Alan Cumming on Mutant Sequels, Drag Queens, Gay Rights
Saturday, December 15, 2012 at 2:43PM I recently had the opportunity to sit down for a chat with one of my favorite performers, Alan Cumming. I say "performer" rather than actor only because his career has been so diverse what with the albums, movies, tv, film, theatrical engagements, political activism, and all around celebrity eclecticism and experimentation. It's difficult to pin him down which is, I'm sure, something that would please him.
In my interview with Alan for Towleroad we talk about his new gay 70s drama Any Day Now (with the ever versatile Garret Dillahunt as his screen partner), The Good Wife, and his feelings about seeing himself in drag.
I look like a horse with a wig on. I'm not a pretty girl.
I also spoke with him briefly about his time as Nightcrawler which I didn't include in the interview for space and context reasons. Though Cumming made a cloudy splash as the teleporting pointy-tailed mutant in X-2: X-Men United -- still the best of the X-Films -- they didn't exercize his option to bring him back for X-Men 3: The Last Stand. I told him he'd dodged a bullet missing the worst of the franchise though I wondered if he'd be up for reprising the role for the proposed Days of Future Past installment? Cumming reminded me that Nightcrawler isn't in that particular famous story arc but quickly acknowledged that utter fidelity wasn't exactly an expectation of blockbuster franchise adaptations. Though he described the X2 shoot as "arduous" he thinks he'd have an easier go of it now though he hadn't seen either of the later entries, referring to the recent X-Men First Class as only 'the Michael Fassbender'. Hey, that's how we think of it, too!
Do you watch Alan on The Good Wife? Would you love to see the return of Nightcrawler in the X-Franchise?
Reader Comments (8)
Nightcrawler was in Days of Future Past. He was a member of the X-Men in the present day when they went to save Kelly from Mystique. That was when he first met her and began to suspect she was his mother.
Greg -- oh right. it's just that he was dead in the future. anyway i wasn't going to correct Alan ;)
Garrett Hedlund is in Any Day Now??
I watch The Good Wife! He's great on it but he doesn't have alot to do this season, it seems. I usually hate procedurals or "case of the week" shows but The Good Wife manages to transcend that.
I do hope he'll have a cameo or a small role in Days of Future Past. With that particular storyline, they can bring back anyone they want and like he says, it's not like they really have to be completely faithful to the comics.
Can we switch jobs, nat? i want to have chats with Alan, Nicole and Melanie and be pissed that i missed breakfast with Ben.
Love The Good Wife, and he deserved his Emmy love. Glad you put out this interview because I'll be seeing the film later today.
I loved Nightcrawler in the movie. I had such sympathy for him.
I've read good things about Any Day Now, and the performances in it, so I'm really interested in seeing it.
PS also loved him in Julie Taymor's Titus and The Tempest, which despite negative reviews, was a really good movie.
Of course I watch him in The Good Wife! I love everything about that show. It's funny because I consider myself a bit genre bias and yet I have no problem loving this procedural.