Who I think I am

My Who Do You Think You Are has just been broadcast in the UK, and I want to thank all those of you who have already written to me to share your feelings and send me messages of support about it.  I didn't see it tonight, as I am in New York, but all day I have been thinking about it, and I have to say I am overwhelmed with the number of emails and calls I have had even in the last half an hour since it finished.

It has been a pretty rocky summer for me and my family because of all the revelations and also some of the repercussions that it had for us all, so it's nice to have the show out there in the world and for everyone to know our grandad's story.

fashioned out

I am fashioned out. Really, it's exhausting. Thank goodness fashion week is ony twice a year.  Of course one of the reasons I am a little delicate today is that these fashion events and parties have hardly any food at them as nobody eats in fashion and so you just get loads of booze shovelled down your throat and nothing solid in your tummy, then you find yourself doubled over your kitchen counter at 2am eating soup like a turtle.

Last night I ended up at BES in Chelsea for a dinner for the lovely Nick Petrou, designer of Petrouman.  Nick is so talented and a really interesting artist so it was no surprise that he should have asked the legend that is Joey Arias to perform for him. And so Joey did, atop the bar, like the fabulous trooper he is.  A friend of Joey's gave me little clip on things that go on the end of your nails, and I spent the evening running them over people's scalps and other parts of their bodies that they would let me away with, making them shiver with delight. They were a huge hit!

Tomorrow in the UK BBC1 will be broadcasting my episode of Who Do You Think You Are at 9pm. It has already been reported in the UK press that one of the revelations of the show is that I found out my grandfather died playing Russian Roulette in Malaysia in 1951.  There are many other aspects to his story, but that obviously was the most shocking and hard to deal with.  But I'd like to say that the team from Wall to Wall, the production company, and especially the show's director Elizabeth Dobson, couldn't have been kinder and more sensitive in guiding me through this voyage of discovery and in their dealings with my family, epsecially my mum.  It was a very rocky and sometimes startling and upsetting jounrey, but one that I am so glad to have made because it solved a mystery that has long been unanswered for us all. As I say at the end of the show...

The truth can hurt but not knowing can hurt even more

I'm back

 

 

Hello! I had a lovely vacation. I didn't do very much except potter and cook and eat and read and saw off tree limbs. Oh, I trampolined a little, I zip corded and I swam and I cycled. But mostly I chilled out.

Then I came back into New Yok City and was flung into the madness of fashion week. Yesterday I went to my friend Chrisian Seriano's show which was a gas. I have also had some meetings and photo shoots and all sorts. Today I was at a lunch for Karl Lagerfeld (can you see how I am channeling him in the picture), then I shot a bit for Electric Company, which was very very exciting. Then I had another photo shoot and then I came to work on The Good Wife. It is 1.30 am and I don't know when I will be finished. I really, really want to go out to my friend Rich Morel's night called Blow Off because he is going to play the Next To Me remix that he produced. I have never heard it in a club and I think that would be very exciting.  So fingers crossed.

Tomorrow I am going to my friend Cynthia Rowley's show in the morning and then to some other events. Rock and roll baby.  Cynthia designed my old Hollywood look for the Emmys.

I am going to go downstairs to the set now and see if I can find out when I can go home. Or go out more like.

Alan is going on his holidays...

Sorry for radio silence but I have been wokring like a beeyotch.  We have been doing huge scenes on The Good Wife in a hotel in Manhattan that involve loads of the cast and tons of extras and lots of political machinations and I have been really exhausted and just crawling into and out of bed as soon as I get to my apartment door or wake up. It has also been unbearably hot in NYC, an end of summer heatwave.  Is it wrong to be glad of the effects of the hurricane about to hit so there will be an end to this oppression?

 

I have a long stint off now, and so I am going to have a little vacation and won't be blogging till later next week.  I was thinking about it, and I feel that, much as I enjoy this blogging lark, it has become a part of my daily routine and so should be avoided during a vacation when the true purpose is to vacate your life of all that is normal and routine to give yourself a change and a break. So, much as I will miss you all, I sense I must commit to vacation as stongly as I commit to everything else.

