Actors don’t build the kind of eclectic careers enjoyed by Alan Cumming and Michael Urie without leaning into the unexpected.
Audiences are as likely to see them acting on the small screen (Cumming was thrice Emmy-nominated for playing the inimitable Eli Gold on “The Good Wife,” Urie is the emotionally centering scene-stealer on therapeutic dramedy “Shrinking), hosting the latest glitzy awards show (Cumming had the BAFTAs this year while Urie had the GLAAD Media Awards) or lighting up stages across New York, Los Angeles and London (Cumming has a Tony Award for 1998’s “Cabaret” and Urie has been a Main Stem mainstay since 2009, most recently in “Once Upon a Mattress” with Sutton Foster).
“I get to do this TV show, I just did a Broadway show, I’m producing a queer theater festival. If my life continues to be varied like that, maybe not quite as varied as Alan Cumming’s career, but if I get to go from a studio to a stage to a brain trust of people coming up with ways to expand queer theater, if I’m still doing that, I think that that would be fantastic,” Urie shared in the latest episode of “Visionaries,” TheWrap’s longform video interview series spotlighting the year’s best performers and multi-hyphenate creators.
“I think we’re quite similar in that respect. Like, things appear and you think, ‘I’ll give it a go.’ We give things a go! That’s a really good quality to have,” Cumming mused. “You know what it is? We’re curious. That’s what I think. I’ve just said this the other day, but when you stop being curious, you die. You don’t literally die, but being curious means you’re in life and you’re excited about the new and you’re excited about people. And that is what I see in you, a sort of spark and twinkle about curiosity.”
Sitting for TheWrap, Cumming joined Urie for a wide-ranging, 45-minute conversation about their lives and careers, from early inspirations to their evolving roles in entertainment. Urie discussed his journey to the series “Shrinking,” where he plays a lawyer navigating friendship, grief and chosen family. While Cumming reflected on his eclectic path, the challenges of hosting “The Traitors” and the value of creative risk and curiosity.
The real takeaway from their riveting deep-dive, however, can’t be credited to either of them, but instead to the legendary Patti Smith. Cumming recounted feeling insecure about doing “Burn,” his 2022 dance theater piece about celebrated Scottish poet and lyricist Robert Burns. He shared that Smith’s response to those internal concerns of “I might not be able to do this, is it too much?” was “the greatest thing” — and words to live by for any artist.
“You know sometimes you take on something and you think, ‘Oh my God, why am I doing this?’ I had this conversation with her about this idea of why some artists feel the need to do that every now and then. You do something where you just think, ‘I might fail at this.’ And I just told her I’m really interested about this idea of why we need to feel like we might fail. And she said to me, ‘Alan, but it won’t be a failure if you tried your best.’ And I just thought, ‘Patti Smith you should start a cult.’ I guess she kind of has.”
“That’s such a beautiful way to put it because that’s what we’re doing as artists,” Urie agreed. “And because we live in such a commercial society where there’s critics and box office and shows get — and all this, right, awards — and your show gets canceled, your show closes, whatever. We look at things as successes and failures, but it’s true.”
To hear more about Cumming playing “castle-stern Daddy” while hosting “The Traitors” and Urie’s experience acting with Jason Segel and Harrison Ford on “Shrinking” (“It’s this amazing thing that just came out of nowhere”), watch their full “Visionaries” episode in the video above.
