Alan Cumming

In 2020, he played in Endgame at the Old Vic co-starring with Daniel Radcliffe.

Starting in March 2018, Cumming was starring in the CBS TV series Instinct (stylized as INSTIИCT) with Bojana Novakovic, which was cancelled in August 2019.

In 2018, he also played King James on the eleventh series of Doctor Who.

In 2016 NBC's First Look travel programme visited Scotland for a special episode, fronting Alan Cumming. It featured areas of the country that are important to Alan Cumming and showcased Scotland through his eyes. The programme was named Best Lifestyle Programme at the Emmys' 60th annual awards ceremony at New York's Marriott Marquis Broadway Ballroom.

He is a supporter of the Scottish National Party and Scottish independence. Cumming endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential election.

In 2014, he returned again to Broadway to star in Roundabout Theater Company's revival production of Cabaret, directed again by Sam Mendes. Starring opposite Michelle Williams, Cabaret opened 24 April 2014 and closed 29 March 2015. The run was extended originally from its 24-week engagement. The role of Sally has changed throughout the production when Williams left to include Emma Stone and Sienna Miller.

In 2014, he was the final sitter for Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year winner Christian Hook. The portrait in now part of the permanent collection at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

He collaborated again with Tiffany and the National Theatre of Scotland in 2012, playing all the roles in Macbeth. He brought this critically acclaimed production of Macbeth to New York's Lincoln Center in 2012 and to a 73-show Broadway engagement at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in 2013. Macbeth concluded its run on Broadway on 14 July 2013.

Cumming has stated that since 2012 he has maintained a vegan lifestyle. PETA awarded him its Humanitarian Award in 2017.

Cumming returned to British TV screens in 2011 to star as Desrae, a crossdresser, on the Sky series The Runaway. He has also made several documentaries: My Brilliant Britain, about Scottish humour, The Real Cabaret in which he investigated the Weimar cabaret artistes and the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? in 2010 in which he discovered his maternal grandfather was a war hero who had died playing Russian roulette.

He played Eli Gold on the CBS television show The Good Wife. He appeared as a guest star in the latter third of the first season, becoming a series regular in the show's 2010–2011 season.

On 7 November 2008, Cumming became a dual-national and was sworn in as a citizen of the United States of America at a ceremony in New York City.

Cumming is bisexual. He lives in Manhattan with his husband, illustrator Grant Shaffer, and their dogs, Jerry and Lala. The couple dated for two years before becoming civil partners at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, London, on 7 January 2007. Cumming and Shaffer legally married in New York on 7 January 2012, the fifth anniversary of their London union.

In 2006, he returned to the West End playing the lead role in Bent, a play about homosexuals in Germany under the Nazis. In 2007, he took the lead role in the National Theatre of Scotland's production of The Bacchae, directed by John Tiffany, which premiéred at the Edinburgh International Festival in August, transferring to the Lyric Theatre in London and then to Lincoln Center, New York, winning him Herald Archangel award.

Previous relationships include an eight-year marriage to actress Hilary Lyon, a two-year relationship with actress Saffron Burrows, and a six-year relationship with theatre director Nick Philippou. In 2006, Cumming stated that he "would dearly like to adopt a child", but that his life was "too hectic" for children.

In March 2005, Cumming received the Vito Russo Award at the 16th Annual GLAAD Media Awards for outstanding contributions toward eliminating homophobia. In July of the same year, he was also presented with the HRC's Humanitarian Award in San Francisco, also for his LGBT public stance. In November 2006, Cumming received a Doctor of Arts honorary degree from the University of Abertay Dundee. He also is a patron of the Scottish Youth Theatre, Scotland's National Theatre "for and by" young people. Cumming was appointed an OBE in the 2009 Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to film, theatre and the arts, and activism for LGBT rights. Cumming has also been honored for his activism and humanitarian work by organizations such as the Trevor Project and the Matthew Shepard Foundation.

Cumming's novel, Tommy's Tale, was published in 2002. He has also written articles for magazines, notably as a contributing editor for Marie Claire magazine, writing on the haute couture shows in Paris, as well as what it was like for him dressing as a woman for a day. He also contributed articles to Newsweek, Modern Painters, Out, Black Book and The Wall Street Journal. He has also written introductions and prefaces to various books, including the works of Nancy Mitford, Andy Warhol, and Christopher Isherwood and wrote a chapter of If You Had Five Minutes with the President, a collection of 55+ essays by members or supporters of The Creative Coalition. In September 2017, Cumming and promoter Daniel Nardicio opened a bar in Manhattan's East Village called Club Cumming.

Other US stage roles include Otto in the 2001 Broadway production of Design for Living by Noël Coward, Mac the Knife in Bertolt Brecht-Kurt Weill musical The Threepenny Opera opposite Cyndi Lauper. Cumming performed alongside Dianne Wiest in Classic Stage Company's production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, directed by Viacheslav Dolgachev. In 2002, Cumming and then-boyfriend British director Nick Philippou formed the production company The Art Party. The company's first and only play was the first English production of Jean Genet's play Elle, which Cumming had adapted from a literal translation by Terri Gordon. The company folded in 2003.

