This picture was taken one day in late October of last year. I was doing a trek along the Great wall of China for AmfAR (the American foundation for AIDS Research) and we had just arrived at our camp for the night and I had just dumped my stuff in my tent and was about to walk back up to where the dinner tent was and have a beer when I decided to put on this coat. I had bought it the night before off a wee soldier man who worked at an army base near to where we'd spent the night. It was absolutely freezing and it was our first night camping out and we were all a bit shell shocked about the temperature and even the roaring fire wasn't enough, and then all of a sudden this little man appears in a van selling these quilted Red Army coats and I remember seeing him appear and realized what he was doing and I thought he was like an angel from heaven. The fact that angels don’t hand out stinky old coats worn by commie soldiers or charge for the pleasure didn't seem to matter at the time because I was really cold and underdressed and had been drinking. Anyway, my boyfriend had given me one of those packets of funny stick on moustaches and I decided to get them out and spice things up a bit. The hat I had bought from a farming supply shop in the middle of Minnesota, where I’d been making a film right before coming to China. I felt like Charlie Chaplin in the Great Dictator. I think I alarmed a few of my fellow trekkers, but as there was little other entertainment on the side of a hill in the middle of China they laughed and indulged me. I remember this night so well because it was the first night that I managed to plant the seed of doubt in one of the trekkers who was going to vote Republican in the election, which would take place the day we arrived back in the US. I was gobsmacked that anyone who cared enough to travel half way round the world to go camping with a bunch of strangers and raise ten grand for people with AIDS would be a Republican, just because I think people who care that much have got to be Democrat. He was one of those annoying Republicans too who said “I know, you’re right” after every negative thing you said about Bush, but still was going to vote for him for some bizarre, mystical reason. I told him that night that I thought he was lazy and that his vote for the status quo represented all that was wrong with America. He didn’t like that but I could tell he was affected by it. I’d pierced the chink in his armour. Two nights later he told me he was going to vote Democrat, not because I had worn him down, but because he had thought things through and that mine and my fellow trekkers’ arguments were solid and made sense. I was elated. I flew back to New York on November 2nd with real hope in my heart. At least I still have the fabulous coat.
Self Exposure
Below is the introduction I wrote for the book Self Exposure - The Male Nude Self Portait...
I think everyone secretly wants to take nude self-portraits. To be able to see ourselves as others see us - either passive or in the throws of passion – is always illuminating, but isn’t it also erotic just to have in our possession an image that captured a moment in our lives when we were at our barest?
Baring it all has many connotations, of course. Sometimes the look in an eye is more revealing than an entire naked body. And sometimes a close-up of an erection speaks volumes about the subject, and what he wants us to think and/or think of him.
I have taken my clothes off for many photographers over the years, several times for some of those you will see in these pages. But I have never allowed (or indeed been asked) for a nude self-portrait to be published before.
Actors are asked to reveal a lot about ourselves all the time (if, like me, you believe letting parts of yourself be revealed through a character is what acting is all about). But when I am asked to pose nude for a photo I realize that I am allowing myself to be revealed in a more titillating way: here is Alan Cumming, that actor, with his arse out; here he is again, oops, we can nearly see his cock etc. In a way, the more I show in a photograph, the more I am throwing you off the scent.
These photographers are all choosing to see what it feels like being on the other side. The hunters are becoming the hunted - or at least pretending to be willing to be hunted. What I find fascinating is trying to guess how much they too are really revealing, or how much they – intentionally - are trying to throw us off the scent. It’s harder, of course, because we don’t know them, we haven’t seen their films or heard them on talk shows. We do not know the mask they are dropping. We only have these images to glean a very complex series of attributes, desires and foibles.
Unlike the nudes of me that have been published, my self-portraits are not beautifully lit, there is no powder brushed across my buttocks, and I am certainly showing a lot more than I would ever feel comfortable showing in a studio with a whole slew of crew present.
If I weren’t famous I think I would have shown you an altogether different picture. I initially cursed the internet and the gossip industry for denying me artistic freedom and complete inhibition. But then I looked through the artists’ work again and realized that what this book is really about is intimacy – and just like baring it all, intimacy can come in many forms.
This is a very intimate self-portrait, and I hope the route it took me to decide upon it will serve as a good prism for your enjoyment of the rest of this collection.
Midnight Snack
Sundance Channel asked me to take over as host of their film series Midnight Snack. The scenario was that I was at home talking about a film I was about to watch, with a midnight snack I was about to eat. So I suggested that, for reasons of accuracy, I should co-host with my dog, Honey
A star is born.
Out Traveler article
Here's an article I wrote for OUT Traveler about a trek I did along the Great Wall Of China
March/April 2005 | The Great Walk
4.6.2005
By Alan Cumming | FROM THE MARCH/APRIL 2005 ISSUE OF THE OUT TRAVELER
Alan Cumming treks China's Great Wall in the name of charity
I've never thought of myself as a trekker.
Trekkers, I've always assumed, are people who spurn room
service and give each other Swiss Army knives for Christmas. Their rosy cheeks
are caused not by martini consumption but icy mountain air or bug bites, and
their favorite labels are Birkenstock and North Face.
