Stage & Screen Legend, Alan Cumming

Published Sep 25, 2023, 7:01 AM

Isaac Mizrahi has a heartfelt and inspiring conversation with Alan Cumming about his harrowing childhood, why they never had an affair, his surprising connection to Judi Dench and more.

Follow Hello Isaac on @helloisaacpodcast on Instagram and TikTok, Isaac @imisaacmizrahi on Instagram and TikTok and Alan Cumming on Instagram @alancummingreally.

(Recorded on August 27, 2023)

Just a note before we get started. This episode contains brief mentions of abuse that some people might find a little disturbing. Please listen with care.

I said that the trousers you made were the tightest pants I ever wore.

And you had to decide which way to go, you know, you have to choose a site.

And I said, oh, you know, Isaac was the designer, so you know it was sexy pants. And I said that, And there was a review in one of the things said that it looked like I had a tea set down my pants.

This is Hello, Isaac, my podcast about the idea of success and now failure affects it. I'm Isaac Musrahi and in this episode I talked to Broadway legend, TV and film star, activist and author Alan Cumming.

Hello, Isaac, it's Alan. You don't find an in coming. I can't wait to chat.

Alan coming man.

He is just one of the most inspiring people on this earth. I've known him for such a long time. We met in like the nineties. And the thing about him is not only is he a great actor and a great singer and a great writer, and not only does he have that incredible club, but the other thing about Alan is that he's just a lot of fun. He's like a super super fun guy, and I'm kind of excited to ask him a lot about his early life in Scotland, because, boy, you know, if you've ever read his memoir or you know anything about Alan, you know what an incredible contrast that is, from such dark beginnings to such an incredibly light and lighthearted present. I'm excited about this. Let's get into it. Alan Cumming, Hi, Hello.

Darling, Hello Isaac. How are you You're.

Coming in from? That's New York City, is it not.

I am in New York City. I am in my study. It's a rare thing of late for me to be here, but I'm very happy to be back for a little bit.

I know, I never think of you as being anywhere. I always think of you as being like sort of a border plane and like sort of touching down for long enough to do something amazing and then getting right back on the plane or something.

It's very appropriate. I was here for a month. I had a month off in July to July off, which is such a whole month, but I like last week, within a week, I was in Parma in Italy and Ontario and Canada, London, Norfolk and then back to New York City, all in a week.

Wow, By the way, the way you speak is so charming. You have this incredible kind of very thick Scottish brogue still yet right, And I have to tell you, when we first met, I thought it was like a performative thing. I thought you were doing like a character, like you were doing a peewee thing or something.

I swear I did you I did, And I didn't really.

Think it was I didn't think anyone could really talk with such a crazy accent.

Some of my friends back home they think I'm posh, so you should listen to them.

Ha ha.

Well let's go back there. Let's start from the very beginning, because I.

Want to know.

I have a lot to ask you, darling, because I read your memoir, which was so good but also in ways very harrowing to read the story about you and your father. Right, but yeah, tell me about what it was like. Where in Scotland did you grow up.

I grew up on the east coast in an area called Angus. It's in the County of Angus. It's sort of Dundee is the nearest big town city, I suppose. And I grew up in a country estate. So my dad was a forester, and so we grew up in this country state.

I mean now, well not just now, but you know, as an adult, I look.

Back look at and think how beautiful and becolic and I grew up in a forest basically, But you know, at the time it wasn't really nice at all.

Was there anything about growing up in that place that you think kind of prepared you or something or inspired you to be this person you are?

Now?

Like?

How did you find acting? How did you find yourself as a performer?

A couple of ways.

I think I spent a lot of time as a child on my own, and so I sort of would go into the woods to get away from the house where my dad was and sort of just make up stories and sort of, you know, pretend and a very childlike sort of way of acting, which is what I've always tried to maintain actually since. And then towards the end of school I started to do plays and it was very much my English teacher kind of encouraged me, and then I started to do it and it was really the only thing. It was the first thing I was any good at really truly, and I mean, yeah, it was clever and stuff. It was the first thing that I did. Like you had friends who were good at sports and things like that, and I was not. And then I just did this and everyone was like what, And so I thought, oh, what.

Did you do?

You did plays, you wrote plays, you performed in plays.

This is high school. I was in some plays.

And after high school, I was, you knowlst high school. I did sort of in the local app you call it community theater. In America, we call it amateur dramatics. Right, there's just much more sort of history.

Onic, hilarious, hilarious.

It was amateur dramatics.

So there you were in high school doing plays. What kind of plays? Shakespeare?

We would do a whole play. We did the trial scene from the Merchant of Venice for example, right, little short plays. And I did an opera. We did a Gilbert and Sullivann opera with the high school. That was hilarious.

I was. I was. It was patient, which is have you ever seen that?

Of course I've seen it a million times.

Such a hut.

I was Bunthorn, the poet, and they sort of based on Oscar World, you know, I had a felt lily, which I still have held this beauty, and I was started going around like this with all the girls, you know, following me and being this sort of aesthetic boat. And my when my brother came to see it, he just said, I said, did you like it? He went, You're just like that at home.

Well wait a minute, now, because there you were in high school doing plays among some young men who were sportsmen for instance, or you know, macho kind of they were doing old boys stuff that didn't get you any kind of ugly bullying.

I mean, and yes, I sort of it was a little bit of bullying, but I had a I mean two things. My home life was so sort of violent and horrible and crazy.

You know.

