Alan Cumming on “The Traitors” and His Brush with Reality Television
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当艾米莉·纳斯鲍姆在纽约客节上介绍艾伦·卡明时，她说：“很多演员能点亮一个房间，但艾伦·卡明更像是一个迪斯科球——反射出娱乐圈的每一个可能角度。”卡明出现在《良妻》这样的主流剧集中，也参与了像他的一人版《麦克白》这样的独立项目；他在音乐剧《歌舞青春》中的表演堪称传奇。他还拥有一家夜总会；他的回忆录《不是我父亲的儿子》曾是畅销书，等等。此外，卡明还是艾美奖获奖真人秀《叛徒》的主持人。他结合了“一个华丽的苏格兰领主——有点詹姆斯·邦德反派的感觉，有点古怪、老派的疯子，拥有这座大城堡。”剧透警告：“这本该是我的城堡。其实不是。”纳斯鲍姆在卡明开始《叛徒》之前询问他对真人秀的看法。“真的没有，”卡明坦白道。“我有点评判……我不喜欢很多这些节目的原因是，它们赞美并因此鼓励不良行为和缺乏善良。”在《叛徒》之前，卡明第一次接触真人秀是在《你认为你是谁？》中，这是一个BBC的家谱节目，让他面对自己家庭的惊人秘密。“我想这本书写得不错，”他开玩笑说。“真是太可怕了。这真是可怕。但不，我不后悔。” </context> <raw_text>0 I need directions for paying down debt. Starting route. Apply for a SoFi personal loan and consolidate your debt into one fixed payment. Turn right into a positive outlook and get $5,000 to $100,000 as soon as the same day you sign with no fees required.

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Plenty of actors light up a room, but Alan Cumming is more of a disco ball reflecting every possible angle of show business. That's how the critic Emily Nussbaum introduced Alan Cumming when they sat down at the recent New Yorker Festival. And he does seem to do it all. He acts in mainstream dramas like The Good Wife, as well as more indie projects like his one-man version of Macbeth.

So straight out of Scotland, but eternally beloved in New York. Welcome, Alan Cumming. Thank you. Thank you very much.

So, for anybody who hasn't seen it, Traitors is a reality show that stars reality stars. Mostly, yeah. There's a lot of people from the reality universe as well as some random famous people. It's sort of, you know, celebrities and they all go to a castle and it's supposed to be my castle. It's not. And I pretend it is and we do this, you know, they play this game that's basically...

The parlor game Mafia. So who is this guy who owns this castle? Like, did you think at all about him as a character? Does he have a backstory? Does he? I mean, I think of him absolutely as a character. You know, I think of him as this sort of combination of a dandy Scottish laird slash sort of James Bond villain slash sort of eccentric old-fashioned nut guy.

And who has this big castle and like, or like that film Clue or something, you know, it's got all those combinations of these very theatrical camp in the, in the true sense of camp, the sort of the wit and the, and the sort of sardonic kind of camp. And he's sort of imposing and scary, but not mean.

And I sort of try not to engage with the contestants because of that, like in filming. I mean, it's getting harder because they see me outside and I say things like this afterwards. But when we're at the time, I think I want them to be a little scared of me because I have to sort of shout at them quite a lot to tell them to be quiet and things. It gets out of control sometimes. Like in this new season, I actually thought I was going to have to break up a fight. And I'm not, I don't do that very often. No, but I mean, I thought that in one of the round tables, it got so brutal.

Well, good morning, my ever decreasing circle of friends.

Last night, MJ, Kate, Trishel, and Parvati were hung out to dry. But it was Bergie who suffered the final devastating blow, brutally dispatched by the traitors. Players, despite the loss of Bergie, we must let bygones be bygones. Bye. Gone. Oh my god. Savage.

Soon, players, you must turn your attention to today's mission. You'll be taking a little trip to my, well, let's call it a holiday home. I have a guest who's currently staying there who will help you settle in. And after all, who doesn't enjoy a little country escape? Escape, escape. I think it's the cabin. Oh, no. Head down there, and I'll meet you afterwards. A la prochaine. So what was your perspective on reality television before you made the show?

Zero, really. I didn't really... I mean, I was... Once in a while, on a plane, I would watch The Kardashians or something or catch an episode of The Housewives. But not at all... It wasn't... I never watched it. And it just wasn't... I don't know. It just wasn't my thing. Never really engaged with it. Still don't. Did you disapprove of it? No, I don't. I mean, yes. I was a bit judgy. I mean, I think I...

The thing I don't like about it, the thing I don't like about a lot of those shows is that they laud and therefore encourage bad behavior and lack of kindness. That's what I don't like. Thank you. So when people on these shows are mean, what they're doing is really aping the behavior that probably happened to them. Probably at school someone was mean to them and now that they have power because they have a

a disguise and they have a sort of a platform they're basically not breaking the cycle and they're just repeating that bad behavior and i don't like it and i think the great thing i like about the traitors is that it doesn't do that it doesn't it makes people have to work together of course they're do terrible things to each other and they're treacherous but it's not it's about the game aspect rather than just being you know a meanie and just flinging wine at each other and stuff like that so um

Yeah, actually, this is a complete left-field...

hilarious turn in my life and career to be hosting this show and I really like it don't get me wrong I love it it's such fun and also it has brought me many great things you know other things have happened because of the success of this like when you're successful in one thing it usually has a sort of knock-on effect in the other parts of your life and so I've and I've been around the block long enough to recognize that your career not that I've ever had feel like I have a

been in the doldrums, but you know, you have peaks and less big peaks. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come.

