April 21, 2021 • 25 mins
Minnie questions Alan Cumming, actor, singer, and director. Alan and Minnie discuss the many times they’ve shared the screen together, how Alan’s dog wound up in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery (and replaced the Queen), and how his life was shaped by his relationship with his father.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I got a call in the post office from my
agent in London, going, I want to see you for
a Bond film. Oh my god. And I was like, oh,
I'm going to be a Bond girl. And she was like, no,
you don't suck anyone and you don't kill anyone. He
just sing a country in western song. I was like, great,
I'm in, I'm in. And then you were in gold
and I too, that's right. Actually, my god, look what
I've got next to me. Here machine, You're on it.
(00:23):
You're on it. I take you, you bastard. I've seen
one of these. I'm on the fucking pinball machine in it.
There you are, Oh my god, on the I'm underneath you. Okay, Alan,
I can't even believe it. I can't believe that you
have the pimball to do. The Other thing about that
(00:44):
film is that it's a video game. I didn't know
about that until years later. And I had an assistance
called Landing at the time, and who I said, Landon,
I'm in a video game. He was like, yeah, I know.
If you pissed me off, I go home and shoot
you in the balls. Hello, I'm Mini Driver and welcome
(01:04):
to many questions I've always loved prus questionnaire. It was
originally an eighteenth century parlor game meant to reveal an
individual's true nature. But with so many questions, there wasn't
really an opportunity to expand on anything. So I took
the format of Pruce's questionnaire and adapted What I think
are seven of the most important questions you could ever
ask someone. They are when and where were you happiest?
(01:30):
What is the quality you like least about yourself? What relationship,
real or fictionalized, defines love for you? What question would
you most like answered, What person, place, or experience has
shaped you the most? What would be your last meal?
And can you tell me something in your life that
(01:52):
has grown out of a personal disaster. The more people
we ask, the more we begin to see what makes
us similar and what makes us individual. I've gathered a
group of really remarkable people who I am honored and
humbled to have had a chance to engage with. My
guest today is Alan Coming. He is an actor in
(02:12):
movies like X Men and in the TV show The
Good Wife. He is an author, He has an O
b E, and he has a podcaster. He's also an articulate,
powerful voice in and for the LGBTQ community, and he's
been my friend for thirty years. We made the short
film together called That Sunday in the early nineties. It's
(02:33):
worth having a dig and finding it if you can,
along with the film Circle of Friends and then Gold
and I. I had a hard time not constantly interrupting
and finishing his sentences in this interview, largely because my
brain likes to go down the same pathways as Alan's,
which is to say, off the main road and deep
(02:53):
into glorious woodland. He is a deep and generous soul
and has a way of sharing the painful parts of
his past with great compassion and great humor. What relationship,
real or fictionalized, defines love for you? Well? Is it
(03:16):
you and me encircle or friends? What did they call you? Again? Yea?
What did it you call me? I can remember holder,
I can see it, remember, says in a bit of
the Succulent Bird. But that wasn't about talking about the chicken.
What do you think? As I was loading? But at
the end, I say something awful to you. He called
me something bit and I can't rememberd it? Yeah? Yeah,
(03:38):
But back to love, unconditional love. I think with Grant Schaeffer,
my husband upstairs, not that I've got another one downstairs,
but you know what I mean, I was going to say,
show me the one on the basement. I feel I've
reached a point with him after so long where it's
you know, it pisces me off. But I just feel
this completely solid, true thing that I just can't imagine
(03:58):
we can get over anything. Does that define love for you,
that notion of solid unconditional love, unconditional love it, yes,
I think, yeah, because I have no matter what happens,
I'm going to have this love right, no matter the circumstances,
the vagaries of the circumstance in life exactly. But then, actually,
what I would say is more unconditional love is my
(04:19):
relationship with dogs. So I've got La Lah and Jerry upstairs,
and I'm very attached to La La, and prottached them both.
But you know, I think I'm more of a special
relationship with La La. And I had my dog Honey
before that. There's a sort of statue of her over
there on a little deck. Who was my longest adult relationship.
I mean, like Grant has now superseded her, but she
was the longest relationship I had through thick and thin,
(04:40):
terrible things in my life. That was a true, unconditional love.
