

What's going on?

Alan Cumming7:50

Makes the people he's abusing protect him. You're so ashamed of what's happening to you that you actually go out of your way not just to pretend to yourself but pretend to other people. So we all did that. And also, you know, she was terrified too. Well, I always felt completely loved by her. My dad, you know, literally told me I was worthless. And my mum told me I was precious. And I knew she was doing it because she was, well, she meant it, but also she was trying to counter my dad. But I knew they couldn't both be right. In a funny sort of way, that spectrum, the two ends of that spectrum,

Alan Cumming8:24

Med me

Alan Cumming8:26

feel I had to make up my own mind about myself and about about life.

Presenter8:30

I might talk more about that, but for now Alan, it's time for your second choice today.

Alan Cumming8:34

Well this is a song by Kate Bush who was actually a person who during that time in my teenage years was a complete inspiration to me and completely a sort of a light in this darkness because I sort of would listen to her albums and think, oh there are fascinating weird people out there and I'm not as bonkers and unusual as I thought. And so this is from her first album The Kick Inside. It's called La Mour Looks Something Like You.

Speaker 49:05

School warm up, we look at nature, sleeping it up at the station.

Speaker 49:13

Where you want me, Patsy?

Speaker 49:19

For your design, feel all the energy rush your body of wars on me.

Presenter9:32

Lamour looks something like you, Kate Bush.

Presenter9:36

So, Alan, let's go back to your school days. You started school a bit earlier than everyone else, I think. You were four. So you're younger. Did you hold your own? How did you get on?

Alan Cumming9:45

Some of my classes, there were only like six of us in one year. Some new houses got built in the little village nearby, so it got a bit bigger towards the end of the time. But yeah, I think it did.

Presenter9:47

Right.

Presenter9:54

Yeah, I think it's

Presenter9:55

When did the acting come in for you? I mean, did you start acting in school plays as a?

Alan Cumming10:00

Yes. So there was a lovely teacher I had an English teacher called Mrs. Law, and she did the sort of theatre club at school and she said, Well, I think you should do this and so I did a play and

Alan Cumming10:12

That was a big thing,'cause I was allowed to go after school. Uh there were sometimes I wasn't allowed, like some there was a sort of rehearsal, a dress rehearsal, my dad wouldn't let me go. And that was always difficult for me to be able to involve myself in extracurricular things'cause I never knew if he was gonna do that or refuse to take me, you know.

Presenter10:28

And he would, if he knew you liked something, hold it over you and make sure that you didn't get to do it.

Alan Cumming10:30

Hopefully

Alan Cumming10:32

But I did some plays with her and she was really great and encouraging and it it was the first time anyone told me I was any good at anything. And so I stuck with it. I mean I

Alan Cumming10:44

And then I did a school opera. We did one at Gilbert and Sullivan opera, Patience, and I played the poet Bunthorne. And he goes around, you know, sort of parody of the aesthetics and Oscar Wilde and all these people. And I went around with a lily, looking at a lily, and all these girls in sort of floaty dresses followed me, a bit kit bushy. And after it, my brother said, I went, Did you like it? And he went, Ah, it's just what you like at home.

Presenter11:07

That's a compliment though.

Alan Cumming11:08

Yeah.

Presenter11:08

Yeah.

Alan Cumming11:08

Uh

Presenter11:08

Yeah.

Alan Cumming11:08

Yeah, I think so, but I was like, what?

Alan Cumming11:10

Don't go around with a lily. I my dad didn't break my spirit. I feel that the qualities you need to deal with someone who is an adult who is abusing you and you are powerless

Presenter11:11

Valentine

Speaker 111:14

Uh

Presenter11:14

Spit it.

Alan Cumming11:23

our good qualities for being an actor. Listening, in tuning.

Alan Cumming11:28

Pretending you're not feeling what you're feeling, not showing fear.

Presenter11:31

You knew at some point there was a future for you beyond your circumstances.

Alan Cumming11:33

Beyond your circumstances. I always knew that I was going to get out.

Presenter11:38

Mm-hmm.

Alan Cumming11:38

And I was going to live the life that I wanted to lead. And now I was helped by, you know, some of the people that are in this playlist today.

Presenter11:45

I think it's time for your next discard.

Alan Cumming11:47

My next one is one of the big builder campy. If you don't feel emotional and exuberant by the song, I think you must be dead. It's Barcelona by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Cavalley.

Presenter12:01

Let's check if we're still alive, she said.