He had prominent roles in the Spy Kids trilogy (as Fegan Floop), X2 (as Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler), Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and played Saturninus in the 1999 Julie Taymor film production of Titus. His many other films include Investigating Sex, Josie and the Pussycats, Get Carter, Plunkett and Macleane, Son of the Mask, The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, Full Grown Men, Spice World, Burlesque, The Tempest, Boogie Woogie and the animated films Garfield: The Movie, Jackboots on Whitehall. He also voiced "Gutsy Smurf" in The Smurfs (film) and The Smurfs 2 (film).

His first film in the United States was 1997's Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, playing Sandy Frink opposite Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino. Cumming co-wrote, co-directed, co-produced, and co-starred in the ensemble film The Anniversary Party with friend and former Cabaret co-star Jennifer Jason Leigh, in 2001. The two starred in the film as a Hollywood couple. The film premiered at Cannes and garnered two Independent Spirit nominations and a National Board of Review award. He went on to star in and direct Suffering Man's Charity later released as Ghost Writer.

Cumming began his theatre career in his native Scotland, performing in seasons with the Royal Lyceum Edinburgh, Dundee Rep, The Tron Glasgow and tours with Borderline, Theatre Workshop, and Glasgow Citizens' TAG. He played Slupianek in the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh's 1988 production of Conquest of the South Pole, which later transferred to the Royal Court in London and earned him an Olivier Award nomination as Most Promising Newcomer. He went on to perform plays with the Bristol Old Vic and the Royal Shakespeare Company and played Valere in La Bete at the Lyric, Hammersmith, London. In 1991 he played The Madman in the 1990 Royal National Theatre production of Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo, for which he won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy Performance. He also adapted the play with director Tim Supple. In 1993 he received great critical acclaim and the TMA Best Actor award for playing title role in the 1993 English Touring Theatre's Hamlet (playing opposite his then-wife, Hilary Lyon, in the role of Ophelia).He played the role of The Master of Ceremonies in Sam Mendes's 1993 revival of the musical Cabaret in London's West End opposite Jane Horrocks as Sally Bowles. He received an Olivier Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical. He reprised the role in 1998 for the Mendes-Rob Marshall Broadway revival, this time opposite Natasha Richardson as Sally Bowles. He won a Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, and Outer Critics Circle Award for his performance.

Cumming made his film debut in Gillies MacKinnon's short film Passing Glory in 1986. His feature film debut came in 1992 when he starred alongside Sandrine Bonnaire and Bruno Ganz in Ian Sellar's Prague, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and earned him the Best Actor award at the Atlantic Film Festival and a Scottish BAFTA Best Actor nomination. American audiences first saw him portraying the smarmy Sean Walsh, an unwanted suitor of Minnie Driver's character, in Circle of Friends, an Irish film released in 1995. Also in 1995 he played Boris Ivanovih Grishenko in the James Bond film GoldenEye. In 1996, he had a success as the Revd Mr Elton in Emma.

In December 1984 Cumming made his TV debut in ITV Granada's Travelling Man, before going on to appear later in the 1980s in the Scottish Television series Take the High Road, Taggart and Shadow of the Stone. His breakthrough role was as Bernard Bottle in the Christmas 1991 BBC comedy Bernard and the Genie, a Richard Curtis-scripted film in which he starred alongside Lenny Henry and Rowan Atkinson. He also featured in a comic relief sketch in 1993 on the popular UK TV show Blind Date with Atkinson playing Mr. Bean. Cumming went on to star as flight attendant Sebastian Flight in the BBC2 sitcom The High Life in 1995. The series was written by Cumming and co-star Forbes Masson, continuing an acting-writing partnership the two had developed since their drama school days. Also in 1995, Cumming appeared in the series Ghosts.

Alan Cumming OBE (born 27 January 1965) is a Scottish–American actor, comedian, singer, writer, filmmaker, and activist who has acted in numerous films, television shows, and plays. His London stage appearances include Hamlet, the Maniac in Accidental Death of an Anarchist (for which he received an Olivier Award), the lead in Bent, and The National Theatre of Scotland's The Bacchae. On Broadway, he has appeared in The Threepenny Opera, as the master of ceremonies in Cabaret (for which he won a Tony Award), Design for Living and a one-man adaptation of Macbeth. His best-known film roles include his performances in Emma, GoldenEye, the Spy Kids trilogy, Son of the Mask, and X2. Cumming also introduces Masterpiece Mystery! for PBS and appeared on The Good Wife, for which he has been nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and a Satellite Award. A filming of his Las Vegas cabaret show, Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs, aired on PBS stations in November 2016.