I had a very violent, mentally ill father, yes, who you know, my like, my home life was terrifying.

And also I had a friend at school called Alan.

Also got Alan who was a big, tall boy with HS, who was a sporty boy who was kind of.

Like slightly my part in a way.

And when I see him now, like we're still very good friends, and you'll say to me, oh, no, you were bullied more and I just don't remember, or just that it was irrelevant in terms of what was happening in a lot of my childhood, I don't remember, to be other sized.

It's very it's.

Very blurry for me, and I know that's because, you know, you do that as a defense mechanism because it's too sort of much for you to deal with.

Is there any part of it, I mean that's appropriate that you can recall to kind of give us a context. Because you said it's violent, and you said it was nothing, you know, like the bullying that you didn't even associate it because of the violence at home. Can you give us an idea just to slightly kind of bring us into that.

I mean, my dad was completely a tyrant.

So when I would go home from school, it would be this utter attention of when was he going to snap? When was he going to lose it? And it could be for no reason at all. It was just this this horrible tension event and then he would you know, hit me, and.

Yeah, like sort of you know, bring me across the room and awful, awful. But it was almost worse than the actual physical contact was the suspense of when it's going to happen in a Yeah, And I think that's the thing with abuse. Often it's the apprehension and the waiting or when it's for to happen that it's more terrifying and more or horrible.

More traumatic. It's the the trauma.

Yeah.

So I just remember it being silent, I mean utterly silent. We were all terrified, my mum and my brother and I would do it was just everything was very silent. It was like walking around the wild animal and never knowing when it might charge you and attack you. And there was no logic or reason for why. And yet there's certain things he was, you know, he was obsessed. He was obsessed with my hair, really, my dad, Yeah, really obsessed with my hair. And every morning when I go to school, I have to walk through the saw mill yard where there was a saw mill and there was sort of you know, men working and things of that from between our house and where I had to walk to the to get the school bus. And if he was in the summer yard that I would feel his eyes upon me and feel this gaze and I would have to, you know, take all the pins off my blazer and that's like make sure my hair was and he would kind of grade me and sort of assess me. And if he didn't like it. He would, you know, hit me, and then I would and then but then I was still it was interesting. I still had spirits. I'd go up the road and then kind of rustle my hair with my pins on that. And even even after I left school, before I went to drama school, I was working to put a publishing company in Dundee for a year and I used to like hide clothes behind trees.

I would like.

Cycle cycle down the hill to get the bus or a lift, and I would hide clothes behind the tree so that I could wear what I wanted and then I would have to change back to them to go back to I mean, so it was this bizarre kind of I had to be someone, which is also I suppose preparity for that thing, because I had to be someone just to try and minimize.

To go to go away from reality.

But you know, I do want to touch on this lightly because you know, I look at you, I don't think of a person who is I don't know, tortured. I don't think of you as a dark soul. I think of you as a light filled And I've known you, darling, for quite a little time, for a very long time, and I'm sure you have your moments where you go down, crashing down onto the sheets. I'm sure you do, but you are so far away from that world from whence you came from that darkness? And you are such a kind of like an incredible kind of citizen of the world. We started the whole thing by saying, I can't believe you're not flying somewhere, right. You've got so many projects and so many things that you do, and yet you come from that extremely dark place. What do you think brought you away from that darkness into this incredibly light filled place that you inhabit.

Well, I think what it is. I mean, I knew that there was something wrong with my dad.

You know.

My mom told me I was precious.

My father told me I was useless and worthless, and I knew they couldn't both be right. So from the beginning, from being a very young child, I had to make up my own mind about myself and about other people. And so I think I found self love and self acceptance. I'm very young age. I actually think I sort of feeling a funny way I've lived my life backwards that when I was a little boy, I had to be very adult I had to understand adult things, pick up adult signals, and deal with a very dangerous adult. So I understood how to do and I feel that hopefully the worst things that could happen to me in my life have already happened.

I feel same dying.

Yeah, So that's a very liberating thing. And I feel that because I got away, I always knew I was going to get away. Mostly, I always thought I was going to get away back because of the sort of repressed memory thing. I did get kicked in the ass big time in my late twenties and had a breakdown about all and I remembered.

All these things.

So since then I feel completely liberated by it. I mean, obviously, you're right, it comes back, and you know trauma and abuse.

You don't sort of wrap it up and it goes away. You just manage it better.

And it's a choice, I think, how you want to live, if you want to be happy, if you want to stand in the light rather than the darkness.

And it's a constant.

You know, I've been in therapy for decades.

I was just going to ask tell me everything about that. That's great me too.

I'm totally old. I'm in therapy literally.

Right, Yes, I remember I read you book and read all about that. I think that's great. I'm a huge therapy proponent. I feel it's you know, it's great to have a place where I can go. And I don't feel actual the way I'm doing this podcast, I suppose, but I don't feel it's inappropriate or self indulgent or anything to talk about trauma I've had in my life and how it still affects me every day, and how I am dealing with it, and how it's triggering. Certain situations are triggering, you know, when I deal with people who are controlling or have sort of insidious ways of making you feel bad, are kind of angry people. And I tried for many years of my life to fix angry people. I was in relationships with angry people that I thought I could fix, and that was obviously a thing from my dad, and I eventually stopped doing that. But I see therapy as something that is so useful to me to constantly monitor the insane stuff and the insane start.

To my life that I had. It was not.

Balanced, and it was basically one of the people who's supposed to be a parent, who was a parent who's supposed to love you unconditionally took great pleasure in hurting me.