Speaker 412:05

For wish my dream would never go away.

Speaker 412:17

By the horn

Speaker 412:19

What's the fruit?

Speaker 412:24

Can never forget the moment that you stepped into the roll of the Japanese

Speaker 412:36

Yeah.

Presenter12:37

Barcelona, Freddie Mercury, and Montserrat Caballier. So, Alan Cumming, there was an after, after leaving school and and growing up. Your first job was as a sub-editor at D C Thompson in Dundee. You published The Beano, The Dandy, and Jackie magazine, among others. What were you doing there?

Alan Cumming12:55

Well, first of all, I was in the fiction department and I had to answer the phone and go hello, fiction, which I loved.

Alan Cumming13:02

'Cause I just thought after that everything you said would be a tissue of lies. And I had to like sort of edit stories and, best of all, I wrote the horoscopes for the Dundee Evening Telegraph.

Presenter13:12

Oh my goodness.

Alan Cumming13:13

Seriously, the actual horoscopes.

Presenter13:14

How much uh work went into that back then?

Alan Cumming13:17

Oh, quite a lot. I took it very seriously. I was a very serious young sub-editor. I would look at my old other magazines, you know, and look at their cottoscopes and sort of steal things. But I always thought of this lady, like a little lady with cats. I tried not to make it too sort of, you know, love will come and sweep you away and all that. I made it all very like, you know, Uranus is returning. Better not clean out your closets. Things like that. I would keep it all very cat lady oriented.

Speaker 113:40

Generic, but upbeat.

Alan Cumming13:42

That's right, I was upbeat.

Speaker 113:43

Well that's what we want from a horoscope.

Alan Cumming13:44

The fiction department is sort of like a little nursery and then you got put onto different magazines and I was put onto this magazine a new magazine called Tops. Tops for Poppin' T V was the byline. I actually interviewed a band that's coming on later and there was only one phone in this whole magazine. The editor had his own phone, but we all shared a phone and it was on the on the window and we were only allowed to use it after one o'clock'cause the calls were cheaper.

Presenter14:11

So it was an off-peak interview.

Alan Cumming14:13

Seriously.

Presenter14:14

With one of the artists that's still to come.

Alan Cumming14:16

But they're a duo.

Presenter14:17

Are they coming next or are they coming a couple of times?

Alan Cumming14:20

No, they're coming later. Okay. Yes, yes.

Presenter14:21

Okay. Yes, yes. So, Alan, obviously, your heart long term wasn't in journalism. And a year later, in 1982, you started studying at drama school. You got into the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. And you teamed up there with another student, Forbes Masson. The two of you started to double-act, Victor and Barry. Tell me about Victor and Barry. Who were they?

Alan Cumming14:42

Victor and Varry were founder members of the Kelvinside Young People's Amateur Dramatic Art Society, or KY Padas for short, and they were, which was the foremost amateur musical company in the whole of Scotland, if not Glasgow. And so it was kind of a reaction to, we had to make them up for a college cabaret, like for the, you did a first term of first year, you did a cabaret for the other students. And so we did them, and it was kind of a reaction to us both coming to Glasgow. He was from Falkirk, I was from, you know, on the East Coast. And so the whole sort of booming, you know, starting to the new Glasgow, the sort of wine bar culture, the kind of particular metropolitan hips.

Presenter15:17

Comp scale, metropolitan, hipster, glass.

Alan Cumming15:19

And yeah, it's still Glasgow. It went really well. And then we started to do them a wee bit outside of college. And then shortly after that, they just, it was insane. They became.

Alan Cumming15:29

You know, Good.

Presenter15:30

And I mean, they still resonate with people because the two of you went on to create the sitcom The High Life. Yeah.

Alan Cumming15:35

You know, the high life is the thing out of all the things I've done in the whole of all the years I've been working that when I come back, and even in England as well, but especially in Scotland, that people stop me and talk about and still say, is there going to be another series? I'm like, it was 25, more than 25, 30 years ago or something. It's not going to happen.

Presenter15:48

Yeah.

Presenter15:54

Or something.

Presenter15:55

Alan, it's time for track number four.

Alan Cumming15:57

I did initially want to choose a mashup of this song, I'm Gonna Be 500 Miles by The Proclaimers, who I adore, with and there's a mashup with that and Sia's Titanium. And so I want this one, that combo, DJ Smolly thing of the Proclaimers, Sia and Midnight Oriol.

Presenter16:16

It's an unofficial remix.

