Legal Immigrant Alan Cumming Hits the Road

It’s 2018, and trans rights and dismantling gender are at the forefront of the fight for LGBTQ folks. “Queer” is becoming the go-to word to describe sexuality instead of breaking things up into specific designations, and “pansexual,” being attracted to humans regardless of sex and gender, is an accepted way to identify. Alongside this, celebrities are coming out as pan and bisexual, announcing attraction to multiple genders, and having public, queer relationships, furthering our visibility and acceptance.

Alan Cumming is way ahead of us. He is one of the only bisexual folks who has been out and actively dating men and women for years, all during his time in the public eye. He has also been a very outspoken advocate for queer rights, winning awards from organizations like GLAAD and being openly recognized for his work towards equality. He’s accomplished in the acting world, balancing multiple stints on Broadway with a career in TV and on the silver screen.

With iconic, queer roles like Desrae, the self-described transvestite on British TV series The Runaway; Bill Blaikie, a gay drag promoter on The L Word; and the voice of an HIV-positive and paralyzed gay man on Rick & Steve under his belt, Cumming is committed to queer representation both onstage and off.

Now, he is making his way across the U.S. in support of Legal Immigrant, a cabaret performance based on political rhetoric, performance art, and more. While there are definitely elements of performance and comedy to his one-man show, the edgy title is very intentional, as Cumming uses his Scottish-American pedestal to call out American hypocrisy when it comes to immigrants. Rather than rest on his laurels in the wake of his success and more LGBTQ acceptance, Cumming is still willing to fight for those who need it.

OUT FRONT caught up with Cumming over the phone about visiting Denver, his career as a queer performer, activism, and “getting f*cked up the *ss by a lesbian with a strap-on.”

How do you think the public persona of bisexual folks has changed in the media from when you started acting till now? Do you think you contributed to that change?

Wow, jumping right into it, aren’t you!?

Of course a great change has happened since then, since I started coming out as a sexually functioning adult. I don’t know if it’s changed that much, actually. I didn’t grow up in this country, so my sexuality isn’t seen as such a crazy thing in Europe like it is in America.

I think we’ve come a long way, and in a funny sort of way, the whole explosion of trans people coming into their own and being accepted and welcomed into more public parts of society and people understanding gender issues more than now, I think that’s actually been a positive thing for bisexuality too; the idea of sexually nonconforming is more easy to understand if you understand trans, so I’m grateful to trans people.

On Instinct you play a queer character, but your sexuality isn’t the main focus of the show. Do you think that is an important step for mainstream TV?

I think it’s a really great thing that it’s a drama. I can’t believe it’s taken so long, but also I think that the fact that the focus of the show is not the sexuality is a really positive thing. As I’m doing this show, I realized so much about other gay types on TV and how usually if someone’s gay, they are there because that’s the focus of the story; it has something to do with their sexuality. What’s lovely, it’s usually in a negative way, like they are sick or they are having an affair. What I love about Reinhart is that I love that he’s gay, but that’s not all there is to him.

Hopefully we can get there as a society as a whole. You don’t say that to Morgan Freeman [bring up his race rather than his acting skill], but I always get the pretext of my sexuality or my nationality as well.

I think I am more Scottish in my core that I am queer, but I think it’s a positive thing to show people that we have other facets to ourselves other than what we have in our underpants.

Of all the LGBTQ-related roles you’ve played, which was your favorite?

I always laugh when people say they saw me on The L Word because I say, ‘You saw me getting f*cked up the *ss by a lesbian with a strap-on!’ It was a very good erotic scene, but I actually think it’s funny; they say, ‘Oh, he’s playing a bisexual,’ but all you think is, ‘He got f*cked up the *ss by a strap-on.’ I remember that and I quite like when people say that because I am able to say something provocative back.

I don’t know though; I was in a movie about a gay couple trying to adopt a child with Down syndrome [Any Day Now], and I hope people continue to watch it because it kind of got swamped in the Oscar season and didn’t do well in the U.S., but sometimes you have to look back in history and see how far we’ve come or how little we’ve come, and that film is about a couple trying to adopt, and that issue still exists. People say, “Oh, but my neighbors, two guys, got a baby;” well, I bet they didn’t get it through the state adoption system. It’s still really, really hard for people who don’t have a disposable income to be able to adopt a child from the states. So I really do like that film; that is one of the ones I am most proud of.

What can we expect from your one-man show?

Over the last few years I’ve actually been doing this [performing another one-man cabaret]; not this one, because it opened a week before in Seattle, so you’ll be seeing it when it’s an infant, but the idea of doing an old-fashioned cabaret, singing, tellings stories.

I love it; I love the way you connect with the audience and the personal connections with people, especially because I can’t do a long run in the theatre because of my TV show, so it’s a lovely thing to be able to go connect to people. In a way, it’s a continuation of the last one, and the songs I want to sing are songs I can really act on and feel emotionally connected to, and it’s a good reason for me to sing a song. I don’t have that great of a voice, so I need something I can act and feel passionate about, so that’s what I’m doing.

Obviously, the fact that I became a citizen of America, highlighting the immigration status of the people whose songs I’m singing, highlights the recent fact that the American immigration website had the phrase ‘Nation of Immigrants’ removed from it. I find it so crazy that revisionism is happening; we are told we don’t live in a nation of immigrants when we do, and also just becoming an American, talking about what is home. I still define myself as Scottish, and that’s an important part of my identity.

What are you most excited about when it comes to visiting Denver?

I’m most excited about meeting my musical director’s Granny, because she lives in Denver and we’ve been trying to get a date in Denver so she can hear us perform. I’m really looking forward to meeting her.

What are your plans for the future? Anything else cool in the works?

I’m doing the TV show Instinct; I’m going to be hopefully doing another season of that. People seem to like it! I go back to doing that in mid-July if all goes well, so the idea of doing a TV show that I really like in New York where I live and then getting to go out on the road and do concerts, that’s a sweet deal for me. I’m also writing another book.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

I’m actually really looking forward to the concerts. It feels like when I go to a different city I’m vulnerable. It’s a true cabaret, a shmorgashboard of genres. I have the chance to acquaint myself with people I don’t know, people who will come and play with me.

Cumming is performing on May 9 at the Paramount Theater.

Photos courtesy Steven Gray