 

I have found some pictures online which show how I deal with the whorish aspect of being gifted things in swag suites. I take the piss and ham it up. Here I am gazing at my imaginary baby, enjoying the sensual pleasures of hair spray, channeling Groucho Marx and being broody with an Altoid lady.

I just had a chat with the Kings - Michelle and Robert - who are the creatrs of The Good Wife, and our producer Brooke, about Eli's future storylines, and I have to say it was very exciting and I am looking forward to lots of juicy scenes and dramatic revelations!  Of course I cannot possibly tell you any of them, but I do know that the new season begins with a bang on September 21st and the games will begin.

Next week is the beginning of Fashion Week in NYC and so my return to the blogosphere will coincide with it.  I am going to do video blogs of my experiences going out and about in the fashion madness, so look out for those.  Till then, I leave you with a story that the director I worked with today told me..

David Mamet was writing a screenplay for a Martin Scorcese movie.  Scorcese made so many suggestions and asked for so many changes that eventually Mamet told him to go fuck himself.  And Mamet's response to Scorcese's firing him off the picture for this outburst?  'He took it the wrong way!'

Emmyway

I am trying to think of the most crazy part of my Emmy weekend.

Was it meeting the real Temple Grandin in a gifting suite at the Four Seasons hotel? Seeing her being part of the swag machine was a little bizarre.

Is it the large bruise and scrape I mysteriously have on my right shin?

Was it holding Archie Panjabi's Emmy as we walked to the Governer's Ball and being congratulated by so many people on my win, and even letting a child hold it in a photograph?

Was it being gifted an eat for free at Johnny Rocket's for a year voucher?  Or a year's supply of tic tacs?

Was it being asked to do an impression of George Clooney on the red carpet?

I am about to fly home to NYC. I will muse on't on the plane.

Ask Alan

I am back in LA for the Emmys tomorrow. I flew Continental this time, and had a lovely Indian vegan meal and the flight attendant did not comment on the body odour of any passengers as her American Airlines counterpart had last weekend.  Yes, really.

Natalie asks: Out of all the magnificent roles you've played, what's your favorite line you've had to say? What's the weirdest? It can be from a play, musical, movie, or anything. I thought of this while watching Tin Man (which you're amazing in of course). Keep being inspirational and fantastic!  See the blog from yesterday about the Terence McNally reading. I think that has to take the biscuit, don't you?!

Clarissa Crabtree (what a great name) writes: As I was chopping and dicing the veggies from my recent CSA delivery, I got to thinking about vegies around the world.  Since you travel so much, you must have tried lots of different veggies around the world - what was the wierdest, and what's your favourite?   I have had some weird and wonderful veggies, but my favourite exotic one is jackfruit.  Oh, it's so delicious and the texture is very satisfying.  But my favourite vegetable of all time would have to be the potato. I could easily have mashed potato for every meal.  I am also nuts about arugula, the kind that tastes all mustardy.

Jessy from Germany says: What do like about your work? I meanbe an actor is a fascinating jobbut what fascinated you ?
I just like pretending to be other people. It's fun.  I think of it as a very child-like thing, committing to play in a really total way.  And I like that I get to play as an adult and be able to make a living and do things I like because of it.  I think my inner child is very outer.

Hey Alan! I know you're anti-circumsicion, and there are people asking why...so here's a link that may be of interest to you: http://www.drmomma.org/2009/09/functions-of-foreskin-purposes-of.html  Thanks so much, this is a great article.  It's a good one to forward to anyone who needs to be enlightened on the foreskin front!

Matt writes: I love, with a big L, The High Life. What was it that made your decision to move on?
It was really a combination of things but mostly it was because Forbes and I had reached a decision to not to do another series during the writing process. I guess we felt really unsupported by the BBC and that they just didn't get us.  It felt a lot like banging our heads against a brick wall.  Then we shot it and it came out and people really liked it for the same reasons that the people at the Beeb had been trying to get us to change. And then of course they were all over us to do another series. But by then I had already moved on in my head, and also logistically it became impossible because I had started to do more films. But really we didn't do another series because we made a pact not to.