Right and just heartbreaking.

Yeah, and that's it's it is, and it's heartbreaking and it's also a mind fuck. So that's what delity is good for, is to just be reminded of how far I've come.

But also, like the second.

Book I wrote called Baggage, which is a follow up memoir, I actually the whole point of writing that was for me to say I feel I have triumphed. I am a survive, but I have kind of beaten the odds. If you've done well in terms of what's happened to me, and they've moved on from it, but it never goes away. And I think that it's important to say that. And it's not like I don't think about it. I'm not depressed every day. I'm not sad every day at all, but I live with the fact that of that thing I just said, I live with that every day, and that is a lot, and I feel it's important just to say, and we all live with trauma. We all have trauma, but I think it's an American trait as well. To sort of try and wrap it up and pretend it hasn't happened, now.

Are you kidding me?

Therapists, I've been in it since I'm eight years old, and I don't believe that you get better in therapy. I believe it's just this ongoing thing that helps you make it through your life. Manage it, you manage exactly. But back to the beginning for a minute. Was there something a role model, some person, or was it the plays or something that brought you out?

It was always things to do with art, Like I studied piano and as a little boy, and that was really a great thing for me in music, and I wrote songs and things. And then yet my English teacher encouraged me to do acting. And then in the little town of Kinisti, there was that this couple who ran the theater group, who were so encouraging to me and gave me a sort of family outside of my own, one that I didn't realize I needed, but I now look back, and we recorded music, a whole bunch of us. So it was always things like that that excited me and kind of gave me not just the act of doing it, but gave me a community to go to. So that's why I you know, I'm a big advocate of arts and education and how important that is that people have some way to not just necessarily deal with trauma. But obviously it's very important for that, but look at what happened during COVID.

We all turn to artists.

With the artists where the first people we turn to to make sense of it help us get through it. So in a crisis we understand how important the arts are, but in normal life we don't really value them. We take the money away from it and we try to first thing.

I know, which is something we have to talk about.

But you know what, Darling, I'm sorry to niggle on about this, I will though, because I think it's a really important thing to get at. I know you as this really kind of worldly guy with projects all over the world, right, and you're very, very positive and so open, and I just wonder how you did that, because forget about what a great artist you are.

I know, listen, we'll all.

Agree that you are a great artist, and we're going to get into that, but I think of you as this kind of guy about town, also a party boy and a fun party boy. You know, how did you get to be so fucking fun when you had that as a past, you know.

Well, I mean in my late twenties, I did this thing called The Drama of Being a Child and the Heal Your Life work book and all these things. Really I did those things, but I don't think it was those. I feel that if you have lived with an oppressor and you know they're wrong, and you know that, and all you're thinking about is getting away and getting out and living a life where you will not be afraid, then I think that there's this sort of huge kind of ground swell of positivity and and energy.

Energy around it, and energy around getting up every day and sort of doing that, like being the opposite.

And not having that in your life.

Yeah. And also my mom is and incredibly she's like huge, has huge energy, is such a sort of shoa ad de viv And you know, we are both survivors of a terrible situation. But I see in her, and you know, from my mom's side of the family, I see great sort of.

Hoot spot and energy and great positivity.

And I think, you know, in a funny way, what happened to me with my dad, It did boost my willingness to see the best in life, because I in some way you have to understand and you have to forgive someone like that, you do, you have to, And so I try not to carry any negativity whatever I go, and bazarrely, I'm very good at confrontation.

I just say what I feel and I get out there. I don't know.

Anything, Bester, and I just think I've learned those lessons from you know, I having had to look at as I say, as a little boy, having had to look at adult situations and make decisions about them way way, way too early. And I chose. I chose to live my life in a in a buzztive way and to seize it, you know. And I think that's something I do. And I have a great life. I really feel lucky that all these crazy things have happened to me and we are the some of all our parts. And you know, everything that has happened to me, good and bad, has brought me to the place i'm today. And if you're happy with that, then you know, you just can't regret anything, and things you can't change, you have to embrace and realize how they have formed you.

Hm, did you drink? Are you sober? Or did you?

No? Oh god, no, no, okay, all right, well then I want to I talk to you for a minute about this, because you're an incredible actor. I've seen you on stage almost every single thing you've ever done. Okay, I think you are such a good singer. Like I don't say that. I don't think people are good singers, but I think you are a really, really good singer. I think that so much. And you're a really good author. I love your books, right thank you're a nightclub owner. So what do you identify as? Mostly?

Who are you? Alan?

I feel like I'm I mean, there's all various things I've said in the past. You know, d answer that question. I'm a storyteller. It's basically all these things are the same. But I feel like the things that I relate to most, and the things that I have enjoyed most, and the things I've got the most reaction from are always thinks when I am truly embracing my authenticity and my story and my experience. So when I sing, for instance, I sing in this voice, and I don't try to sound like anyone. I don't try to have this malifilous boys. I try to sing like how the song I feel needs to be acted and that that take a long time, but when having the courage to do that, and it does really connect with people because I think they're like, what, well gotch I love singing songs that people would never expect me to sing. And sometimes you allow people to hear a song properly or differently because they have never heard it sung with authenticity or just honest style, honesty and stuff.

Yeah. So I think that's what I strive for, and that's what really excites me and why you know how exciting. I remember like the last thing of your book, the very last.

Line, is about that feeling of walking on the stage in connection with the audience when you're doing a cabaret And I love that too, and I really related to that. And I feel like I've got one tattooed on my arm. What does he say, I can't only connect?

