Alan Cumming: I Bought a Blue Car Today, presented by the Geffen Playhouse, opens Dec. 13; plays Sun., 2 & 7 pm; Mon.-Thurs., 8 pm; Fri., 7 & 9 pm; through Dec. 19, Tickets: $65-$85. Audrey Skirball Kenis Theatre, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood; 310.208.5454 or geffenplayhouse.com

Alan Cumming won the 1998 Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Theatre World Awards for his gender bending portrayal of the Kit Kat Klub’s Master of Ceremonies in the celebrated Sam Mendes directed revival of Cabaret. In February, the Scottish actor launched his own cabaret act called I Bought a Blue Car Today detailing the decade since spent negotiating American life and celebrity before becoming a citizen last year. (The title comes from his immigration test.) Following a world tour, the show returns to LA for a repeat engagement at the Geffen Playhouse.

Classically trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Cumming has done the full acting gamut from performing with The Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre to appearing in both the Spy Kids and X-Men franchises. Not to mention writing a novel titled Tommy’s Tale or releasing his own fragrance and body products line he wittily calls Cumming. A lauded activist and global humanitarian, his recent New York and London stage roles include The Threepenny Opera co-starring Cindy Lauper, Bent, The Bacchae and The Seagull opposite Dianne Wiest. Cumming is slated to return to Broadway in 2010 as the Green Goblin in the much-hyped musical, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, to be directed by Julie Taymor with music by Bono and the Edge.

En route to JFK to catch a flight to San Francisco, Cumming spoke to LA STAGE about how his cabaret act helped him overcome terror, why Shakespeare is like homophobia and the reason he’s miffed with a certain candy coated chocolate.

LAS: I understand you’re headed to JFK again. You just did your act in Sydney, picked up an OBE from Princess Anne at Buckingham Palace then flew back across the pond to be in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. You must be racking up some amazing frequent flyer miles.

AC: That was crazy! I’ve actually had nearly a week without having to go on a plane. It’s probably the longest I’ve not had to fly in a very long time. Going from Australia to LA to New York to London and back to New York in seven days was insane.

LAS: You’re almost like George Clooney in Up in the Air.

AC: (laughs) Well, thanks.

LAS: You’re coming here next week to reprise your show at the Geffen. Before I get to that I wanted to ask about receiving the Order of the British Empire. I saw the photos of you standing there in your dress kilt. Is that tartan specific to your clan?

AC: All Scottish people have a tartan attached to their family name. There’s a Cumming Tartan and a Hunting Cumming, which tends to have more muted colors. I decided to get a kilted suit made in Scotland for the OBE thing. The whole order is called the Order of the British Empire, but the award I got is the Officer of the British Empire. There’s Member and Commander as well. I wanted the Cumming Tartan but then they thought it would look better with the Hunting Cumming, so that’s why I did that.

LAS: Was it more exciting than winning the Tony for Cabaret?

AC: It was more pleasant. My mom, my brother and my husband Grant were there so it was really lovely for them all to be with me. I liked it because it was not just for my work. It was for all the activism as well and I think that’s really important. Getting awards for your work are nice but the Tonys are really stressful. Horrible. You’re up against other people and it’s down to the last minute. You’ve got to perform and then the cameras are on you. It’s obviously nice to win but sometimes it’s a relief not to because you don’t have to go up in front of everybody.

LAS: I saw a 1999 YouTube clip of you on Conan O’Brien’s show when you were doing Cabaret. I was struck by how your public persona has evolved since then.

AC: That’s quite intriguing. I must take a look. The first time I was on Conan I was really nervous because I hadn’t really done an American talk show before. I’d just been in Czechoslovakia doing this crazy film and suddenly I appear here in a new production of a musical I’d done in London. I couldn’t grasp the substantial enormity of it.

LAS: You talked about being at the first rehearsal with these “fresh faced” American actors who had no idea that in two days you were going to have your “hand on their genitals.”

