My mum always told me I was precious, while my dad always told me I was worthless. I think that's a good grounding for a balanced life.

When there's an adult person who's scaring you, you grow up pretty quickly.

The thing with film and theater is that you always know the story so you can play certain cues in each scene with the knowledge that you know where the story's going to end and how it's going to go. But on television nobody knows what's going to happen, even the writers.

I think American actors are much more intimidated by Shakespeare.

Some things are just really difficult to do. That's what I find hard. I usually can find a way to do a character to make it real and work. But sometimes it's a struggle sustaining that, because there's such a level of personal involvement and personal, physical, and emotional distraughtness.

There are some days when you don't feel like being Alan Cumming.

My feeling about work is it's much more about the experience of doing it than the end product. Sometimes things that are really great and make lots of money are miserable to make, and vice versa.