ALAN CUMMING has been working as an actor, director, and producer in film, television, and stage for over twenty years. Best known to the general public for his successful performances in such commercial movies as Spice World, Spy Kids, Son of the Mask, X-Men, Get Carter, GoldenEye, and Garfield: The Movie, some his best performances have come in less commercial films like Eyes Wide Shut, Sweet Land, Ripley Under Ground, Titus, Nicholas Nickleby, Emma, Buddy, and For My Baby.
Cumming is openly and outspokenly gay and has made a point of contributing to such GLBT-themed films as Bam Bam and Celeste, Urbania, Plunkett and Macleane, this year’s Gray Matters (his character falls for a lesbian), and the as yet unreleased Suffering Man’s Charity. In 2000 he co-wrote, co-directed, and co-produced Anniversary Party, starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, who plays his wife in the film. A veteran of Broadway and London’s West End, among his many well-received performances he played the Emcee in Cabaret in 1998 and won the Tony Award, among many others, for this performance.
Born on January 27, 1965, in Perthshire, Scotland, to Mary and Alex Cumming, Alan studied acting from a young age. He was married to Hilary Lyon from 1985 to 1993. In 2004 he met Grant Shaffer and, after a two-year romance, was married to Shaffer in a civil ceremony in early 2007 at the Old royal Navel College in Greenwich, England.
This exclusive interview was conducted in person this past April.