AC: Oh I remember that. That was quite an unusual thing for the new cast to do. I don’t think any of them quite had an understanding of what the show was about. It was kind of before YouTube and so they hadn’t seen any of the clips. We shot the London production for TV. I think Tasha [Natasha Richardson] had seen it but most people hadn’t. I think it was quite amusing that suddenly they were flung into this maelstrom of groping.

LAS: When The Guardian reviewed the London debut of I Bought a Blue Car Today last September, they said how “engaging” you are in the role of “cheeky-chappie raconteur.” That seems to define your personal brand since Cabaret. How different is that from the guy on Conan’s couch?

AC: I don’t think I’ve changed that much actually. I think you grow and you learn and you have experiences and your circumstances change you. I still have the same sort of zeal for things I had then. I’m probably a little bit more annoying. Anyone who is 10 or 12 years older. I go into work, whatever type that is, with the same sort of excitement. Also, people know more about you as a person and as a performer. You have more baggage. That’s the thing. This show is kind of me using my baggage in a positive way.

LAS: You launched the show last February at Lincoln Center and have traveled around the world with it. Has it shifted, how much of a backbone are you keeping, and what will audiences at the Geffen see differently this time around?

AC: I was just rehearsing a new song yesterday for the LA gig. It’s changed quite a lot since I did it in New York in February. I think this will probably be the last time I do it in this form. The basic structure about me becoming a citizen and talking about all the stuff that’s happened in the last 10 years, that’s essentially the same. But I’ve kind of shaken it up a bit; changed some of the stories, dropped some songs, added some new ones. Everywhere we’ve done it actually. We settle and do it for like a week. I’m starting this show now, as I did in Australia in November, with a new song that’s really biting about America.

LAS: Did you write it?

AC: Lance Horne, the musical director, wrote it. I sing another song of his in the show and we wrote one together for the album. Sometimes after we’ve done my show, we’ll do a late night of songs Lance wrote. I heard other people sing this very ironic piece about America and I suddenly thought, wow, that is such an amazing song. So I thought that would be quite an interesting thing to start with. I think people know the show contains funny stories about me becoming an American citizen. Starting with a song that’s quite biting about being an American and then saying I became an American is the kind of thing I quite like to do to sort of be provocative. Then there’s an old song from Scotland we’re putting into the LA show as sort of a New Year’s song. I think it’s important to change the show. I’ve got a new story this time about going to Buckingham Palace and doing the Macy’s Parade.

LAS: I was going to ask you about the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I thought it was funny that first your Great Gazoo character became a Flintstones vitamin and now you’ve been on the M&M Chocolate Candies on Broadway float!

AC: I know. I had to have it explained to me because I’d never actually watched the parade. So I didn’t know what it was about. I was singing a song live on television with these massive outsized M&M’s dressed up as Broadway characters lip-synching behind me. It was not where I thought my career was going! (laughs)

LAS: You never thought when you were doing Hamlet that you’d be fronting candy?

AC: No! Never. And I kept getting nearly goosed by the M&M dressed as the Phantom of the Opera by his lamp. That lamp would kind of poke me while we were waving to everybody.

LAS: What were the others?

AC: There was an M&M from Chorus Line who was holding up photographs of itself. Then there was Elphaba the green M&M witchy one on the top from Wicked.

LAS: Did they just call you up and say hey, do you want to perform with some M&M’s?

AC: I had no concept of what it was like at all. I was like, all right. Everyone said to me, did you get a lot of free M&M’s? Not so much as a sniff of an M&M.

LAS: That’s just wrong.

AC: I know. You endorse a chocolate and don’t even get so much as a zit to show for it for consumption of the said chocolate.

LAS: They should at least let you select a color or something.

AC: Yeah. Maybe a tartan M&M.

LAS: You’re so synonymous with Cabaret and its style of performance. Plus you’re about to do a somewhat similar gender bending character in the new movie Burlesque. But many people think of cabaret as something they see at the Carlyle with someone like Michael Feinstein. It’s almost two different interpretations. So by you doing this show, you’ve sort of blended the two together into a new definition.