And I talked about her all the time. Actually she's
she's sort of very pleasant in our life. And then
she's in the portrait of me at the Scottish National
Portrait Girl that is she's referenced the one that replaced
the queen. Yes, and replaced the queen. I love that
your portrait replaced the queen. They brought the queen. Let
the queen was blanket over there, taken into somebody, put
(05:02):
the queen down and they put another clean up in
set your queen jokes here. They moved me around the
last time. I think I was in between Tilda Swinton
and Nanny Lennox. So that's a nice sandwich. Oh my god,
that's the best sandwich ever. But but Honey's in that portrait.
But she's yes, because she died just before I got
painted and the guy was asking me about things. So
there's a little jar beside me and it says honey
(05:24):
on it in a picture. Oh my god, it's ashes. No, No,
it's just a jar. I just put it into the picture.
Ashes are upstair. I was gonna say, was it her
ashes that just said honey? No, actually was a jar
of honey. Yes, it's the jar Fanny, but it says
honey on it, and then it says yes, yes, yes,
Because I was really sad about this Scotch independence thing
had gone the wrong way. What was hilarious was I'm
(05:45):
wearing this kilt around my neck in the portrait and
it was unveiled at the Scott's National Portragarity in the
big main place to take the queen down, you know,
and it's all posh and everyone's having drinks and this
film true because they're filming it for that sky Portrait
Artist of the Year thing, and that say a few words.
I said, Oh, it's so exciting because this tartan the
killed him wearing. It's the official tartan of the Yes
campaign for independence and never it was all this clinking
(06:07):
of glasses of the of the old unionists in the room,
and it was such such a great thing for me,
like to know that in that painting ways will be
there forever. Not only is little honey reference, but this
subversive little message that I managed to get in. But yes,
when I realized she was going to die, before me.
I remember just thinking, what honey's in my life. She's
my sort of girlfriend. And I just remember when someone
(06:30):
sort of said some of the reference about her dying
and I thought, oh my god, she's a dog. Yes,
she dogs die before you. She's going to die, and
it's such a weird thinks. I so thought of her
as like a human relationship. How much sort of time
I took to think about her and the way she
featured in my life and the decisions had to make
because of her. It was very much like having an
actual person. I totally understand that you've got to what's
(06:52):
his name down on you look at your feet. Okay,
well Bob. Bob's a difficult soul and I have closes this.
He's not listening. He's a bit deaf. Anyway, the true
great love of my life was my labrador Bubba, who
had for seventeen years, who died in my arms, and
he was the greatest precursor to having a child, particularly
(07:13):
having a son. And there's a lot of similarities, like
if anyone wants to have a road test having a
baby boy, get a labrador. Right. They just want to
be loved, functus, They want to eat, They jump around
a lot and need exercise, and you need to go
to sleep when they do. That's it, right, it's the
same practocol. I always think people should have a dog
(07:35):
first when they're thinking about Remember Rachel Vice, we were chatting.
She said to Grant, do you have children? You went, well,
we have two dogs and Bubba, and they're the conversation
about dogs for a bit, and then he said to
about you. Rachel went, well, I have a human child.
I don't bless you if I entertaining these two old
(07:55):
queers who are just talking about their dogs, and you
have to remind us that your child, as they humans,
very very respectful to qualify that it was a human child,
so as to not denigrate your fur babies. Yeah, I
hate fur babies though. I hate that way. I hate it.
It's like it's hashtag blessed lives in the same space.
And also like when the Honey died and people said, oh,
(08:17):
they'll meet them at the Rainbow No they fucking want Yeah,
I want to dynamite that ship. I hate that me too,
it snow Rainbow Bridge. I do sometimes see Bubba when
I'm in a soul cycle class, though, like he's running
beside me on the stationary bike. It's really weird. Wow,
a sort of fever of sweat, and so it feels
(08:39):
exactly cultish. It's totally cultish. It's amazing, and I can
imagine you're getting into a reverie. It's like it's like
being in a really sweaty cult with their motivational speaker
at the helm of this ship. And I think you
do go into a bit of a trance and then
you start seeing your dead dog. This is my favorite question,
(09:13):
what would be your last nail? I would have still?
These stories is an old Scottish thing. I guess it's
because it's on the store. It's like supposed to be
when you're drinking. You leave it there and you're going
you have a little some stories. It's potatoes and onions, meat.