Oh? Come on, really it says only connect.

Yeah, it's the A M forster Ah thing from Howard's end.

It's about just that how important is just to connect with people in the world, and also about connecting your own desire to the life you lead that makes you you're not living a life that is out of whack with how you actually.

Want it to be.

What sign are you, darling? You are like my husband. My husband's in aquarius. It's a really good sign. Yeah, it's a sim doing the side.

End of the dreamer. What sign is your husband grants or starus? Oh that's a good thing. That's a really good thing.

So so I want to talk to you for a minute about like tradition, because you know, basically you're turning into Judy Dench.

I mean you are, like.

You come from this incredible tradition of that Anglo Saxon kind of theatrical world, right, whether it's acting or singing or whatever, you came through all of that. That's how we got Alan Cumming as an actor, right, Yes? Is that an important thing to you, the tradition of something? Is it a horrible thing that you want to overcome? Like talk to me about where you're coming from and where you're going as a performer.

Well, I feel, you know very glad that I trained as an actor, and that as an actor I trained the Royal Scots. Well it was called the Royal Scots Academy of Music and Drama. Now it's called the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. I think you know your old when first of all, they moved to a new building, and it was always like, were you at the old building or a new building? And then they changed the name, So now I think you know your old when you know that happens. But I went there for three years and you get such a great grounding and voice work movement, the way to approach a text, but also just about how to you know, it's a really good training just to be a person and to sort of engage with people, just to understand because you're just constantly observing and listening and and sort of embodying other people. And also you get to make mistakes because if I feel so bad for such so many young actors that I work with who kind of are doing their drama school on screen or you know, the full glade.

Of the world's approval.

Or not, and I feel, you know, I love doing dopey puppy stuff, but I'm also a sort of classical actor in terms of, you know, a lot of the work that excites me and I want to do are those great classical plays like the Greeks and Shakespeare and Checkov and all that I feel I'm really drawn to that.

I mean, I have a very eclectic palette, as you know.

And I do feel that what makes me different in America is that. And I think in Britain or in Europe with actors, and I feel in America it's you know, it's more for the movie stars and people who kind of have a personality that they kind of play a version of in each thing. That's why I think, you know, people sort of think they were also clever and can do all these accents and play all these different parts because that's what our acting to us is, Whereas in America, I think people aren't asked to do that so much.

A nice dench I am, you know, a Merril.

Street brother that you mostly most actors, when they're well known, have a type that sort of a thing that they asked to.

Do would really frustrate me and bore me.

And I think I'm lucky in that I come from a tradition where from the very word go, you are.

Asked to do lots of different things.

You know, when I first came to America, it was really unheard of that, you know, I came because I'd done some movies that were in Europe but did well here. And in those days it was like, oh no, you don't do television. Whereas where I came from, everybody did everything, and now everyone does everything. Here there's no differentiation between TV and film. It's much more egalitarian and less snobby.

It's such a futile question to ask an actor like you whether you prefer like Eli Gold or Shylock or something like. It's a stupid question. But Jews, all the great Jews. Darling being played by a big shiksa. But listen, but I didn't even think of that.

Boy. That's funny.

But first of all, are you American?

I am No.

I took citizenship, okay, not dual citizenship, like just one hundred.

I've got to I still have a well, I mean, I have a European passport. I always thought that by the time my European passport runs out and there's no you'd have to get a British one. By that point, Scotland might be independent and I would have this Scottish one. But I don't think that's going to happen because it's twenty twenty six. My passport runs out. So I love a British pastport. In an American pastport.

I'm a little older than you, But I know that. You remember London in the late seventies, in the early eighties, I mean that's when I started going abroad, and I remember. I mean, it was just the craziest place in the world. And it existed like that for centuries, and then all of a sudden, you know, they have better restaurants in London than they do in Paris. And there's no class system, Like there's no pub that you go into that is only white collar or blue collar. It's everybody's mixed up now in London the way the rest of the world is or something. Right, But you remember gay bars in London in the nineteen eighties and the nineties, right, it was insane, like I couldn't go into certain ones if it was below your class or above your class.

Remember that.

I mean, you know, I'm Scottish, so I am very attuned to the class system.

Yes you are, you are.

I always say that the class system in Scotland is working class, middle class English. And it's an interesting sort of tusion of classism and racism that happens with Scottish people living in English. It is an economic thing because they're less rich Scottish people than they are English people. But I didn't realize until I came to America because many of the things I was being lauded for in America were things I was slightly derided for in in England. In London, which is like my voice, how I sounded, my difference, my opinions, and just my sort of me.

But you know what I'm.

Talking about, like Joan Collins or something, the fabulous Joan Collins, who we absolutely worship and idolize. You know, in London you look at those people and you go, yeah, not Joan Collins. She's way too successful. You know, you did not I think it could be successful and rich if you came for like it was the whole thing, a class system, but it was also like the best thing in the world to be in England was a fallen aristocrat.

Yeah, but you know, I.

Think that's because like in America, there's not royalty. There's not that's class structure. Of course, there's a huge class system and everyone's kept in their place. But the function that royalty has or a celebrity. And there's nothing better to be in America than a celebrity. I mean, it's just yes, being a celebrity kind of still kind of seeing its like a bit cheesy.

