ANY DAY NOW
Alan Cumming talks to Pride Life about his latest film
Iwalk into a junior suite at the Soho Hotel and meet the publicist. Alan Cumming is nowhere to be seen but I am told that he is in the bathroom. After a couple minutes of chatter with the publicist, Alan Cumming appears. He is wearing a red velvety button-down shirt, black trousers, his hair is spiky, his face as clear and white and smooth as a baby’s bottom, and he displays his usual cheeky ear to ear grin. So how did you get this part in Any Day Now? Who approached you first? Travis (Fine, the director) talked to my agent or manager, and they sent me it. My manager was very passionate about it and so I read it, and I met Travis initially, talked about it, and that was the start of the process. And you got it! It’s a great film. I like it. There were several drafts of it after I came on which was great so I got to be part of that process, which was really good, because something like this is shot so fast and in such a short time that it was nice to have it entrenched in me, and to discuss it with each draft. Actually, it changed quite a lot from the time I came on until the time it was shot. The ending was completely different. Isaac Leyva, the boy who plays Marco in the film, is amazing. How was he on set? Lovely. I was a little trepidatious about going into it because I don’t know really what it means to work with someone with Down’s syndrome. One of the best things about this film was meeting Isaac, it was an absolutely beautiful thing. I feel really lucky to have had that experience. He just reminds you of what joy is like: he was so happy he would jump up and down with happiness. And he is a great actor and really easy to work with. Travis is a great one too; they spent a lot of time together and really had a laugh, and became friends. There was a sad bit in the film where we show Marco his bedroom for the first time with all the toys, and at that moment he cries. That was not in the script. Isaac was just so happy, just so happy as Marco, that he just burst into tears. It was just great. Are you still in contact with him now after two years later? Yeah, I email his mom, and sent him a video. I think the last time was at the GLAAD Awards in San Francisco. I wasn’t able to go but the
film won the award and Travis sent me a video of him dancing at the after party, and just like cutting a rug. He’s a great star.
I cried at the end of the film obviously because of what happens. Was that in the original script?
It wasn’t in the original draft I read, it evolved into a more sort of realistic ending. Happy endings don’t happen in real life, and that stops the film from being a little schmaltzy. You really hope that you get one of those happy endings, you really root for the family and for them to get back together, and, in a sort of a Hollywood ending, that would happen. But a real-life ending for those people, for a gay couple from that time - or even now - that is the reality and that is what I think makes it so heartwrenching: it’s the truth.
1979 is different from 2013. Today there are problems with gay couples adopting children are but it is getting easier in some respects.
It is getting easier but it’s not getting easier through the state system. There are a million families with same -sex experience in America, but a very small percentage of those have been adopted through the state system. In Britain where it’s legal to adopt through the state system, you still have to face the prejudice of each individual council.
Was that actually you singing in the film? It was a really smooth, tender, emotional, in-the-moment voice.
I had singing lessons at drama school, singing is the same thing as voice. Over the last few years I’ve started singing, I do concerts and stuff, and a record,
Which do you prefer - acting in movies, being on stage or singing?
I like them all. I like to be able to do different things, I bounce back and forth. But if I had a gun to my head I would choose the theatre.
Do you have any plans for any productions in the future?
There are plans, there are always things. There is something coming up but I’m not going to say what it is. On Broadway, hopefully next year.
“Happy endings don’t
happen in real life”