I do a vegan version. It's delicious. It's just the
most carb starchy thing, so delicious. I put guardic and
other things and so sor and blah blah blah. See
(09:33):
I'm I really think I'm a peasant. I really it's
so interesting. I discovered recently I'm part of Portuguese. I
did that thing you sent off. I'm six percent Portuguese.
Oh that's quite a lot, is it. I had no idea.
I'm a little bit sort of German, and there was
a few percentage of there, but you know, mostly Scottish
and north of England. I'm literally an Anglo saccon like
I basically was either one of the people that the
(09:55):
Vikings came and found who already lived here, a bit
of picked, a bit picked. I have nothing exotic in
me at all, unless i'm you know, drinking tequila. That's
the most exotic I get something interesting in me. How funny?
I love that I was a little more saucy than
I thought, but mostly you know, white Scottish boy. But
(10:16):
the thing was, I'm very much a peasant. I really
feel very peasantee and I know that I am from
sort of peasants stock and my father's side of the
family too. Are you utter complete peasants, some of who
could play musical instruments, and so we're musical peasants. Musical peasants.
I love that. That's a good band. Where you going?
(10:38):
So you're a peasant? So what does that mean? You
like eating? So my dad's family all worked and lived
on kod Or estate for generations like on the farms
or in the forestry. My dad was a forester. And
then what was hilarious is that if you go to
Quota Castle you look up on the wall there's a
portrait of me. Seriously, it looks at me in a
period film. It's insane. And when it was open to
(10:59):
the public in about the nineties something or whatever, people
send me this postcard to the sense of what the hell.
And then I thought, wait a minute, maybe there was
some dabbling below stairs, because I mean, of course that
I so much like that man who was like the
first day of Cord or something, so actually you think
that you are an aristocrat of peasant stock. But there
(11:20):
was dabbling blow stairs. And if I could just get
one of the Cord families chunk of their hair and
do it, I would be able to prove. But I
don't think I want to do that. Yeah, we need
to go to a few more parties and like steal
some whiskey glasses. Hilarious. I'm sorry, duchess. It was always
that that thing about member they were trying to get
Prince Hattie's people was trying to steal bits of Prince
(11:41):
Hattie's hair. I felt it was happening a nightclub. I
think my brother was working the door and some yeah,
somebody was trying to sort of snip Harry's hair. Can
imagine pull off and no wonder he's gone to California.
I mean, seriously, man, quick, get back to the first food.
Because of my peasant thing, I food that is one
ball of the same thing. Like you know, if you
(12:03):
have too many different options that you've got, like you know,
lots of vegetables, and it's too overwhelming for me. I
don't like it. I like to mush them all together,
and I like to eat things with a spoon. It's
that I love more than anything, the feeling of having
the same taste again and again I'm eating it with
a spoon. That's what I would do. I suppose it's
very like baby food. It's probably going back to there's
like there's seven ages of man. But that's what my
(12:23):
last meal would be, stub. It's very safe then, it
feels very primal that and also understandable. Something that is
in one ball comforting. It's comforting, do you know what
I mean? I get confused in part restaurants sometimes. I
mean I've been undone by like a foam on top
of something good. God saved me from phone. It looks
(12:45):
it looks like it looks like fish spit. I can't
do it. I agree with you. I like a bowl
and there's a confashionable now you know they're on the menu,
like a bowl. Would you like the the ancient grain bowl? Yes,
that's right, there's the Buddha Bao halls and things. Do
this make you happy? Yeah? Like those? And I think
I'm more in the Asian thing as well. Like you know,
I loved I made a film in Australian. They had
(13:07):
coranji for breakfast, which is like poor ridge, and then
you put all these things in it. I love. That's
my dream. God, that is delicious. I like poke balls
in a like in in Hawaii pookeyboard. Yes, yes, I
lived there for a while and I a lot. What
did it in Hawaiian? I left Hollywood. I left Hollywood.
I hated it, and nobody not just started left because
I had all like I had like two films come
(13:27):
out the year that I went and lived in Hawaii. Um,
it was quite funny. I went there just to write
music and to surf and to live on the beach
and hang out. Gosh, I made a film there, that
tempest film that Julie Timore's right, Marin was was prosperal
prosperer and were it was just so hilarious, like being
in the hot tub with like Chris Cooper and David
(13:51):
Strath there and Tom Conti and Russell Brand and you know,
practicing our lanes for the next day in the hot
tub of the Four Seasons and in that funny lit
Leyland camera. It's quite a long time. I went back
and forward a bit. Such a hoot though, love, Okay,
what question would you most like answered? I mean, I
(14:14):
think it would have to be what was wrong with
my father? What it was? The true mental diagnosis of him?
