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| Perthshire Scotland native Alan Cumming has
had all extremely wide-ranging career since the mid '80s as an actor,
director and writer. He and Forbes Masson wrote and starred in the BBC TV
comedy series The High Life, Cumming recently authored a novel,
Tommy's Tale, published in the US and UK. On stage, Cumming has won
awards on both sides of the Atlantic, including a Tony for his portrayal
of the Emcee in the recent New York revival of Cabaret. His films
have encompassed everything from blockbusters like the Bond film
GoldenEye (Cumming played a pen clicking saboteur) to small, intense
personal dramas like 2001's The Anniversary Party, which he and
Jennifer Jason Leigh jointly wrote, produced, starred in and directed.
However, it's safe to say that Cumming has never before done anything thing quite like taking on the role of X2's Kurt Wagner, a.k.a. Nightcrawler. “He’s not very similar to anything I’ve ever played,” Cumming agrees. “I mean, he’s sensitive and shy and a bit of an outcast, I’ve played types like that, but I've never played a teleporting mutant before." Nightcrawler is bright blue, with hooves and a tail. Cumming says that working in Nightcrawler's extensive make up was not one of the attractions of the role. "I've done some kind of heavy duty make up before, but this was more heavy duty than I thought it was as more going to be," he acknowledges with a laugh. "I tried to prepare myself mentally for it, but it still was pretty intense." Molds of the actor's body and head had to be taken in order to design the make up. "And that was quite scary,” Cumming observes. I've had casts made I before, the hardest thing was, that early in the morning, having two people do things to your face for four hours. You have to get into a very Zen kind of place to deal with it. I don't really have any appliances on, I just have raised tattoos and blue make up." Even so, his features are substantially altered. "You have to just trust that your expressions and your intent come over." Another big challenge in the part was as getting the tail to function properly. "Sometimes I would have the tail on," Cumming explains, "and it was quite hard for me to manipulate it, because there were different tails of different bounciness, one really bouncy and one really just limp. And then sometimes I would have just a kind of stub oil the back of me that would have little dots on it for the computer people to go in afterwards [and animate digitally].” Other aspects of the part were tough as well, Cumming relates: "I have harnesses on because of my tail, and that was quite sore on my back, and then the harness that I used to fly, contact lenses in I couldn't see very well after I took them out and I couldn't see very well with them in," he laughs. "Funny teeth, which were difficult to speak in, hooves that made it really hard to do even the most basic actions with your hands, and the make up was quite sore to have on, because it was so sort of dry and weird. So, yeah, it was pretty difficult!" Teleportation is portrayed partly through a visual effect and partly via Cumming's performance. "I would sort of shudder," Cumming relates, "and then I would disappear." Sometimes this was achieved by simply locking down the camera and having Cumming step out of the shot, "but other times it was much more complicated than that, especially when there was a lot of stop-motion stuff, and it was quite laborious. Sometimes it was very easy, but if I was moving, or if there were other people in the shot, you couldn't just list walk away." Although Cumming is himself a filmmaker, he felt his job on X2 was strictly to serve as all actor. "I respect writers and directors, so it's not like I go in there thinking, 'I want to change this. You go into a film like that not expecting that you're going to have a big input into the dialogue. Sometimes, certainly with Nightcrawler, I said, 'There's too many "sss's" in the sentence with my [Nightcrawler’s] teeth in, it's hard to say,'" he laughs. Before becoming involved with X2, Cumming says "I'd never seen the first film and never read the comic. The whole allegory of the film being about outsiders in society and the need for tolerance and people being outcast that's what hooked me. It preaches tolerance of other peoples and other cultures. We could all do to listen up to that." X2's studio scope was also appealing, Cumming points out. "I've gone back and forth between big films [and small films] over the years. I like to mix and match. When this came along, I thought, ‘Yes, it would be nice to go and do a big blockbuster.' Ultimately, I want to go back to more relationship films, especially more that I write, but it's nice every now and then to go and do something bonkers." Cumming is signed to reprise Nightcrawler if there's all X Men 3 and plans to continue exploring all facets of his creative abilities "I sort of think of it all the same writing, directing, acting it's all just telling a story. In writing Tommy's Tale, I certainly made myself quite vulnerable, like I always try to do as an actor. Obviously, there are different kinds of technical things that you do in writing, directing and acting but ultimately, the thing I want to do is be really open and honest and affect people. It's all fabulous." |
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