Alan Cumming16:18

An official remix. So, in its stead, just to remind me of that remix, but also I do love this song and I do love these people, it's the Proclaimers and it's 500 Miles.

Speaker 416:30

Oh, five hundred miles an hour, oh five hundred more, that feed a man to walk

Speaker 416:39

Thousands miles to fall down and shoot on when I'm watching.

Speaker 416:45

Cause I know I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the man who's working hard for you.

Speaker 416:51

Namari

Speaker 416:53

Then for the work I do, I'll pass almost every penny on to you.

Presenter16:59

The Proclaimers and I'm gonna be 500 miles. So Alan Cummin, life was going well. In 1993, you were playing Hamlet in the English Touring Company production, and your wife Hilary played Ophelia. That same year, you were approached by the director Sam Mendes to play the MC in his revival of Cabaret in London's West End. What was your response initially?

Alan Cumming17:22

No.

Presenter17:23

Right.

Alan Cumming17:24

I was like, oh no. I was like, I don't do musicals.

Presenter17:27

What was that about?

Alan Cumming17:28

And because I was just a little snubby

Alan Cumming17:30

Dopey Boy. I think then there was much more of a sort of schism between musical actors and straight actors. I always think straight actors are such a hilarious thing. I mean there's nothing straight about it, let me tell you. Or hardly. And musicals were seen as a bit more frilly and frothy. And I certainly felt like that too. And when he asked me, I was about to start doing Hamlet. My head was a bit full. And also I was starting to feel a bit nuts in my life. But he kind of convinced me. And also, you know, the sort of type of production he wanted to do was very much what I would gelled with me. I thought, if I'm going to do something like that, I don't want it to be a sort of I wanted it to be proper what it was like to live in that time and those dingy dark, you know, sex clubs with a band. Really, that's what those clubs were like.

Presenter18:14

You were playing Hamlet and rehearsing Cabaret at the same time. Now, that is a very heavy workload. It's nuts. How are you bearing up?

Alan Cumming18:17

That is

Alan Cumming18:19

Is that

Alan Cumming18:21

That was around the time we were starting to try and have a baby.

Presenter18:24

Okay.

Alan Cumming18:24

So all that dad stuff was brewing. I was also in Hamlet where, you know, if you play Hamlet.

Alan Cumming18:31

In my opinion, properly, you're basically playing someone who is in the middle of having a nervous breakdown.

Alan Cumming18:36

And I didn't leave the work at work. I didn't know how to do that yet. I went under after that.

Presenter18:42

Your marriage broke down, and and at that point, I think the phrase you used a lot of the time is, Right, I'm going to sort myself out. So you get this little flat.

Alan Cumming18:48

So you get

Alan Cumming18:49

To me.

Presenter18:50

What was the plan? Just to stop working and think it out, or?

Alan Cumming18:53

Yeah, I sort of felt like I was gonna wait. I knew things were coming. It was like a storm coming.

Presenter18:57

From the

Alan Cumming18:58

And I just sort of waited.

Presenter19:00

You actually wrote about yourself at that time, that you were a warped man, a construct of my father's violence and of my suppression of it, a Frankenstein of fear and shame. I mean, those are such powerful words.

Alan Cumming19:14

And also I you know I owed it to everyone around me, my wife especially, to you know sort myself out to find out what was going on. And then when I did, when you realize that you have become the person you are because of horrible, horrible things and your reactions to them, then of course you want to completely change your life.

Alan Cumming19:35

And that's what happened.

Alan Cumming19:38

And it was my mum who said she thinks she thought I should go and talk to my dad.

Alan Cumming19:43

And so I went with my brother and talked to my dad.

Alan Cumming19:46

And it didn't go well.

Presenter19:48

Alan, I want to ask you about that, but first I want to hear your next desk.

Alan Cumming19:52

Ugh.

Presenter19:53

What is it?

Alan Cumming19:59

Around about that time I've ah yeah.

Presenter20:03

Ugh.

Presenter20:04

It's alright, take your time.

Alan Cumming20:07

Around about that time, actually the day that I went to confront my dad, when I got home, someone met me at the airport who I'd fallen in love with. I think in my life I've had these sort of saviours, people in my life that kind of just when I was at the brink of despair, people appear.

Alan Cumming20:29

Make you feel love is possible and that life is possible again, and she was one of them. And this song was around about that time, and I I sort of the expression of it really sort of sums up that kind of resurgence and joy and love that I felt. And it's Whenever, Whatever, Whatever by Maxwell.