Oh, don't be a celebrity. Not if your Vivian west would do not be a celebrity. If your Vivian Westwood darling, she will cut you down. She cut me down in Tokyo, Honey, I will never forget you. It was mortif. She said you are an evil American and I hate you. Literally we were sitting in front of a million people in this fabulous place in Japan with Lacroix, and she cut me down. And I didn't even know her. She's Scottish or English, and she was like, oh no, no, no. This was like in the late eighties, so you can only imagine, you know, she wouldn't get away with that today.

But no, Yeah, that's so interesting.

I mean I sort of see her as someone who was kind of work more egalitarian and working for you know, the common man. Or so it's disappointing that she would be sort of racist like that iconoclassic.

She was very iconoclassic. Yeah, she didn't like Americans. You Relie, didn't know.

Do you like being American?

I do.

I feel like the reason I became American was to vote because I felt like I'd made my life here, and the only thing that I couldn't do I also as a joke, you know, I could do everything that an American could do. I could, I could buy house, as I pay taxes, I could press minorities. The only thing I couldn't do is vote. And so I became an American citizen in order to do that, and I'm very glad I did. And I feel like if you settle somewhere, if you choose to make a life somewhere, then you should engage fully with the government and with the culture. And so I've done that. I still feel obviously Scottish first. I am a Scottish American in the same way that you could be an African American or an Irish American.

I understand that kind of concept. You know.

America has been so good to me, and I feel I understand America much better as the years go by, and I feel that I understand, you know, having come from another culture and another kind of way of life. Are the things that are wrong with America? And I think some of them are, like the fact that there's still only two major political parties in a country of this size, and so basically it's just it's just like team sport.

It's not an engagement.

But it's even in tiny little Scotland, which is, you know, like a not even a half the size of New York State. I mean, it's like there's more people live on Manhattan and live in Scotland, and yet we have in the Scottish Parliament seven or eight different parties. There's a Scottish National Party in a sort of coalition with the Green Party, and there's a Labor Party, Conservativety, Social Democratic Party. So I feel that most democracies don't do this, and America it's so unhealthy to only have because what ends up happening is you only play to the people who are already supporting you. You just to get them to continue to support you. So everyone shouts at each other, and as we know, nobody changes their mind being shouted at. So I mean, I was talking yesterday about how I feel like in the early two thousands, when I was kind of famous and going on talk shows and there weren't that many queer people out in that sort of arena, and I felt like I had this incredible opportunity to sort of bring up marriage equality, gay rights, all these things that were happening then to a mainstream audience because I was sort of I said, I was sort of the acceptable face of deviance because I was kind of fun and chatty and and actually, I feel the more I think about that, it's a much more effective way than just shouting at people, because that's never going to change anything. And I feel that's how my modus operandi for life is just to sort of smother people with love and get to know them and be interested in them, and then hopefully you can offer them another perspective and hope that you know their better nature picks in. And I truly do believe that to be the way both to deal with people and also that people are better than I think they seem right now in America, because so many of them seem ugly and bigoted and angry. Yeah, rightfully angry in some situations, but they're being encouraged to be bigoted, and ignorance is being lauded, and anti intellectualism is field sport, and I just feel it. It's a terrible time we're living in because we've lost touch with our humanity.

Right.

I love how political you are and I follow you on Instagram, and it really is a thing in your life. You really do go out there and say stuff, and I really respect that. Darlings, is there something you've always wanted to know about me, something you've always wanted to ask?

Well, you are in luck.

My dear friend Brandon Lewis is going to guest host an upcoming episode of Hello Isaac where he is going to ask me your questions.

All you've got to do.

Is follow me on Instagram at Hello Isaac podcast and at I Am Isaac musrati and be sure to stay tuned to my stories for how you can submit your burning questions. Thanks, darling, You know what I wanted to ask you about failure? Can you talk a little bit about when you've failed in your life that was such an incredible lesson to you that brought you to this incredible state that you're in now, or to a better place.

Yes, my first marriage ended, and I thought that was the biggest failure because I still trying to exercise all the stuff about my mom and dad's management, and I wasn't quite yet in a place where I understood all the stuff about the effects my dad had had on METE. So I was just so racked with guilt about and I was racked by guilt having left why and walked away from this marriage, but also just racked with gil about having failed at something I felt I was really trying so hard to make work because I wanted to prove my father wrong and that you could have a healthy marriage.

Were you married to a woman?

Yes, the first time, So you were married.

To a woman who you loved and who you had a relationship with. Can you explain that to me? Because I know you as a giant gay, right, but I guess you're I guess you're like an early kind of fluid because we used to think of it as bisexual, right, But you can tell me a little bit about that, can you.

Well?

I would still sort of consider myself that looking back at my life and the relationships I've had. And it was so funny, like I was someone was talking about the new Sex and the City thing and about how they've totally gone to the other side in terms of their discussions on gender and right find sexuality, and apparently in the first season, Sajeska has said, oh, you know, bisexuality is just the last for gay Land, and that was a sort of we you see say that people sit all the time and everyone sort of thinks that and often often in a way it is for some people, but it doesn't then negate what's happened in the past, you know. I think that's what like, I feel like, you know, you can be gay and never have sex this.

Is still be gay.

Or you could be straight and just have sex with men all the time. Yeah, yeah, I mean all those things that'd be like it used to be, you know, when we were kids. You know, it's like, especially in Europe, especially in France.

