I am feeling chatty

Honey had quite the weekend. First of all she attended Robert Wilson's annual Watermill Arts Center benefit in the Hamptons, and not only did she cause a stir (hello, see photo from the Wall Street Journal), she also actually took part in an art installation, people!! Yes, really! In the middle of the silent auction area there was a performance involving a man dressed as a dog and a woman who was in a kennel. Also there were various bones and dog toys flung around the stage flooring. Honey had her eye on one of the bones and eventually the man dressed as the dog came over and gave it to her!! She took itand then the overwhelming urge to bury it kicked in so off she went and continued her own piece of performance art by burying it next to one of the big stone pillars that juts out of the forest floor in the Watermil grounds.  Look out Marina Abromivic, Miss Honey is the next big thing in the art world.

Then she popped on the ferry to Fire Island where she met up with some friends, and her dads attended the Pines Party.  Here she is having a much deserved dip with me in our friends' pool

I want to tell you about a really great organistaion called Place In The Sun. They're from Australia, where so many good things come from in my experience, and they aim to promote vegetariansim and veaganism and especially how becoming one of these is the most environmnetally-beneficial thing you can do for yourself and the whole planet. Go to their site and see for yourself.  And maybe you could order one of these natty T shirts that I am modelling below.  Some of the prtoceeds will go to Baan Unrak Animal Sanctuary, Thailand and

Association for Protection of Abandoned Dogs, Portugal  so it's all good.  What spunks!!

Finally here is a lovely piece of writing that Ira Glass did and I just think it's great and every young artist should read it. So here goes...

some things i love

i have no idea what is being said in that little vid but I like it. Also I like this...

i had the pleasure of hanging out with Cloris Leachman on Sunday morning whe we both took part in the AIDS Walk San Francisco.  She is an inspiration to us all.

And also I like Kielh's, and here I am with Kiehl's head honcho Chris at the opening of their new spa on the Upper east Side last night. It was hot in all ways.

Web therapy

Tonight sees the premiere of Web Therapy on Showtime.  The brilliant Lisa Kudrow stars as therapist Fiona Wallice in what was originally a web series and now it's been made into half hours for Showtime.  I play a love interest of Lisa's. in a similar vein to the character I played opposite her in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion.

I also just wanted to mention that the News of the World once printed a totally false story about my family that was truly one of the most upsetting things I have had to go through.  So to watch that disgusting and immoral empire crumble into a cesspool of its own making is very pleasing for me.  Just thought I'd mention that.

big day, big night

Yesterday was a big day.  We started back on The Good Wife, shooting the photos for the Season 3 posters and press campaign, and as I was sitting in the make up chair I was told by my cast mate Matt Czuchry that I had been nominated for  Best Supporting Actor Emmy. Here's the statement I made yesterday about the nomination...

I think everyone would agree that my being asked to play Eli Gold was so from left field, but it has been such a blast and an education for me as an actor. And to be honored in this way just adds to the surprise and the delight I feel at being a part of such a great show. I am sure Eli is in a photo copy room somewhere doing a little silent celebratory jig!

Then in the evening I attended the launch at the Ace Hotel in NYC, of 2nd (Alan) Cumming, my fragrance that Christopher Brosius designed, all the profits of which are going to charity. Thanks toKanon Organic vodka for making sure we all had a very nice time. It was great to see a lot of old friends and meet some new ones, and thanks to everyone for coming along to support this project. You can support it too by clicking on the little box to the right. As I said all the profits go to charity, my half to the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and Christopher's to the LGBT Stop Free Project

smurfed up

I have just finished my duties promoting The Smurfs movie.  I have to say it was a lot of fun but rather more esoteric than I expected.  Members of the press seem to take their amorphous, blue, animated people very seriously these days.  I was actually asked at one point this morning to compare my experience working on The Smurfs with working with Stanley Kubrick on Eyes Wide Shut. And it wasn't a joke either!!

Here I am on Young Hollywood with the lovely Sofia Vergara.  Both she and I were thrilled we were allowed to be on a show that had the words 'young' in its title.

And here is a song I recorded with my friend Nate.  It's the old classic April Showers.  I have gone a bit jazzy.

I am off to the gym in the hotel. They have one of those power plate machines that made Madonna all lean and sinewy.  It sort of reminds me of those machines that fat ladies used to stand on with big rubber vibrating belts across their asses, juggling away the pounds. Oh, and please, I am wearing a kilt, not a skirt in the picture. It was a homage to Gutsy Smurf.

A catch up. How have youse been?

It's been a while but a lot has happened.

Firstly and most importantly, I now live in a state where I am treated as an equal citizen!  Yes! Marriage Equality was signed into law in New York and don't we just love our Governor Cuomo for getting those corrupt and out of touch senators off their fat asses and bringing New York back to the forefront of the civil rights battle? Hooray!  Now of course, I await the onslaught of weddings. As does, I am sure, the hospitality industry of this great state.  Drinks all round. Ka-ching.