AC: Actually it’s interesting. I did a documentary for the BBC a couple of months ago called The Real Cabaret. I went to Berlin and found out all about the real people who were in the cabaret clubs when Christopher Isherwood went. I visited the actual apartment where Isherwood lived when he set the books Cabaret is based on. That whole world was much more politically biting. It had a kind of a fusion with lots of different artists all coming together. I think there’s that type of cabaret, which I think the play and the musical and the film is homage to, and then there’s the kind that’s more like “people” cabaret where you find out about an actual person. They talk to you as themselves, they tell stories and they sing songs about what they connect to.  I think it’s maybe more contemporary than the Weimar [Republic] thing.

LAS: Where does your show fit in?

AC: We’re more into the cult of personality and celebrity now. I think it’s quite interesting to use that and to do a show like this because obviously people want to know about you. You can tell stories about things they know but also at the same time you can tease them with a little bit of politics and the things I believe in. That’s part of me so it becomes part of the show. I try to maybe hark back to the Weimar; that energy of having a bit of social comment and a bit of political edge as well as just fun.

LAS: I know you’ve been surprised by how well the show’s been received, especially in areas of the country you never thought would resonate with you.

AC: It’s been really heartening. I mean it’s quite weird to go into a situation where you are perceived as being shocking when you just feel like you’re normal. You’re just you. I understand and appreciate that. But sometimes you’re like oh my god, what’s it going to be like? Are these people really going to be shocked by me? Are they going to be offended by things I say? But I think it has to do with an attitude you bring to it as a person. If you’re just honest and you have conviction and passion, then I think people really respond.

I also think people respond to wit. People get that you want them to have a good time. We may want to be provocative and may want to shake things up but you do it with kindness. Anything I say is not aggressive. I think that’s part of the sort of “cheeky-chappie” thing I get. I’m able to say more provocative things and to get some big points across but because I couch it in quite a charming way, people respond positively. It’s kind of heartening because this show is just me. That’s also why it’s terrifying. Or has been terrifying.

LAS: Most performers I know love to be in front of people but in character. For you to be able to do the show as you and to have this kind of response, I imagine would be very empowering.

AC: It’s been incredibly rewarding and fulfilling and life changing because it was such a terrifying thing to begin with. A year ago I was absolutely shitting my pants about the prospect of opening this show and doing it. And one year on, I’m singing live on a float in the Macy’s Day parade and I’ve got a record out! So you realize the force of will. I’ve learned such a lot about myself through this. To go from terror to promoting your album (laughs) is quite interesting!  I’m very headstrong. When I commit to something I really commit to it.

LAS: It’s an example for anyone who wants to walk through a wall of fear. To say, I can go out of my comfort zone to try this and be willing to fail in order to see what opens up for me.

AC: I feel dopey that I didn’t learn this a long time ago. I never really put it to the test. But as a person I think, a long time ago, I sort of had the realization I am good enough. I’m good enough to be loved. I’m good enough to be in this relationship. I’m good enough to walk away from something. That kind of self-realization where you just think, I’m fine. I’m OK. I’m not going to be brought down. It was almost like going through that again because of this show. I don’t know. It’s just interesting when you look back and you realize you’ve set obstacles in your life path. And it was obviously for me to overcome them.

LAS: You’re someone with a classically trained theatre background who has done the range of stage texts in London and New York but who’s also appeared in movie blockbusters.

AC: I think that’s a very lucky position to be in. A lot of actors aren’t. I love it. I love the variation. I think you bring a lack of preciousness to your work when you have such a wide range of working experiences. I think it’s healthy. Also it’s kind of healthy for your lifestyle as well. You can actually have a bit of a financial cushion where you don’t have to be worrying about money all the time, which you would be doing if you just did theatre.

LAS: You’ve worked with other classically trained actors like Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan, who have publicly stated their television and film roles allow them the luxury of doing solo shows of Shakespeare when they want.