Imagine my surprise then, when I found myself marching along
in the bracing mountain air, sucking down water from the tube connected to my
rucksack's built-in bladder, looking forward to a lunch of a boiled egg and
nuts while sitting astride a rock and secretly hoping it would rain so that
I could make use of my orange waterproof two-piece ensemble. And this wasn't
one of those TV shows that seem so popular these days in which hapless celebrities
are thrown into circumstances beyond their ken and comfort zone and the rest
of us get a healthy dose of schadenfreude. Oh, no. This was real life, and I
was there willingly. I even liked it! Hell, I'd do it again!
"How did this happen?" I hear you cry.
It was actually one of those weird, fateful kismety things.
One night at dinner I had been telling my friends how I felt such a fraud for
being publicly lauded for the work I do with AIDS organizations and charities,
when really all I was doing was going to parties and shouting my mouth off.
Of course, I understand that when you're famous, people take your picture when
you go to parties and people listen to what you have to say and, good or bad,
celebrities have the public's eyes and ears. Nonetheless, perhaps because of
some Protestant work ethic element in my upbringing, I felt that I wanted to
actually do something.
Cut to the next day, when an American Foundation for AIDS
Research brochure detailing the first-ever fund-raising trek popped up in my
letter box! And so that was how I, and 24 others like me, found myself schlepping
along the Great Wall in October 2004.
The trek trip was a fund-raiser for AmfAR's TREAT Asia program,
an initiative to promote HIV prevention education, training, and research in
Asia. During our visit to China, we had several talks and meetings with AIDS
specialists and were horrified by both the scale of the problem and the many
cultural and social issues involved that make dealing with it so difficult.
Although under the auspices of AmfAR, the trek was organized
by a British-based company called Across the Divide, which regularly leads treks
and expeditions all over the world, often in conjunction with charities like
AmfAR. We all had to raise a minimum of $10,000 to participate, and so by the
end of the trek TREAT Asia's coffers were better off by over $275,000. Aside
from my epiphany about trekking, there are many reasons why I would thoroughly
recommend a trip of this kind. First of all, raising such a large sum is a feat
that requires the help and support of friends and family, so before you've even
left home you're in contact with a whole slew of people you normally only hear
from at Christmas, weddings, or funerals. Second, by doing something that takes
you way out of your normal routine--let alone comfort level--you really do inspire
people and make them think that if you feel strongly enough about an issue to
fly to the other side of the world and go camping with a bunch of strangers,
then it must be something worth thinking about.
We started in Beijing, and before setting off on the trek
proper we had a chance to see some touristy sights like Tiananmen Square, where
we chanced upon teams of people in blue overalls peeling chewing gum off the
pave stones. Sadly, Chairman Mao's tomb was not open. I was gutted, since I
love seeing dead world leaders with lots of makeup on. The Forbidden City was
amazing but very rainy and cold, so when I saw a Starbucks hidden behind a Chinesey
facade I suppressed my rage at American imperialism exporting its filthy drug
habits to the East and popped in for a grande soy misto.
Then we were packed aboard a bus for three hours into the
mountains to the Beijing Convalescent and Holiday Centre for Cadre, where we
spent the night preparing for the coming assault on our senses and sensitivities.
And the next morning it was on to the Wall! The Wall! Or
Chang Cheng, as it's called here. It is actually a bit of an eye-opener to realize
that the literal translation of what we know as the Great Wall is "the long
city!" Go figure. But it is both great and long, and we were all blown away
by the sight of it wiggling off through the mountains into the horizon.
We were actually on the wall before we realized it. In parts
it is so run-down and crumbling that you only realize you're on it when you
go off and look back. In other parts it has been maintained and is very grand.
It is, it has to be said, hilly. The eight-day trek was like a marathon session
on a StairMaster. So, yes, I have buns of steel.
Walking for six or seven hours a day allows you to get to
know people pretty well. And my fellow trekkers were quite an eclectic bunch
from all across the country. Some had lost family or loved ones to AIDS, some
were HIV-positive themselves, and some, like me, just wanted to raise some money
and do something. There were grannies, socialites, and students. We were
all exhausted by the end of each day, and when we arrived at our camp each night
we were delighted to see our tents set up for us and the kitchen tent bustling
with preparations for our dinner. Also delightful was the fact that we could
buy beer and wine; we had much fun around the campfire after a few beers. And,
boy, did we need a campfire because as soon as the sun went down it got really,
really cold. One night a van pulled up and a man from the army base we had passed
on our way down from the wall got out and started to sell us Red Army quilted
coats. They were a bit smelly, but I got one and--remember where you heard it
first--everyone will be wearing them next year.
The best part of the trip was when our camp for the night
was the playground of a rural elementary school, where the kids swarmed around
us all evening and we watched them swear their allegiance to the modernization
of the motherland at the following morning's assembly. I taped their laughter
on my Dictaphone, the perfect antidote to future blues. Seeing them and remembering
the statistics about the spread of the disease in rural areas made the cold
mornings, not showering for four days, and the snoring of fellow trekkers all
pale in significance. These kids were why we were there.