I found out about the marriage eqaulity vote when I was on a cruise across the Atlantic with my Mum on the Queen Mary 2. It made the front page of the little news pamphlet you get in your room each day.  I had a great time on the cruise. I have always wanted to do one and have always been a little frightened of it. The idea of being completely away and just looking out the window at the sea for a week is so alluring to me, but there was also the worrying flipside of being stuck on a boat with a lot of people I didn't know but who knew me. However, I have to say that people were very respectful and I had such a lovely stateroom with a little balcony that if I did feel in need of some alone time it was a lovely place to be.  I went to lectures on Hillary Clinton, Benjamin Britten and Atlantic maritime history! I saw Hamlet and theCantebury Tales! I saw shows in the Planetarium! I had a lot of massages and I ate like a pig every night and best of all... I went back on the booze!

Yes, I have been off the hooch all year, just a little break to give my body a rest and remind myself that fun can be had without martinis. Of course much fun can be had with them, but it is nice to know you can have fun regardless. 

I was staying off the hooch also because I was doing a really intense film in Los Angeles calledFamlee, in which I played a man in the 1970s, and as we know everyone was skinnier in the 70s. I think it's because they all smoked and also because processed foods hadn't utterly taken over and made us all unhealthy fatties. I did a bit of drag in this film, and it occured to me that there must be something in the fact that in the two hiatuses I have had from playing Eli Gold on The Good Wife, I have done jobs that require me to slip on a ladies' garment.  Obviously Eli' s repression and tailored suits had more of an affect on me than I imagined.

The very exciting thing that is about to happen is the unveiling of The Smurfs movie at the end of the month. I am about to go to LA and do a bit of press for it and then when I come back it will be Smurf Week in NYC.  Can you imagine?

Also I just finished doing the audiobook of the last instalment of Scott Westerfield'sLevathan Trilogy entitled Goliath. It comes out in September.  Here I am yesterday with Scott, proudly holding the Shania Twain autobiography audiobook which I was delighted to discover was also a Simon and Schuster release.  Out now is the novel version ofMacbeth that I did for Audible.  I really like it, and just as well as Macbeth is going to be featuring heavily in my life over the next year or so.

If you are a Kate Bush fan you may be excited to know that I will be soon able to tell you about a show I am going to do involving her music. Actually her very early music.  Oh yes, I'll be giving it all in a moment or two.  Stay tuned. And now some things you might enjoy or be piqued by...

hair today...

As I write this we are still waiting to see if the NY senate is going to debate the marriage equality bill later today.  I hope tou have all called your senators.  Scroll down to find the phone numbers.  I am crossing everything and hoping that before I get home to NYC there will be good news. I could do with another wedding.

I have been very amused by the reaction to my hair when I attended the Critics' Choice television awards in Los Angeles on Monday.  I have not been taking any wonder growth drugs, I am not trying to look like Nicolas cage for any possible biopic, I am not starring in a revival of Les Miserables.  I was wearing the wig I had to wear for the film I just wrapped called Famlee, and on the day of the awards ceremony I had to get it out on in my hotel room then go to the awards and then go straight to set to shoot my last day.  Famlee is set in the 70s, hence the long do.  Underneath it are still my own greying locks.  So I hope that answers all the questions and people can sleep easy at night once more.  Maybe there was a clue in what I said when I picked up the award for Julianna Marguiles (she won, I didn't). I said 'I am not Julianna Marguiles, though I appear to be wearing her wig this afternoon. We have a time share scheme with it'.

I amd in the UK and about to do something I have never done beofre: cruise the Atlantic!  And guess what I did yestreday? I went to the Titanic section of the Maritime Museum in Southampton. Yes, I know, rather morbid. But I am a good ex-boy scout so always prepared.

Here's an extract of the latest audiobook I have recorded. A really amazing book, a novel version ofMacbeth written by David Hewson and AJ Hartley.  I loved reading it

And then a very funny montage from The Runaway that a very prolific someone has posted on Youtube.  It is a very surreal experience to see yourself in so many different girly outfits in a couple of minutes, let me tell ya.


1,324 Reasons for Marriage Equality in New York

My friend Krystal Banzon made this PSA as her Community Service Project for The Point Foundation and how very timely it is with the marriage equality bill going to the New York Senate tomorrow. 

You can help too by calling and emailing these Senators to make sure they vote the right way tomorrow.

 

Senator Gregory R. Ball of Putnam County (845) 279-3773
gball@nysenate.gov

Senator Charles J. Fuschillo Jr. of Suffolk County (516) 882-0630
fuschill@senate.state.ny.us

Senator J. Kemp Hannon of Nassau County (516) 739-1700
hannon@nysenate.gov

Senator Andrew J. Lanza of Staten Island (718) 984-4073
lanza@senate.state.ny.us

Senator Betty Little of Glens Falls (518) 743-0968
little@nysenate.gov

Senator Mark Grisanti of Erie County (518) 455-3240
grisanti@nysenate.gov

Senator Stephen M. Saland of Poughkeepsie (845) 463-0840
saland@nysenate.gov

Senator John Flanagan of Long Island (518) 455-2071
flanagan@senate.state.ny.us