Yes, I mean it's sort of you know, idea given it a go. I mean, that was one of the things that I didn't really have a problem with myself going back and forward or perceiving myself in that way. But yeah, it is easier now to sort of say that and people to understand it, and you're in a funny sort of way. I think it's been great. The whole sort of trans explosion has been so good in sort of demonstrating to people this idea that you can be both, you can be both or neither. Are many in many levels in many different ways sexuality of course, and gender of course. But I think it's been a really great way to sort of stop you know, this black and white buying anything. And I feel that has moved into the mainstream, and of course that has challenged people so much, and that's why we're having so much kind of of a backlash against trans people because of it.

So you were married to a woman and that failed, and that failed? How did that bring you to where you are saying? With grant or something?

I had been you know, I tied you know, relationships with men before that, I'd going back and forward.

I had a boyfriend at drama school and then I got married.

We miss having an affair, Alan, Can you please tell me that we've known each other so fucking long, We've come this close. How have we never done it. It's a little late now because you don't want to see this, but Darling, I regret it. I still regret. That will go in my next memoir that I regret never having sucked.

Alan, I'm coming, But you know.

What, do you know you want that? Bless you? I'm very flattered.

But do you know what it reminded me of this funny story, Iaac, is that one time I wonder if I'm talking out of turn here now say anything?

So ages ago.

I think it was Glenna Bailey go I love love love I've seen her for ages.

I must call her.

She said to me, oh, you know, Tom Ford said that he's still very hurt by you, that you turned him down. And I said what and she goes, yeah, she turned him down one time and he sort of you know, came on to you and you said no, And I said what, No, I've never I've never met him. That hasn't ever happened. I mean I've been in the same room like, no, that's not he's got it wrong. And she said, oh, no, he's still And so then this is years ago. And that was also before tom was sober. M We were met at some of the Golden Globes or something and he said it, I, I can't believe you turned me down. I was like, oh my god, I've never turned you down. And so wouldn't let it lie. And he said it was in London and he was with Brian, our mutual friend Brian Lord as an agent.

Of C who lives upstairs from me.

By the way, I've never seen Brian in London. So first of all, before that's not flowing the logic. He would not let it lie An eventually got to I was like, listen, I would have fucked.

You, darling.

It got back to me that you told this story in your cabaret about about me checking your your package every night at threepenny Opera, and you're right about that, because I would like Cindy's tits check, Alan's cock check. It was like, you know, this is what I did every night at that show because I wanted it to be like overtly sexy, and I wanted I didn't.

I didn't say that, you know, I didn't say that you checked. I mean I said that the trousers you made were the tightest pants I ever wore.

And you had to decide which way to go, you know, you have to choose that sight.

Well, I said, oh, you know, Isaac was the designer, so you know it was sexy and I and I.

Said that, And there was a review in one of the.

Things said that it looked like I had a tea set down my path.

Well, that was a very maligned and very misunderstood production because I thought it so smart and so good.

I did too, And also, I mean, it's so interesting, especially when you think about what time it was like two thousand and six.

I would meet people at the stage door and they say, oh, yes, we're here on a chip from you know, Iowa.

And I said, oh, what you've seen and said it was a Little Mermaid last.

Night seeing Tarzan.

Oh my god, this exactly funny.

And the whole point, the whole fact that we didn't do a curtain call, which an act of alienation in itself.

We didn't.

Idiot, Oh, they.

Just made so everyone was so mad at that show, so agree And it was.

Only like, you know, four revivals on Broadway that year or three, and so we got nominated for a Tony because begrudgingly because it was.

The only ones, but we Yeah, I think it's just a way ahead.

At this time, it was a time in Broadway history where doing something sort of edgy and challenging and trying to sort of stay true to brect alienation techniques.

Well I tried.

Nobody wanted that.

Nobody wanted it.

By the way back to tom Ford, Okay, I don't remember ever asking to have sex with you or whatever, but I do remember like the first time we met, I thought like, there's a fetch it, why not?

And then no, don't do it?

An actor now, you know, and then like every time I ever came in contacted you, it was like hmm, Tea set down his pats, you know, like really it did occur to me like almost every single time. And then I thought, well, she just flirts with every fucking body, you.

Know, Is that what you did?

You're right?

I didn't think of that. Oh it's so true. You might just be right.

Okay, back to this idea of regret or feeling, you know, failure or something is are the things that you regret?

Like, are there parts that you turn down that you go shit?

No?

I mean I don't have regrets. I don't have regrets. I don't yearn I move on, I can't continue. It's a big mancha of mine. And you know, there's things that I wish it hadn't happened in my life for sure, but again, they brought you to where you are and you're happy with that. You can't regret because there really are part of Like it's like removing an ingredient from your favorite recipe.

I mean, there's parts that I've turned down.

That was it, my me, dearest?

Was it?

Joan Crawford? Did you regret turning that down? Because they don't away.

She did a you know what's so funny you talked about Gindy Dead Journey, because this is a hilarious study. Just after I've done X Men, which was one of the things that I from wish happened. It was a horrible experience, lay a very good film. I really liked the film, but you know, just having sort of really dabbling in that sort of where you realize what a cog you are in the Hollywood system that sort of enables such terrible behavior and yes, really abusive.

Are you about to tell me that you turned down the role of em and James Bond Judy dun.

I was the first time Judy was in a James Bond and I was in that James Bond and Golden I was a computer genius.

But no, so they said to me.

I just finished X Men. It was in Vancouver's I was in Vancouver months months. Then I had a meeting with my agents said, well, Darling, we think we're getting an offer suiting for the sci fi Then what's the man with the bald head.

Diesel?