AC: Certain aspects of being classically trained are very much about how you interact with an audience especially in doing Shakespeare. Or the Greeks. Like that Greek tragedy I just did [The Bacchae]. There are aspects of it, soliloquies in Shakespeare and the stuff I did as Dionysus, which are almost like stand-up comedy routines. It’s you talking to the audience. Obviously you’re in a character but there’s an ease you get when you have training like that. It really helps you. When you do things like my show, or Ian’s show, it’s really interesting. I don’t think people would necessarily imagine that would be the case but they’re very similar.

LAS: When you were at the Royal Shakespeare Company or The National, did you ever work with their famed vocal and acting coach Patsy Rodenburg?

AC: Yes, I did.

LAS: She directed King Lear out here a few years ago. Patsy said she thought American actors can do Shakespeare as well as anybody and they shouldn’t be afraid. She had such joy working with people who had no pretentious habits of Shakespeare. But the actors she’d worked with in London had an advantage because they got to do one great play after another. What’s your take?

AC: Think of Shakespeare in the same way as prejudice: the more access you have to something, the less scary it becomes. The more comfortable and the more familiar you are with it. That’s a quite unusual analogy but yeah. I think Shakespeare is like homophobia in a way. The people who are exposed to it, they won’t be so scared by it. I think there’s a big problem in America with American actors thinking Shakespeare’s not for them. That it’s this kind of lofty English thing they can only in some way imitate rather than embody. I think that’s selling themselves short. They should really try it as themselves and not always kind of kowtow to a certain style.

LAS: And as a Scot?

AC: I find being Scottish, and then coming to London to work at the RSC and the rest, in a way there was a house style of how things are done, which is in sort of an English way. It was basically learned about the beginning of the 20^th century when all the actor/managers started to speak and sing the lines in a certain way. Olivier and that crowd kind of cemented it on film. It’s a style not completely rooted in reality or rooted to a real person. I felt I had similar issues an American actor might have about Shakespeare. But I made it my own. When I played Hamlet, I played it with my own voice, which was shocking. It caused sort of a sensation amidst the protectors of that.

LAS: Speaking of Shakespeare, you just did The Tempest with Helen Mirren who plays Prospero as Prospera. What was that like?

AC: It was great. I actually saw the designer of it last night. I went to see A Streetcar Named Desire with Cate Blanchett.

LAS: How was that?

AC: Absolutely brilliant. Really revelatory actually. It was like you were seeing the play for the first time. I just thought it was stunning. And this guy was there who designed the movie. I haven’t seen it. I’ve been away. But it was such fun. The fact Helen was that character and not a man, really gave the whole thing a different sort of sensibility that I think will be really lovely.

LAS: I know that’s the second time you’ve worked with Julie Taymor and hopefully there’ll be a third with Spider-Man. Do you want to comment about where things are with that?

AC: I’m sure you know as much as me. I’m just waiting for the start date. I’m really excited about it really. I’d be more excited if I knew what was happening just in terms of planning my life. I think they’re being wise. They want everything sewn up before they announce it again. Such a maelstrom of aggressive reaction to it when that happened so I think they want to just say OK everything’s fine, we’re all completely 100% and this is when it’s actually starting rehearsals. Obviously it’s been pushed. I’m working on a movie until the end of February. I know it’s not until March or April we’ll be getting started actually.

LAS: You’re working on Burlesque, right?

AC: I’m working on Burlesque. I know they’re saying I’m playing the gender-bending MC but I’m not. I’m playing a doorman who sings a few songs in the burlesque show. It’s kind of a nicer press line than the actual truth.

LAS: I know you have to go but I was curious, since we just had Black Friday and Cyber Monday, did you track the sales of your CD or Cumming fragrance and body product lines?

AC: Oh, no! It would be sad if I were doing that, wouldn’t it?

LAS: It would be! But then you’ve been on the M&M float, so who knows?

AC: Well, there’s an example of my business acumen. I do the M&M float and don’t get a single fucking M&M. That’s why I’m an arty boy and not a business mogul.

Feature image and story images by Francis Hills

Article by Deborah Behrens