LAKE WORTH BEACH, Fla. — Scottish actor 'Alan Cumming is not Acting His Age!' That's the show he is bringing to the Kravis Center on Thursday night at 8 p.m. Tickets start at around $25.
WPTV NewsChannel 5's Interview with Alan Cumming
T.A. Walker - You're going to be at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach on Thursday night. What is your show about?
Alan Cumming - It's about aging. I mean, I sort of feel like I'm one of these people that I suppose partly because of my job, but people always say to me, 'Oh, yes, you're sort of boyish and you've got this sort of youthful peckish thing. I'm 57. And so and people always say, 'Oh you don't act your age.' And I will say, 'Well, what would that actually mean? If I did act my age, I'd sort of you know, have a cardigan and smoke a pipe or something...
...I love doing these sort of Cabaret shows with my band, I sing some songs and tell stories. And there's always a theme and this theme is really about how [who] says what acting your age is? Why? And I think I want to also sort of question that idea that we all, you know, worship at the fountain of youth but a little too much and maybe we should enjoy, enjoy the process of getting [older] and not think it's the worst thing that could possibly happen to us.
T.A. - Well, there's a dichotomy here because you'd want to stay youthful in your mind at least but today I threw my back out just getting out of bed.
Alan - Yes. So I think inevitably, obviously, your body changes, you know, it is a slow march towards death where I am decaying right in front of your eyes right now. But it's about you know, I think in embracing that, I just think we don't that's part of, you know, other things happen. You can't I mean, I'm thinking, this is a good age, I think because I'm still physically able to do all the things that I want to do. And I think the thing is, yeah, you can still do things but maybe don't do them in the same way. But it's about you know, if [you] stay fit, because it's good to be fit and it's good to enjoy the present. It's not because you're trying to go back in time [and] make your body like how it used to be. I think you've got to embrace and find beauty [in] getting older... ...We're a culture that is absolutely obsessed with youth and skinniness abs. A six-pack to me looks like a lobster or a pot of brave, you know, to mean sort of lumpy bits in the brain or a lobster I just think it's weird that when I see those boys with those six-packs, I think when was the last time you ate anything or drank anything and you've probably been eating sweet potato for the last two weeks in this photograph.
T.A. - (Laughs) - Well, in 1999 I was an intern for the Late Show with David Letterman. You guys were doing Cabaret at Studio 54 Right behind us. I think you were on the show when I was there.
Alan - We did come on to the show at that time. Yes, it was just along the street, on 53rd Street, that's where our stage door was and that's where the theater is.
I pulled a muscle in my thigh doing the Letterman show because the studio was so cold. He kept the studio so cold. And we we're trying to warm up and because we're dancing, I pulled the muscle and everyone said, he said 'He keeps the studio so cool because he thinks that comedy works better when people are cold.'
T.A. - He felt like people paid closer attention and he would get bigger laughs If it was cold.
Alan - Try being funny. How about that and then people will laugh don't have to freeze them into laughing.