The diesel you know the film with him and it's a sort of an intergalactic sprite and you'll be blah blah casting Well, yes, but I went back to Vancouver from so much. I'm just going on anyway a couple of weeks goodbye, and I said, hey, what happened? I thought I was going to get an offer for that sci fi film with them Vin Diesel, and they went but they've gone in another direction.

Then oh that's really good.

See she did it. We did that talk in Provincetown a couple of years.

That's fun, fun, such fun. But the thing is that you said this thing to me, which I quote constantly. I'm not kidding you, Like almost every time I talk to anyone, I say that. Alan Cummings said to me that he does not strive, He does not wake up and think like, how can I make this happen?

Can you just elaborate on that?

I mean, I I do make things happen, but I don't waste time but yearning for something that's not that's in the future. I just feel the time in between you and something you want to do is other time that you could be, you know, experiencing things and engaging with people and not having your mind closed off because you're thinking about this thing.

I get very tunnel vision, like I must must complete this project, must get this project done, and meantime, there are seven other really good things that I've missed, and the project doesn't get done because you can't control anything, you know.

And I really think it's about focus, like being in the moment and focusing on what you're doing one hundred percent and then as soon as it's you're onto the next thing. I mean, I do that in my life every day, like even today. The various things I've done up till this moment are they're very disparate and very odd, but I kind of just think I'm focusing on that right now. I just did a thing for pain, you know, downstairs, my assistant film mading this video. But the fact that one of the books, my children's book that I wrote that Grant has been illustrated, was, you know, is banned in some states because it's got two dads in it, a Kicks picture book. I did a video about that and focused completely on that and then focused on you, and I've left all that behind, and I just think you have to really try and and then focus on fun as well, and you know, and flirting as much as you do on the serious working things and being able to sort of let go this cancel continue like if something bad happens, if you have a misunderstanding or if you've made a mistake, you have to like deal with it, admit it or whatever, sort the situation out and move on. Don't let things fester. And I think this not yearning into the future. I remember, like at drama school there was a man who was the older and I was having a relationship with him, and he was saying that, you know, he didn't get to the Royal Shakespeare Company by the time he was thirty, Right, he's going to stop at And I was like, oh my god, what a stupid thing. And then also I got through Shakespeare Covernany before him and hated it and didn't have a good time there.

Wow.

And I think that's also the thing you've got to admit when like, for example, the Three Opinnion Opera, we had a great time. Yes, it's clear that it was not successful in terms.

Of the world view of it. Yeah.

Yeah, So that's important to understand as well, to be self aware and to know that to make up your own mind about things, Like I also think that production as a very successful thing, but it was not perceived that way by the world. So therefore you value your own opinion more than the world's opinion of you. And I think that's that's what it's important to it.

Do you feel any shitty things? Do you get jealous? Do you feel on Instagram? And tell me a little bit about that.

Yeah, I get, of course I'm not.

You're not an intergalactic sprite.

Like ju sprite like Judy. Now, isn't it funny?

It's my favorite story. I just love it.

But and I love the fact that she did that part as well. I've never seen the film, but I you know, she got it. But anyway, it always gets my jobs.

But I do.

Yeah, I feel I feel I get weird, not about work. I don't feel like there's anyone in my life. I think, oh, they always get my jobs or anything. I've got such a weird, crazy, eclectic sort of career and I do so many things.

I make so much my own work. I don't have any like that.

It makes me frustrated sometimes that kind of shabby things and shabby people are lauded.

But that's just but that's like in life.

That's why I'm just aghast that, you know, we are of Trump as a potential in the same way that I feel like there's someone so ignorant and so bad for us as being you know, the more terrible things he does, the more people like him, because it's sort of this help like think. But no, I feel, yeah, I feel jealous, like I feel jealous sometimes in my relationship, I feel it's healthy.

Are you in an open relationship with Grant? By the way, Grant up asking for a friend? Okay, because he's really cute too, by the way, he's so cute.

No, I wouldn't say that. I would say it's an open relationship. You know, things have happened, but we've got friends who go out and then you know they sort of go home with somebody else who'd never do that.

No, that's not our things.

Well, but also you know, grown up and stuff happens, and you know, sometimes you want to pet things up.

But no, I wouldn't.

I mean, I guess so when that may maybe I don't. I don't know what you'd call it, but I just think we're two men who have been around the block a bit and are not confined by the sort of Hollywood ending confines of a straight relationship and I think one of the great things that.

Queer people can teach non queer people is.

That there are many, many more damaging ways to be unfaithful to someone and to have sex with someone else. And I think that our attitudes and relationships towards sex and that is the healthiness of sexuality is a really positive thing in terms of helping straight people see that.

The other thing that I think queer people can teach us is how valuable any relationship is, you.

Know, because I don't think they kind of.

Rate their relationships the way I used to rate relationships. They value each and every relationship more, I think, and they've taught us that, you know, on top of what you just said, you know, I think.

You know, it's an interesting thing that it was being discussed sort of maybe when I was in Britain last year working about how straight men don't have friends, they only have friends within their relationship, right, and that it's a thing that straight men always rely on their partners to supply them with a home, a life, the comfort of others, right. And there was a sort of whole thing of women trying to get their men to kind of engage a bit more and have a bit more of a life with it them and I am very independent of God.

We spent a lot of time apart me too with Arnold, but we also have uh, you know.

