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

It's about how you exist as a person in the world, and the idea that your work is more important than you as a person is a horrible, horrible message. I always think about a little gay boy in Wisconsin or a little lesbian in Arkansas seeing someone like me, and if I cannot be open in my life, how on earth can they?

You should *have* an experience; it shouldn't just *be* an experience.

Once in a while it's good to challenge yourself in a way that's really daunting.

For example, Americans seem reluctant to take on Shakespeare because you don't think you're very good at it - which is rubbish. You're missing out here.

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.

It is not hard to feel like an outsider. I think we have all felt like that at one time or another.