Nibbling on a pretzel and sipping water, Alan Cumming confesses: “I’m a bit nervous. It’s that scary hour when you have time to panic.” A toast of Broadway and 1998 Tony winner for his mesmerizing turn as the demonic emcee in the hit revival of “Cabaret,” he’s no actor you’d expect to have stage fright. But in just 30 minutes, a car will whisk him to his debut at the prestigious Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, and this native Scotsman, who’ll sing four numbers, is a wee anxious.
Perhaps that’s why he scheduled an interview, a distraction to talk up his newest movie, ABC-TV’s adaptation of the beloved Broadway musical, “Annie.” The Wonderful World of Disney film airs Sunday, marking the 75th anniversary of the classic comic strip, “Little Orphan Annie.” From the producers of TV’s “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella” with Brandy, “Annie” co-stars Kathy Bates as meanie Miss Hannigan and Victor Garber as billionaire Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks. Twelve-year-old Broadway actress Alicia Morton is the waif who belts out the ever-optimistic “Tomorrow” in Depression-era New York City.
Cumming plays Rooster, Hannigan’s scheming Brooklynite brother. Occasional stage nerves may get a grip on Cumming, 34, but he’s fearless facing a reporter: “I thought I wasn’t going to like doing `Annie’ because I don’t think I can really sing or dance — I’m just very good at faking,” he says. “So doing a musical is a stupid idea. I didn’t think of `Cabaret’ as a musical; I thought of that as acting.”
Certainly, Cumming is an actor first, having put in time with England’s Royal Shakespeare Company and Royal National Theatre. He’s co-starred in more than a dozen feature films, including “Eyes Wide Shut” (as the hotel clerk who’s sweet on Tom Cruise’s character), “GoldenEye,” “Emma” and “Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion.” Cumming was already a British stage, screen and TV star when director Sam Mendes (“American Beauty”) chose him to reinvent the emcee role, originated by Joel Grey on Broadway 27 years earlier, in his 1993-94 “Cabaret” in London. “It was an egg production of the full chicken that became the Broadway show (revival),” explains Cumming.
“Cabaret” co-director-choreographer Rob Marshall, later signed to direct and choreograph “Annie,” persuaded Cumming to come aboard as shady brother Rooster, who sings the blockbuster “Easy Street.” “I’d never seen `Annie.’ I quite fall into things: `Oh, yeah? Good idea. OK, fine.’ But this isn’t a part I would normally play. It’s ridiculous: this is a young man’s role. I’m the wrong nationality, the wrong culture. I’m not your immediate casting choice for a 1920s con man,” he says. So why was he picked? “Because,” he laughs, “I’m a chameleon.”
But maybe because, as his U.S. work permit states, he’s “an alien of extraordinary ability.” Cumming gets a kick out of that: “You’re sort of extraordinary — therefore you must be allowed into this country to work because there’s no one here like you.”
He first viewed the 1982 feature of Broadway’s “Annie” right before starting his TV version. “The film was awful! The tone was grating. What a hideous nightmare! A lot of people in it were good,” he says, “but it just didn’t gel. That sort of inane thing gives musicals a bad name!”
His “Annie,” however, is something else, says Cumming. Newcomer Morton is “so beautiful, a lovely little girl with a quality of sadness about her that makes (the movie) more touching. All the kids in it are like real kids — not awful whiny brats with demonic tap-dancing, nutcase qualities. Kathy sings like a trouper.”
Cumming had plans to direct his first feature film, but “things have gone a bit potty (crazy) with acting over the last couple of years — all the movies and `Cabaret’ stuff. I don’t have the energy or commitment to direct a film now, so I backed off,” he says. “I’m hoping things will calm down so I can do one.” Next May, he’ll be seen on the big screen as The Great Kazoo in “The Flintstones: In Viva Rock Vegas.”
“Actors who direct understand what acting is about,” notes Cumming. “So many (directors) get it all wrong. They think you must go into a corner and mumble for half an hour to get ready — or else that you’re like a puppet or a little child.”
Cumming lives in London and New York and, divorced, prefers to keep his love life personal, thank you very much. But anyone special right now? “There’s no one I’d like to discuss with you,” comes the half-joking reply. He does reveal that his constant traveling companion is a huge trunk that accommodates all the glue, varnish and God-knows-what for his hobby: creating collages from “rubbish and bits of old newspaper. I can’t believe I brought all that stuff with me for the busiest week in the world. In L.A., everyone is so work-obsessed. I quite like to say, `Oh, I can go home now and make a collage.’ But I haven’t had the chance. When I thought I was going to have time to make a collage, I don’t know!”
