The New Yorker Radio Hour
Alan Cumming on “The Traitors” and His Brush with Reality Television
04 Mar 2025
When Emily Nussbaum introduced Alan Cumming at the New Yorker Festival, she said, “Plenty of actors light up a room, but Alan Cumming is more of a disco ball—reflecting every possible angle of show business.” Cumming appears in mainstream dramas such as “The Good Wife,” and also more indie projects like his one-man version of “Macbeth”; his performances in musicals such as “Cabaret” are legendary. He also owns a nightclub; his memoir “Not My Father’s Son” was a bestseller, and so on. And Cumming plays the host on the Emmy-winning reality show “The Traitors.” He combines “a dandy Scottish laird—sort of James Bond villain, sort of eccentric, old-fashioned nut who has this big castle.” Spoiler alert: “It’s supposed to be my castle. It’s not.” Nussbaum asks about his perspective on reality TV before he started on “Traitors.” “Zero, really,” Cumming confesses. “I was a bit judgy. … The thing I don't like about a lot of those shows is that they laud and therefore encourage bad behavior and lack of kindness.” Before “The Traitors,” Cumming’s first brush with reality television was on “Who Do You Think You Are?,” a BBC genealogy program that confronted him with shocking secrets about his own family. “It made a good memoir, I suppose,” he jokes. “Just how awful that was. It was awful. But no, I don't regret it.”
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This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Plenty of actors light up a room, but Alan Cumming is more of a disco ball reflecting every possible angle of show business. That's how the critic Emily Nussbaum introduced Alan Cumming when they sat down at the recent New Yorker Festival. And he does seem to do it all.
He acts in mainstream dramas like The Good Wife, as well as more indie projects like his one-man version of Macbeth. Cumming is a Broadway legend. He also owns a nightclub. He recorded a duet about Scottish independence with a Gaelic rapper. His memoir, Not My Father's Son, was a bestseller, and he stars in the Emmy-winning reality show The Traitors on Peacock.
Here's Alan Cumming at the New Yorker Festival, speaking with staff writer Emily Nussbaum.
So straight out of Scotland, but eternally beloved in New York, welcome Alan Cumming. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
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