Alan Cumming: Unfurling the Rainbow Flag on CBS

[+ WilliamM]

Re: "The Good Wife" I remember Julianne Margulies from "Ten Unknowns" off-Broadway. I saw Alan Cumming years ago in "Cabaret," but have seen so many other people in that role since.

 

Alan Cumming Helps CBS Unfurl Its Rainbow Flag With ‘Instinct’

By KATHRYN SHATTUCKMARCH 8, 2018

 

 

In his first lead role on TV, Alan Cumming plays a C.I.A. operative turned fuddy-duddy professor who’s lured into a murder investigation. Credit Jonathan Wenk/CBS

 

Alan Cumming — actor, author, irrepressible provocateur — rarely shies away from expressing his desires, whether in choosing his roles (the pansexual M.C. in “Cabaret,” the fluidly dallying husband in “The Anniversary Party”) or identifying as bisexual (once married to a woman, he is now married to a man). And he hopes his latest character will be just as bold.

 

In the new CBS series “Instinct,” making its debut March 18, Mr. Cumming stars as Dr. Dylan Reinhart, a former C.I.A. operative turned psychology professor who just happens to be gay and married to a man.

 

Then the New York detective Lizzie Needham (Bojana Novakovic) encounters a killer ripped from the pages of “Freaks,” the professor’s best-selling treatise on abnormal behavior, and lures him and his natty tweeds from the ivory tower at the University of Pennsylvania onto the gritty city streets. His recruitment adds some zing to both their lives.

 

“Instinct,” created by Michael Rauch from the crime novel by James Patterson and Howard Roughan, is the first hourlong network drama with a gay lead and a bit of a risk for CBS.

 

“What’s fascinating is that I am taking a story with a gay person at the center and also showing a same-sex relationship to many millions of people who probably have never seen that before,” Mr. Cumming said. “And that to me is a very, very exciting point. It’s a mass way of confronting homophobia.”

 

 

 

 

With the first 13 episodes of “Instinct” wrapped, he was recently back to jet-setting: shooting a secret project in the south of England, joining his mother to celebrate her birthday in his native Scotland and being ogled at London Fashion Week. In a phone interview from the road, Mr. Cumming, 53 — who lives in the East Village with his husband, the artist Grant Shaffer, not far from his bar, Club Cumming — talked about his return to a network series after seven seasons as the political operative Eli Gold on “The Good Wife”; his hopes for his new character (he’d like to flirt with his female co-star) and his cabaret show that sets his frustrations with America to song.

 

Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.

 

Dylan seems like a natural fit. Did it take much coercing to get you onboard?

 

It’s so unusual to have someone who’s a fuddy-duddy professor — oops — but he’s also a C.I.A. agent — oops, and he’s a writer and he drives a motorbike and he’s gay. Just all these seemingly confounding characteristics drew me in, because when you think about doing something for a long time, you say, “Am I going to be bored? Is there enough here for me to play with?” And I was very keen to do the first-ever gay [lead] character on a network drama. The fact that has taken so long is awful. But the character’s gayness is like the fifth most interesting thing about him, and the way it’s handled is very non-sensational. And I thought that was a very positive step in terms of the way gay characters are portrayed on television, especially network television in America.

 

Are you worried about the demands of being the lead?

 

By the time it came to do the show, I had gone back to being a peripatetic actor flying around the world. And it turns out I’m a homebody. I knew it would be kicking into a different gear because I would be No. 1 on the call sheet and not just popping in now and again to do some fabulous Eli scene.

 

Instinct - Trailer Video by Trailers Promos Teasers

Why has it taken so long for network television to catch up to cable?

 

I joke that what we do on a network drama is basically fill the gaps between commercials. Therefore, when you have a winning formula, why change it? I think that’s why most of the risk is usually taken on cable. That’s a sweeping generalization, of course. But a network is about such large audiences and large amounts of money that shows don’t really get a chance to fail. It’s scary because obviously we’re going into the unknown. I truly believe that when there are preconceptions that are faced and dealt with that people are not scared anymore. And then the world becomes a better place.

 

Is CBS anticipating a backlash?

 

I don’t know what CBS is thinking. I do know they’ve been accused over the last couple of years of being not very diverse, with a lot of white men leading their shows. And I think they’re going to start using this show as an example [of increased diversity]. It’s not just that they’ve got a gay lead and a gay couple, but the mayor of New York is an Indian woman, and there’s an African-American woman who’s the boss of the precinct. I mean, yeah, possibly some people won’t like it, but hopefully there will be more people who do. But we live in a funny time. People voted in Trump. They could do anything.

 

 

 

 

Cop shows thrive on the will they-won’t they tension between partners. What’s standing in for that here?

 

He’s a rule breaker and she’s very much by the book. He’s idiosyncratic and she’s very ordered. So there’s that straight lines and curvy lines kind of conflict. We did talk about how wouldn’t it be funny if in the future an ex-girlfriend of mine appears and [Lizzie] will be, “Oh, I thought you were gay.” And I go, “Oh, well, you know — college.” That changes the whole idea that our sexuality is black and white. And that’s another thing hopefully we can present to America. It would be hilarious if they made out at the office party.

 

 

You’re a vocal supporter of L.G.B.T. causes, you’ve volunteered for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and now you’re going to bat for gun regulations and wider health care by supporting an upstate New York candidate.

 

come from Scotland, it’s a small, relatively poor country, nowhere as affluent as America, yet we have free further education and free health care. Why is it possible for Scotland to do it and not possible for America?

 

And we’ve got to re-educate people that just because you want some gun control does not mean you want to take away the right to bear arms. It’s got nothing to do with the Second Amendment.

 

You’ll be tackling another hot-button topic in a new cabaret show, “Alan Cumming: Legal Immigrant.”

 

The word “immigrant” now has a negative connotation. As a recent immigrant to America, I feel slighted. You have to say you’re a legal immigrant and people don’t even hear the prefix. They just see us as one thing, rather than actually listening to what it means. I know I’m white and a man and affluent. But were it not for those three characteristics I would not be welcome here possibly.

 

And can you summon all that heartache and frustration in song?

 

I find it quite easy to be funny and tender and provocative all at the same time. That’s what you should be as an actor.

NY Times

Edited March 10, 2018 by WilliamM

[samhexum]

My former roommate (female) danced with him at a party years ago. Nothing to report; just thought I'd mention it.

[+ Avalon]

Looking forward to it!

[BigK]

Just watched it. I liked it and will continue to watch. There's a chaste kiss with his husband.