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You actually appeared on a very different kind of reality show that you talk about in your memoir called Who Do You Think You Are? That was the name of it, right? Where it was a genealogy show. Who Do You Think You Are, yeah. That traced the life of your grandfather. And in that, you were the subject. You were on the other side of the camera. And I'm wondering, looking back on that experience, how you feel about it, whether you feel good about it, whether you feel ambivalent or if you feel regrets and whether you learned anything from it. I certainly learned stuff from it. I...

Well, I mean, when it happened, when they asked me, I remember thinking, oh, this is the best thing that's happened to me about being famous. Because there was a mystery in my family. And they ask you if you'd like to be a part of it. And then they go away and research you for a while, a couple of months. And they come back and say, yes, we want to do it. And then they say, and we're actually going to feature this part of this area of your family.

And so there was this mystery in my family. And I just remember thinking, I'm going to be able to, because I'm famous and the BBC's research and all the things are going to be able to, that will make my mom have this knowledge that she's never had about what happened to her father and what a great gift that is. And then, you know, a month later, I was like, this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me about being famous. And I, cause I had to call up my mom and tell her something truly awful about

which was that her father had died in Malaysia playing Russian roulette. Yeah. And I met, you know, someone who had known him told me that in this little cafe in Malaysia. And it was, I mean, I don't regret it because I feel the truth is better than not knowing, even if the truth is hard. And it made me,

a lot of sense to a lot of things and I just think it was, you know, but what was awful, even more awful was at the time that this was happening, my father, because he thought that the show, because the show said, they asked me if they could interview him and I said, yes, of course, whatever, but I don't want him to be on the show. But just because they were going to research, ask all your aunties and uncles and all these people.

And so he knew that I was, he refused to be interviewed for it, but he, and I didn't know how to get hold of him because we were estranged. He was estranged from us for decades, but they got him and he refused to be interviewed even just for the research. But then he knew I was doing it. So because he thought I was going to find out something, he preempted it and got reached out to my brother and told me,

told him to tell me that I was not his biological son. And that happened the night before I started filming the thing when I found out my grandfather died from playing Russian roulette. So all the way through this thing, I was having to deal with my father again for the first time in decades. And, you know, that's what my book, it made a good memoir, I suppose, but that's what my book's all about, this sort of duality and just how awful that was. It was awful.

I really am side swipes. I didn't see that one coming at all. What state of mind must he have been in to be getting his kicks from being in some little bar, putting a gun to his head? I feel really sad for him.

Being told on camera that your grandfather died playing Russian roulette is a lot. It's not just like, oh, you know, your great-great-great aunt was a minister to Queen Elizabeth and the blah-blah. You're like, how fascinating. It was really, and also it was so near, you know. It was so close. He's one generation away. But as I say, I don't regret it. I have no regrets, actually.

You were raised in a very abusive household in a rural Scottish estate where your father was the caretaker. And then you escaped and you trained to become an actor and you achieved success relatively quickly in your career. And I wanted to ask a little bit about what that first dose of attention was like for you.

Well, I think what's interesting about becoming famous is there's no, you don't get lessons on it at drama school, you know. And I was also coming from a culture where celebrity is not king like it is here. It was more shocking to me. I mean, obviously, I knew famous people as, you know, there were famous people, but it wasn't quite...

It happened so fast and it happened, I was so young. And also, you know, when you become famous, for me what being famous is, is that people starting to be interested in you as you and your private life as much if not more than your work. And so I wasn't ready for that because I didn't, there were areas of my life, like my relationship with my father, that I couldn't even talk about, let alone share it with anybody.

a journalist or anything. And so that was what was hard for me was just this interest in me as a person, aside from me as a performer. And I'm really glad that it happened, you know, that I sort of was famous in Scotland and then I ran away and moved to London and I started to be famous in London. And then I sort of ran away and went to America and I started to be famous in America. So it's kind of gone like this and I've got, you know, I'm now quite used to it and it's sort of such a part of my life. But back then it was really,

I mean, it is still overwhelming. I mean, I was just talking about this the other day that when people ask me, but what is it like to be famous? What does that mean to you? I always say there are many great things about it. I get to do the work I want to do. I get to meet incredible people. But also you have to live with such a huge level of self-consciousness every time you leave your home. And that is overwhelming.

Is there advice that you would give to somebody who, I mean, I'm sure you've met people on the cusp of fame when they get famous early. Do you offer them any guidance? I mean, my only thing is just to not be coy. I was coy about certain things in my life and it blew up in my face. And also, you know, I think I became famous in the sort of 80s actually in Scotland and then in the 90s in Britain as a whole and

that was a time as it was a time of huge the tabloids were at their height of their awfulness and so all those things that you hear about like people raking through your trash cans and door stopping you and your family and your exes and um shouting through your letterbox and all these things that all happened to me and i feel like that was because i wasn't ready but also i sort of

felt that if I didn't give everything away and was coy about certain things, it would stop people speculating. And actually, it was the opposite. It just made them more and more interested and more and more fascinated. I mean, I think that in life in general, actually, I suppose, it's just sort of authenticity and openness are two qualities that will only make your life better.

Alan Cummings speaking with staff writer Emily Nussbaum at the New Yorker Festival. You can watch highlights from the festival at newyorker.com and subscribe to the New Yorker at newyorker.com as well.

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Thank you.

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