Speaker 420:49

Whenever, wherever, whatever

Speaker 420:56

B

Speaker 421:01

Ever wherever whatever

Speaker 421:07

Papa baby

Speaker 421:13

Wish I knew it far cool.

Speaker 421:19

Be the one

Presenter21:21

Maxwell and whenever, wherever, whatever. So Alan, Commin, part of your recovery involved confronting your father about the past. You and your brother Tom went to see him.

Alan Cumming21:32

Mm-hmm.

Presenter21:34

What happened?

Alan Cumming21:35

First the buddy asked us to come into the house, and we couldn't.

Alan Cumming21:40

So we went on a walk around the grounds of the estate. And then in a funny way that was better because I remembered things more because of that, oh, we were at that gate when this when he said that, and we were down by this those trees when you know so we just told him why we were there, we told him that we remembered all these things, we tried to ask him why, we tried to ask him what he remembered.

Speaker 121:52

So

Alan Cumming22:01

Do you know, I tried not to be too therapy speaky.

Alan Cumming22:05

But that we both needed to give him this back because it wasn't ours. And we reached out to him and said.

Alan Cumming22:11

that we would like to

Alan Cumming22:13

I mean that's just what's crazy now.

Alan Cumming22:16

I said we still wanted him to be in our lives, but for that to happen he would need to make an effort, acknowledge what was going on and try to heal with us.

Alan Cumming22:26

And he never got in touch with us again.

Alan Cumming22:29

Then at the end when he walked away

Alan Cumming22:33

I think he had a tear in his eye. And then we walked to the car and we got in and we were both just shaking.

Alan Cumming22:40

It was, you know, euphoric. I faced my

Alan Cumming22:45

Monster

Speaker 122:45

Yeah.

Alan Cumming22:46

and I feel so much more courageous than him.

Alan Cumming22:49

That is some succor and comfort, I have to say.

Presenter22:53

1995 then, your your career was going great guns. You got a part in the James Bond film Goldeneye.

Presenter23:00

You did once say that Hollywood saved you. What did you mean by that?

Alan Cumming23:04

Many times in my life when things were

Alan Cumming23:08

Not going so well, I would be plucked out of that situation and taken away somewhere because of doing a film. It takes you completely out of your world.

Speaker 423:16

Mm-hmm.

Alan Cumming23:17

And sometimes that's bad and you want to get back to your world, but for me, several times it's been a really

Alan Cumming23:22

helpful thing.

Presenter23:24

It's time for some more music, Alan, and I think we might have alighted upon your interviewees from your DC Thompson days.

Alan Cumming23:28

You're deep.

Alan Cumming23:30

This is the best perfect pop song ever made, ever sung, ever written, ever produced.

Presenter23:34

That's a bold statement because I know what's coming.

Alan Cumming23:37

It's Give Me Back My Heart by Dollar. It's produced by Trevor Horne. It's the ultimate builder. It's got about sixty four key changes. Just when you think it's finished, no, no, here's another bit now. I think it's genius.

Alan Cumming23:50

But maybe I've built it up too much.

Speaker 123:52

You couldn't possibly. There's another key change coming.

Speaker 423:57

My heart, that's all I have to live for. Give it back to my heart, that's all I have to give you. No, I'll never be in love, no, I'll never be.

Presenter24:25

Give Me Back My Heart by Dollar. Alan, I want to take you back to twenty ten. You took part in the BBC television series Who Do You Think You Are? and the news that you were going to do it got back to your father. At that point you hadn't seen him for seventeen years or so.

Speaker 424:39

Mm-hmm.

Presenter24:39

His reaction set off a chain of events in your life that proved to be very dramatic and had a big impact on you. Yes. How did he react?

Alan Cumming24:48

Yeah.

Alan Cumming24:50

Before they decide what sort of they're going to focus on in your life, they ask if they could interview as many people. And I saw they asked if they could interview him. And I said, Yeah, you can. I don't know how to get a hold of him.

Alan Cumming25:00

You can find him, I'm sure, and you can interview him, but I don't want him to be in the show.

Speaker 425:04

Hmm.

Alan Cumming25:05

And so that was how he knew I was doing it. He then, a reporter, went to his house.

Alan Cumming25:11

'Cause they'd done that over the years, you know,'cause they knew there was this sort of schism between us. Sure. Reporters and then was saying, What do you think about the fact Alan said this? And but but yet but my dad thought the reporter was there because of the thing that he thought I was going to find out on Who Do You Think You Are? So then he just thought he should tell my brother.