Quite a lot of people have written asking for the playlist of my recent shows. It varies from show to show a little but this is how it is basically right now..
Almost There (Tom Baxter)/Mein Herr (Kander & Ebb)/I Want To See You (Alan Cumming)/Wig In A Box/Wicked Little Town (Stephen Trask)/American (Lance Horne)/What More Can I Say (William Finn)/I Still Have That Other Girl/Losing My Mind (Elvis Costello & Burt Bacharach/Stephen Sondheim)/Taylor The Latte Boy (Heisler/Goldrich)/Next To Me (Cumming/Horne)/Edinburgh Festival Song (Cumming/Masson)/Beautiful (Jeff Harris)

From Lynn: I was wondering if you were planning to write another book at some point? My friends and I all loved 'Tommy's Tale' and hoped you might feel the urge to write another novel! Although....a biography would be great too :)
I am indeed planning to write another book. It's just the old enemy, time. And I even want to do something that would in a way be my version of an autobiography: a sort of book of short stories about things that have happened in my crazy life.  Stay tuned.  But maybe I should get down to writing the book more instead of doing this blog every day?! Actually, doing this blog has been a good discipline both in just writing something every day and also getting back into the habit of searching the cavities of my mind and finding out what I think about things. So thank you all for your encouragement.

Katie writes: I'm thinking of trying to major in musical theatre or acting in college, but I'm not sure if I should. I've only been in a couple shows, and I've done a lot of vocal stuff, but I fell in love with acting when I did my first show. Do you think that if you are really passionate about something, you might as well try to make it into a career, even though it's more than likely you could completely fail?!  Do it! I think the worst thing would be to live your life thinking 'if only'.

Alan, have you ever gotten or wanted a tattoo?
Yep, I had one.  It was a boy's name.  We had each other's names tattooed on our groins after two weeks of knowing each other! Four months later we broke up. I had mine lasered off.  Since then, much as I love them, I've been wary of getting another. But I always ask people to show me their tattoos because I think they are beautiful and people get them so that others can enjoy them too.

Doris from Germany: What means the title of your debut album:" I Bought A Blue Car Today"?
It's the sentence I had to write down in my US Naturalization test to prove I could write in English. I thought it was cute at first and then I realised it was about consumerism and gas-guzzling.

I know you've probably heard this before, but what is the tastiest way to cook tofu.
I am a big fan of a stir fry with some vegetables and sesame oil or a teriyaki sauce. I try to steer clear of the deep fry option

Liam asks: I've aways loved the roles you play and i wondered is there a role that you'd love to play again in a sequel or a remake?  Actually there is a Spy Kids 4 in the works and we are trying to make the dates work so that i can be in that for just a little cameo. But as for remakes, I would love to play a character like Auntie Mame.  Alan Cumming as Uncle Mame doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?  Or I would like to be Maude in Harold and Maude!!

Michael from Austria: I saw yesterday the fantastic movie "the anniversarry party" first time. congratulation to this artwork. since hours i try to find out who sing the song in the scene on the pool. please tell me this important information via eMail. I must have this song ;-)  It was written by Michael Penn and is on The Anniversary Party soundtrack which I bet you can get on itunes or Amazon.

Theatah

Today I didreading of a Terence McNally play called It's Only A Play at the Manhattan Theatre Club.  It's an old play that he has re-worked about the first night of a play on Broadway and it was very very funny.  I have nearly worked with Mr T many times and this reading was actually the first time it had ever happened. I hope I get to do a full production of something of his soon.

I played a theatre director and my favourite line was: Wicked is the pimple on the hemorrhoid in the rectum of the flatulent institution they call the American theatre.

Ouch.

Later I went to see a play by Stan Richardson called Veritas at the NY Fringefestival. It's a really amazing story about a group of gay men at Harvard in 1920 and how their treatmentended in such tragedy.  It has its last eprformance at the fringe Saturday so check it out if you can.

Then I watched again my friend Joe's documentary about Norman Mailer.  What a crazy troubled thing he was.  I met him once at a benefit for the drama bookshop in NYC.  I had forgotten all about it till last night. Isn't it funny how our memories are rebooted by certain stimuli?

And here is a picture of me playing Hamlet that I really think encapsulates that time of my life.