Alan Cumming Doesn’t Mind Getting Emotional
Alan Cumming (Photo: Getty Images)
Alan Cumming doesn’t know what you know him from.
“Oh it depends on the demographic,” he says with a laugh. “[There’s] the sort of theater/Cabaret/Broadway types. But then there’s young adults — 20s or so — who know me from Spy Kids and those films, the X-Men comic geek types, there’s the Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion types, it’s just so hard. I’ve done so much in different forms of things it’s difficult to… I used to try and guess when people would come up to me, but now it’s just too difficult. And then of course people say, ‘I love your book,’ things like that, or I love when people go, ‘I love your soap.’”
Throughout a more than three decade career, Cumming has certainly flexed a lot of artistic muscles. And this week, with the release of his album Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs, he’s flexing yet another. Recorded at the famous Café Carlyle, Sappy Songs sees Cumming belting his way through an eclectic setlist, with one specific theme.
“I was really intrigued by songs that I knew people would get and would be sort of emotionally attached to but, in a way, they were kind of thought of as uncool,” Cumming says. “So that’s something that I’m really baffled by, this idea that showing emotion, or showing devotion as well, can be seen as a negative thing.”
The album sees Cumming covering everyone from Annie Lennox to Miley Cyrus to Billy Joel to the jingle for a condom commercial he recorded several years ago.
In practice, Sings Sappy Songs is the continuation of a tradition he started in his dressing room while performing, for the second time, in Cabaret at Studio 54: Club Cumming. The alliterative affair was held after each performance.
“It just became this really great thing for people in the cast to mix together and have fun,” Cumming says. “It was also just lovely for people who would come see the show to come up, and then friends would stop by, it became a beautiful sort of community.”
As a matter of tradition, the night always ended when Cumming would put on “The Ladies Who Lunch,” the showstopper from Company that became Elaine Stritch’s signature song. Appropriately, Sings Sappy Songs ends with “The Ladies Who Lunch” as well.
The irony of performing Elaine Stritch’s signature song at the hotel where she lived for years is not lost on Cumming.
“I just thought the audacity of me singing ‘The Ladies Who Lunch,’ at the Café Carlyle, would be great and so I did it,” he says. “There’s no point in me singing songs unless I’ve got something to offer it to kind of make it different, to add to it, and I think me singing it my way makes people listen to it in a different way, so that’s why I did it. I think it’s a genius, genius song.”
As the album comes out, Cumming is bringing Sings Sappy Songs to a slightly bigger venue. On Monday, he’ll play the show at Carnegie Hall: his first headlining gig at the storied theater. The show will include guest appearances from Kristin Chenoweth, his Tony Awards co-host, Ricki Lake, Darren Criss, and the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus. He’s also been touring with the show for much of last year and will play shows well into the summer.
This is, by the way, all while he’s starring as Eli Gold in The Good Wife, a role that’s netted him three Emmy Award nominations.
Alan Cumming as Eli Gold in The Good Wife. (Photo: CBS)
“I really enjoy my job. My jobs” he chuckles, spending a rare day off at his home in the country. “Most people don’t do as many things… I work most days, like most people. Real people work five or six days a week. Actually, sometimes I’ve got three or four days off and I come up to this house and just lounge around … and I think I probably work less than a normal person. When I do work, I’m really focused. I’m a very focused person. I really completely focus on whatever it is I’m doing, whether I’m out and about in a bar getting wasted or performing in a theater or making a film.”
Related: Alan Cumming is ‘Excited’ About the Future of 'The Good Wife’
While his future on The Good Wife may hang in the balance, Cumming has plenty of plans moving forward, perhaps expanding his résumé even further.
“I’m actually quite keen on the idea of one day having an actual Club Cumming. Having a bar that’s called Club Cumming,” he says. “Because I think I’m actually really good at having fun and I’m really good at making people feel relaxed and letting go and I’m not into attitude. I’m not into people who think it’s fun to be mean, or snarkiness. I don’t like that at all, I like having a laugh and dancing and just having joy in my life.”