Speaker 425:27

Okay

Alan Cumming25:31

to tell me before I find out on Who Do You Think You Are or from the Press.

Alan Cumming25:36

which was that I wasn't his biological son.

Alan Cumming25:39

And the crazy thing is that none of that was true. He had made it up. I eventually had this DNA test because I didn't believe him.

Speaker 125:42

Yeah.

Alan Cumming25:47

And I had to then phone up my dad and say I'd tell him and disappoint him.

Presenter25:51

Yeah.

Alan Cumming25:52

That I was his son.

Alan Cumming25:57

And I knew he was

Alan Cumming25:59

Dying.

Alan Cumming26:00

Had cancer and stuff.

Alan Cumming26:02

I told him I thought he was a coward because I had been the one to go and find out the truth and had used what he

Alan Cumming26:10

A fallacy that he believed as a justification to abuse me all these years.

Presenter26:15

It's a pretty

Alan Cumming26:15

So I said all the things I could possibly want to say to him and I also said I went to say, Okay, well, you know, I've got to go now. Take care. I'll talk to you and I went, No, I won't. I actually won't talk to you again, but take care.

Alan Cumming26:28

So I said goodbye to him in that thing as well. And then I put the phone down.

Alan Cumming26:35

And I was in my trailer in South Africa shooting a thing and I realized I was in full drag'cause I was playing a transvestite. And I had my little chicken cutlets, my bra, my wig was off, my lit I mean, it was just perfect. I thought if my father could see me right now, it would be his worst nightmare probably. Not anything I ever thought I would have to go through.

Speaker 126:45

Yeah.

Presenter26:49

Go ahead.

Alan Cumming26:54

But you chose the ending. I chose the ending, yeah.

Presenter26:58

Alan, it's time for some more music. Your next piece, number seven, what do we got?

Alan Cumming27:01

God, this is amazing. So, this is Maria Carlos. It's from this opera called La Wali. The area is called Eben Neandro Lontana. But I just think this is.

Alan Cumming27:12

We talk about a builder.

Alan Cumming27:14

Blows your mind.

Speaker 427:41

Baby

Presenter28:15

Maria Callas, singing Eben Neandro Lontana, from Catalani's La Woli, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Tullio Serafin. Alan Cummin, after all that emotional turmoil that you went through, how would you describe your outlook on life to day?

Alan Cumming28:31

I've got great people in my life. I've got a very great partner and my husband Grant.

Alan Cumming28:36

And I've I'm doing things that excite me and

Alan Cumming28:42

Challenge me and also I have fun, you know. I think it should be fun. I realize with Club Coming, my cabaret bar, I've made fun. Like my brother, when he first came to my house, I've got a house in the Catskills up in upstate New York, and he said, You've bought your childhood.

Speaker 128:44

Thanks.

Speaker 128:57

Silent mountainous.

Alan Cumming28:57

And Yes, it's a completely literature I grew up in.

Presenter28:58

It's a completely the terrain I grew up in.

Alan Cumming29:01

But it's on my terms now, you know?

Presenter29:02

Oh, I love that. You have been known to work behind the bar and that you rather enjoy the role of bartender.

Alan Cumming29:08

I love the whole and the duke and the duke duke duk duke and the ice and everything. It's just fun. It's the funny.

Speaker 129:14

Doing some, I should say, air cocktail mixing here.

Alan Cumming29:17

Yeah, I'm watching. But and then when people ask for something complicated, like they'll say, Can I have a tequila sunrise? I'll go, how about a tequila soda? And of course,'cause it's me, they go, Okay.

Presenter29:26

Because

Alan Cumming29:28

Yeah.

Presenter29:29

So there's going to be a lot to miss on your desert island is what I'm thinking, Alan.

Alan Cumming29:33

Yes. But you know, I was thinking about during the pandemic, during the bit where you couldn't go anywhere, I I realized how much I love and crave solitude. And Grant and I were up in our place in the catskills in the middle of you know, like how I grew up, and I I love going there on my own. I am a fun party person.

Alan Cumming29:52

And also with my work, I do lots of things that are light and funny, but I also do lots of things that are despairing. And I have great despair, but I choose to stand in the light. And I think that's the same thing with

Alan Cumming30:04

Going on the island, that's why these songs I think would all make me feel things and I would dance on my own and

Presenter30:09

Yes, it's a very emotional list, this isn't it?

