“They feel out of the habit,they feel self-conscious,they feel they don’t belong,” he says;because of this,his friendship group has started to skew toward the young,or at least,youthfully-inclined. “I’m always on the lookout for friends who want to go out dancing and have a laugh.”
Cumming is just shy of 58 years old. He is,by his own admission,fascinated by ageing – both the physical process and the baggage it comes with. The indignities of it are not lost on him (“Your body changes,you forget things”),perhaps more so because he is going through the process under media and fan scrutiny.
“We get such mixed messages about ageing. I get told I’m this boyish,spritely thing,and then I’m told I’m a silver fox and a daddy,” he says wryly. “It’s all over the place.”
To Cumming,the only real problem with getting older is that people stop behaving the way they did when they were younger. Their curiosity begins to flag. They become complacent. At the same time,they idealise their halcyon days.
“Looking back and saying,oh,it was a better time then,is actually kind of lazy. You just need to go out more.” He laughs impishly. “Just because you’re not having the fun you used to have,doesn’t mean other people aren’t.”
He is a person who is still,gleefully,having fun. Last year he did a dance project,inspired by the life of poet Robert Burns,just to see if he could (“It was exhausting,and it’s still painful,but I did it,” he says). This month,he brings his cabaret showAlan Cumming is Not Acting His Age to Australia,which will see him belt out hits by Barbra Streisand,Adele,Lauren Bacall and more.
Also set to be released this month is his latest movieMy Old School,a documentary about the strange case of Brandon Lee,a Glaswegian high school student who was eventually unmasked as a man in his 30s named Brian McKinnon. McKinnon fooled fellow students,parents,and incredibly,his teachers – some of whom had taught him when he had attended the school years earlier as a genuine adolescent. The scandal made headlines across the UK.