“Well, about time.
What the hell?!
“Alan Cummingsays, letting out one of his signature guffaws.
Alan Cumming for Entertainment Weekly.Lenne Chai
The legendary actor andThe Traitorshost is all made up and lookingmuuuurderous.
But he’s not waiting for anyone at least not in the traditional sense.
Not that he’s shocked.
Alan Cumming for Entertainment Weekly.Lenne Chai
All that stuff is still prevalent.
I’ve been married to people of two genders.”
“I’ve always felt very bi-visible,” he explains.
Alan Cumming.Lenne Chai
“I’ve always known lots of people who are bisexual.
I guess I’m in the arts, so there’s quite a few.
But I have always sort of embraced that and felt that was where I sat most accurately.”
Alan Cumming.Lenne Chai
(And, of course, thatfabulousTraitorsfashion.)
ALAN CUMMING:I just think it’s really important to remind people that bisexuals are everywhere.
With all the terrible laws [being enacted against] trans people…
I feel politically it’s important to stand up and see to it that other people are being represented.
It’s ever-changing, ever-moving.
And I think, in a way, that’s really helped people understand bisexuality too.
Alan Cumming.Lenne Chai
They’ve broken the binary.
You do that as well, with your genderf—Traitorswardrobe.
In real life, I don’t really do that.
Alan Cumming.Lenne Chai
But I actually really enjoy playing with the masculine and the feminine.
Did you envision that from the very beginning when they asked you to host the show?
Well, I didn’t quite understand why they wanted me to do it.
Alan Cumming.Lenne Chai
Once I understood that, I was really on board.
And then, of course, getting to work with costume designer Sam Spector.
When I have a costume on, I really understand what to do.
Alan Cumming.Lenne Chai
Having the freedom to push the boundaries like we’ve been doing, that’s made it really exciting.
And here I am doing this show that I really enjoy and have such a laugh doing.
The queer community has flocked toThe Traitors, as they have to other competition shows likeSurvivorandBig Brother.
Why do you think that is?
I think the reason people likeThe Traitorsis because it’s the campiest thing since Christmas.
There’s me swanning around in a faux fur with a feather in my hair.
But also, it is camp in that it is very heightened.
And it’s also about people lying.
It’s exposure therapy, it’s visibility.
And you have to do it in every small way you’re free to.
We need to see that trans people are everywhere.
They felt more comfortable to be visible in the last couple of decades.
Here are those people.”
Obviously, it’s shone a bigger spotlight on it.
We’ve just got to be more representative.
And even if there are more…. Why would that be so bad?
It’s happened for centuries the other way around with white straight men.
I mean, why are we being so shackled byour quotas?
What about in your own career?
I think all that stuff is so hypothetical.
It’s difficult to talk about, because how can you tell?
But I felt nothing but positivity about it.
It was just formalizing.
And I think that was an important thing to do.
and stuff like that.
But in regards to the work part, nothing changed, I don’t think.
I still play a whole variety of people.
Not everyone has felt as lucky.
Also sometimes, if you’re not convincing as someone, then you shouldn’t play them.
I think that’s far more important than whether or not you got some action movie or whatever.
And he said, “Well, what was it like for you in the late ’90s?
You were about the only queer person that I can remember.”
And I was like, “Oh gosh.
I didn’t think about it in that way, but I was.”
I didn’t feel lonely, but I was one of very few.
I was just talking about my life and being authentic.
Or they saw me on the Tonys dancing provocatively with another man, or something like that.
All that, to me, is really important and inspiring…. My husband’s just arrived.
[Cumming and Shaffer greet each other]
Well, thats a perfect segue.
You have a seemingly happy marriage, as he walks in the door.
[Laughs]
Not planned at all….
Given your constant traveling and long hours for work, does your relationship provide a sense of groundedness?
Yes, and that’s incredibly important to me.
I mean, I’ve been coupled most of my adult life in one way or another.
It’s rare that I’ve been single, and I like it.
I’m drawn to being a part of a duo.
I like coupling, and I like having a partner.
I think that’s really important.
I can’t believe it.
Especially in gay years, that’s like 80.
[Laughs] But yes, I feel grounded, and rooted, and I also feel very supported.
He’s so supportive of me in everything I do.
And he has his own life.
I really love that.
I love the fact that we bring things to each other and it’s a two-way street.
And most of all, we still make each other laugh.
It allows you to miss that person.
And when you go back, you celebrate them and you are joyful to be there.
It’s a positive made out of a negative, I suppose.
Speaking of negatives, there’s a lot of them on social media.
Do the trolls get to you?
So what can we do?
But here’s the thing.
It’s a terrifying time.
There’s so much happening in the world right now.
There are hugely Draconian laws being passed.
It’s not just, “They don’t like trans people, they’re ignorant.”
Its “They want us gone.
“In Uganda, the anti-gay bill is back on.In Brazil, there’s horrible things happening.
And it’s a very scary time in America, obviously.
If Trump gets in again, he’s made it very clear what he will do.
But I feel what we should be talking about more isexposuretherapy.
When people are slowly exposed to the thing theyre scared of, they become more comfortable with it.
We need to go to more places.
We need to show our joy, and our happiness, and our differences.
We’ve got to stop being so accommodating.
We’ve tried assimilation to heteronormativity and it won’t go.
They still hate us.
They still want us to be erased.
We have got to be much louder, much angrier, use our power, fight back.
Why are we not using our economic spending power to send Target a message?
We need to be better organized to fight back.
We’ve got to stop being so meek and thinking we can win this by signing petitions.
We’ve got to be more ballsy.
Use our power, but also spread our joy and say, “Were great.
We are really great.
We have magic, we have joy.
We are happy with ourselves.
What is wrong with you?
Why are you so angry at our joy?”
Well, let’s end this with a little joy.
You’ve done so many fantastically queer projects.
Which one do you think has been your queerest?
It’s got a queer director, lots of queer actors in it.
I love the fact that something so mainstream and so in the comic book world is so queer.
Queer people understand what that’s all about.