Alan Cumming30:11

Yes, it's what was fascinating about making it actually. I realized how I think of music as a very emotional thing. I don't just like music in the background. My criteria for liking anything actually in the arts and stuff, people and things, is gasping. Like if something makes me gasp, I think that's an amazing thing to do. You've made me have this experience. My body has had this unwitting visceral sort of reaction. Even if the thing is bad, I'm gasping out. I think that's pretty good. You've made me.

Alan Cumming30:43

feel alive in some way. I I guess I'd miss gasping, but I would play these songs and some of them make me gasp.

Presenter30:50

Well, one more before you go. What's it gonna be?

Alan Cumming30:52

So this is a song from my childhood and it's funny we're just talking about my place in the Catskills because you arrive and the big cabin where we live and there's a wooden deck and you look at it and just rolling hills and I always go up there and I go, For these are my mountains and this is my glen. And it's from this song by Peter Morrison. He's a kind of operatic Scottish singer. He was always on these Scottish hookter tukter TV shows wandering through the glens and the mountains singing this and it just makes me think of my childhood, it makes me think of Scotland and it makes me think of my place in the Catskills.

Speaker 431:10

And this is my

Speaker 431:29

For these are my marches, and I'm coming home.

Speaker 431:42

For fame and for fortune

Speaker 431:47

Could I wander the earth?

Speaker 431:52

And now I've come back to this land of my birth.

Presenter32:01

These are my mountains. Peter Morrison. So, Alan, come in. It's time. I'm going to send you away to the island. I will, of course, give you the books to keep you company. The Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare. You can also take a book of your choice. What would you like?

Alan Cumming32:06

Well of course

Alan Cumming32:14

Both my book and my lecture are kind of practical things.

Presenter32:17

Well, we'll get to the luxury. For now, let's deal with the book.

Alan Cumming32:19

It's a Desert Gardening for Beginners: How to Grow Vegetables, Flowers, and Herbs in an Arid Climate by Kathy Cromwell, Linda A. Guy and Lucy K. Bradley.

Presenter32:29

Okay, so this is purely so you can propagate, you can survive. So it is a very just a very practical

Alan Cumming32:33

Yeah, I think if I wasn't an actor, I'd like to be a gardener.

Presenter32:36

Mm-hmm.

Alan Cumming32:36

I think gardeners are very in touch with themselves and I think they're sexy.

Presenter32:36

Yeah.

Presenter32:42

Always want to have one. It's the perfect opportunity and I'm I'm happy to grant that for you. Now, your luxury item, it can't be a practical one, Alan. It has to be for pleasure or sensory stimulation.

Alan Cumming32:51

Oh, well, it's definitely the sensory stimulation. It's marijuana seeds. And I decided to take that so that I can grow marijuana. I think the thing I will miss on the island is camaraderie, having a few drinks.

Presenter32:54

Go on.

Alan Cumming33:05

The feeling of altering my reality a little bit. I could make things out of the hemp, I could make, you know, get rope and maybe make a little rope boat or something. And I could make oils and unctions for my skin and my pale Scottish skin in the sunshine. I think it's a very useful.

Alan Cumming33:22

Luxury.

Presenter33:22

Well, Alan, while for obvious reasons I can't condone all of the intended uses for the plant, I can tell you that you'll be happy to hear there's been a precedent set in the Desert Island Discs archives, and you can have that as your luxury item.

Presenter33:37

And now one more decision to make. Which one track of the eight that you've shared with us today would you save from the waves if you needed to?

Alan Cumming33:45

I forgot to think about this.

Alan Cumming33:48

You know

Alan Cumming33:51

I think it's going to be give me back my heart by dollar.

Alan Cumming33:54

It's the perfect pop song. It makes me laugh, it makes me want to dance, it makes me everything about it, gasping. So I think it's Give Me Back My Heart by Dolar.

Presenter34:04

I'm in coming, thank you so much for sharing your desert island discs.

Alan Cumming34:07

Oh, thanks, Lauren. This has been really lovely. Thank you very much for asking me.

Presenter34:24

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Alan, and I hope he's happy gardening on his island. If you want to hear more Desert Island discs, there are more than 2,000 programmes to choose from in our archive, which includes Billy Connolly, Lulu, and David Tennant. You can find them if you search through BBC Sounds or our programme website. The studio manager for today's programme was Sarah Hockley, and the producers were Paul McGinley and Sarah Taylor. Next time, my guest will be the Executive Director of UNAIDS Winnie B. Anima. I do hope you'll join us then.