Ari Shapiro, who I do this show with, says this great thing that he is very happy with Hiss, but he doesn't rely on him for his happiness, right, And I think that's a really healthy way to look at it. Like I think, in a way, Grant saved me, and then, you know, it's no accident. I think that we came to each other when we did. I was thirty nine, got together and I had some dreadful, dreadfully toxic relationships and I was kind of spiraling a bit and I met this solid, utterly decent, utterly honorable, beautiful person. Yeah, and we really compliment each other well, and it's just a you know, obviously there's always things, but I think we have a great relationship in terms of complimenting each other, understanding each other, being there for each other. And so a couple of years ago, I was in Scotland and I was doing my concerts and sometimes after my concerts I do these clubcoming parties with I DJ and my bad.

Such fun. Yeah, there's sort of dance.

Parties with performance and I sometimes I would crowd surf and wow, it's such fun Isaich and you and it's such a thing of trust, you know. And so then it was a video of me crowdsurfing at two o'clock in the morning, drunk in a monkey outfits well, and it was so hilious and it was on Instagram and things, and my friend Eddie called up Grant he was back here and he said, you know, worried Alan's over in Scotland. He's clearly drunk and he's crowdsurffering in a monkey outfit in the middle of the night. And Grant said, of course that makes me incredibly anxious, Eddie.

But Alan is a butterfly and we have to let him fly. Oh isn't that amazing? I know.

God, So now sometimes when we're having a route, I'll see I'm a butterfly.

I remember.

That's a really good one. Okay, last question, Darling, what is your bit? Tell me about the headline of your bit and what it says besides Alan coming one hundred and five, which is what I'm.

Expecting to Yeah, I don't know.

I would like it to say that his.

M I mean, my favorite thing is to help people lose their inhibitions, is to make people stop worrying about what other people think of them and to just dance and laugh and have fun and be silly. And that's what I love doing and I think I'm really good at it.

But help me, Darling, help me come down to Club Coming.

But that's what I think. You know. It was funny.

It was a wedding of two lovely boys called Dough and Clay. This a month ago I came back. I was filming and documentary thing and Scotland. I came back for it. And they got married in the Spiegel tent at Bard College and they had this amazing wedding. It was like a Yeah, it was like a performance. They didn't do their vows until the end of the night. I sang and the other these people sang and did things and it's just great. And they had met at Club Coming and they talked about how Club Coming was such a far getting together. I felt so proud.

This isn't something that was great thing, Yeah, like something.

That was my spirit had brought these people together. And then they're all going to go there on Monday night for Lance's sing along thing and I'd go back to Scotland. But I just that I feel like Clubcoming is my greatest statistic achievement in that I have I have told the world how I want something to be, what I want you to feel when you go there. What are the sort of rules of engagement there? And then people that has manifested itself by people coming and making it happen. Wow, And I feel I could be a really good cult leader because of that.

Okay, well watch we'll watch out for that. Okay, darling. What do you want to promote on this podcast?

Oh? Oh, my Jon's book.

There's lots of books, you know, Club Coming, And there's a Vanity Fair book about the Vanity Fair Oscar Night with all these amazing photos by Mark Silligert. And I wrote that afterwards too, and I just got it. They just arrived the other day and I really like it. And then I'm doing my con starts in October and November. I'm doing a lot of concerts, some with Iri Shapiro, you know that.

Yes, I I can't wait, Ohno.

And then my solo show right now is God Allan Coming is not acting his agent and all the details for that at my alancoming dot com website.

All right, darling, well you are a doll. And I remember we had in the works a plan to sort of host a dinner party together.

Yes, we were going to. I know, well, and I will do that. I will then invite you over.

I'll invite you over and we'll host. We'll co host.

Ok.

Sorry about their dogs, they say, good goodbye Isaac, goodbye Alan.

Jack job.

Now guess what I went into that thinking I had a full on organized bunch of questions from my dear friend Alan Coming. And guess what, we just got lost and we just talked and talked and talked, and you know, we talked about a lot of things that I did want to cover. But I feel like part two is pending only because boy, he has a lot of inspirational things to say to human beings. And I also like love his story, the story about him and his husband Grant and how they ended up together. And by the way, if you didn't learn a life lesson, please listen again to this podcast, because there are about seventeen amazing life lessons to learn from the divine Alan Cumming, also known as the intergalactic Sprite.

Judy Dench Darlings.

If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor and tell someone, Tell a friend, tell your mother, tell your cousin, tell everyone you know.

Okay, and be sure to rate the show. I love rating stuff.

Go on and rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts so more people can hear about it. It makes such a gigantic difference and like takes a second, so go on and do it. And if you want more fun content videos and posts of all kinds, follow the show on Instagram and TikTok at Hello Isaac podcast and by the way, check me out on Instagram and TikTok at.

I Am Isaac Msrahi. This is Isaac Misrahi.

Thank you, I love you and I never thought I'd say this, but goodbye Isaac. Hello Isaac is produced by Imagine Audio Awfully Nice and I AM Entertainment for iHeartMedia. The series is hosted by Me Isaac Msrahi. Hello Isaac is produced by Robin Gelfenbein. The senior producers are Jesse Burton and John Assanti. It is executive produced by Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Caral Welker, and Nathan kloke At Imagine Audio production management from Katie Hodges, sound design and mixing by Cedric Wilson. Original music composed by Ben Waltzon. A special thanks to Neil Phelps and Sarah katanak At i AM Entertainment

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Isaac Mizrahi is an expert -  at almost everything! He’s an iconic fashion designer, actor, singer,  
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