Video:Alan Cumming Interview - The Tempest

Transcript:Alan Cumming Interview - The Tempest

Rebecca Murray from About.com Hollywood Movies at the LA Premiere of Touchstone Pictures and Miramax Films' The Tempest.

Alan Cumming - 'Sebastian' in The Tempest

So I hear that you had to wear an extremely hot costume and yet you were in Hawaii. How was that?

Alan Cumming: "It was not good. It was a bit of a nightmare because the costumes are really beautiful. Sandy Powell is a really amazing costume designer. It was these sort of Velasquez sort of black thing and they had these zips on them, but the zip was way up by your chin. It was really, really hot and I'm not good in the heat. I had a little umbrella all the time because I was really paranoid about getting sunburned. It was really hot, you know?"

How tough was it to concentrate on your character when you're basically melting?

Alan Cumming: "It's tough, but you just... You know, that's the thing about film acting is you can lie around and moan and say how awful it is, and then when you get to go you just go 'Boom!' - you've got to do it. When you're actually on camera it's not that long of discomfort. It's just all the hanging around. The worst bit was there's one bit when I had to be frozen. Helen [Mirren] freezes us with her magic powers and I couldn't keep my eyes - I kept blinking. Actually I'm really crap when I think about it. I couldn't do the heat, I couldn't keep my eyes open... It's very terrible."

I have to admit I haven't read The Tempest so what makes the story accessible to audiences?

Alan Cumming: "It's a very easy story."

It is?

Alan Cumming: "Most Shakespeare stories are quite easy. Maybe the language and some of the ideas are more complicated, but this one's about a shipwreck. There's a tempest and Helen lives on this island and she's been banished there. And to get her revenge on our family who've done that, she makes a spell that makes the tempest and our shipwrecks and we all get put on different parts of the island. And then we all find our way back to Helen, and on the journey there she's keeping an eye on us. She kind of gets revenge but also her daughter falls in love with someone. We all end up back and so it's kind of people are forgiving each other. It's like Thanksgiving. There's like a lot of fighting and then everyone forgives each other and then we go home."

You've worked with Julie Taymor before so how has she changed over the years?

Alan Cumming: "Well, when we did Titus in Italy it was kind of a crazy experience and everyone screamed a lot. Because it was Italy - I think everyone screams in Italy. She was calmer this time."

Did you scream when you were in Italy?

Alan Cumming: "No, I didn't. I'm not really a screamer but my character screams so I would just be... But I just remember every day I would wake, go to work, and there's these studios in Rome and you had to make this really scary turn across ongoing traffic to get into the gates of the studio. And that was like a metaphor for the experience of working on that film. It was like driving into oncoming traffic. And then I would gird my loins and the car door would open, and I'd just be like [screaming]. And even like they'd say, 'Hey Alan, would you like a cup of coffee?' I'd be like, 'Yes, please.' And they'd [scream], 'Hey Alan...' It was all the time, endless screaming."

So there was nothing like that on this set? It was pretty calm?

Alan Cumming: "There was a bit of screaming but it wasn't on the same level. It was on Hawaii and we're all being blessed all the time by these local elders, and having our pupu platters and all that. It was much calmer."

More on The Tempest:

The Tempest Photos

The Tempest Trailer, Clips, Poster, Interviews and Cast List