You know. I think I think maybe ten years ago
and said why did my father not love me? And
I've got over that one, you know, as I found
out all there's evidence about him, you know, I came
to the conclusion not just that he's insane an awful,
but he just was mentally ill. And I would love
(14:36):
to get proper diagnosis. And I never will because I
was I can't examine him or have seen anyone examine him,
But that to me is something I would really love
to have answered just what it actually was that made
him behave the way he did. Do you think that
if a person can give something a name it can
be understood better, does it stay nebulous and therefore threatening
(14:58):
if you can't contain it with the world. I think
it's just the thing of it takes it outside of
your experience. It makes it something that has exists in
the world that wasn't just about you, you know, So
perhaps that is what you're saying. And I've talked to
psychiatrists about this, you know. I have actually spent quite
a lot of time trying to diagnose my father from
beyond the great personality disorders that you clearly had. But
(15:19):
there's more, and I just I don't know quite why
and when, you know, when what kicked it in And
because something that was such a big part of my life,
that is kind of a mystery. And I've definitely made
peace of that, and I understand truly that he was
mentally ill, and I've made it easier to to come
to terms with and to forgive, and to sort of
not too much to forgive that was easy, but to
(15:39):
sort of place what happened to me in a context
that I can get myself out of it. But obviously
I'm never going to have an proper answer. So that's
that's that would be the thing I would like the
answer to. Yeah, I'm sorry you won't have the answer
that question. I hope that the exploration or the interrogation
of what it might be. I hope that there were
(16:01):
enough people that said the same thing that I've given
you a good idea of what it might have been. Definitely,
there's you know, narcissistic disorders, psychotic personality, there's there's all
these things. But you know, you can't really do that
just on one person's memory. You have to getting a
bit deeper. So it's so interesting to me. I always
I'm really fascinated by the various sort of little psychological
(16:23):
quirks we all have. And I think that's maybe because,
you know, from such an early age, I was so
aware of it. I was so aware of them. I
was aware that my dad was not right from and
not right as in wrong as well as being not
right psychologically. I had a very good sort of balance
between my mom and my dad, so I knew they
both couldn't be right. And also, I you know, I
(16:44):
hate to see it but I think that's also why
I am quite a good actor, as that I can
understand get into sort of people's psychological quirks because I'm
aware of the difference. You know, I see it. So yeah,
I just used to looking for it. What person, place,
(17:14):
or experience most altered your life? Again, I'm going to
see my father. I know, I keep the sort of
bringing it back there, but no, no, no, it's good
because you wrote a book about your experiences with your father.
And someone very early on said to me, when I
not drawing a comparison between an abusive childhood and heartbreak,
but I was suffering tear me from a heartbreak and
(17:35):
I wrote a record and a musician that I love said, oh, yeah,
you know, wherever possible, you should profit off your pain.
Whatever that well is of your of your father, that
he that he would be the question that you would
want answered that it's the person who altered or affected
(17:55):
your life so much. They are connected those questions for you.
So yeah, exact actually, and also it's sort of you know,
in positive ways as well. I mean, like what's really
been fascinating as right after we made Circle of Friends, actually,
I had this nervous breakdown. It was basically because I realized, oh,
I'm this person. I'm alannaha, happy Allen, not not terribly
(18:16):
different from how I am now. I mean into this
on the surface, but I was a construct of something
my father done that I had not remembered. So I thought,
I've become this person by ignoring, you know, suppressing this
whole side of these things that happened to me. I
don't want to be this person anymore. I want to
embrace this terrible thing's happened to me to become the
(18:37):
person I'm supposed to be. So that was a huge
thing he influenced me. He got completely changed my life.
And then when he told me I wasn't his son,
that was pretty huge. And and then the ability to
go back and talk to him and tell him I
was indeed his son. After I got the day Natist
and everything. You know, things like that are monumental moments
that really changed you in terms of like I stood
(18:59):
up to the scariest possible monster I could stand up to.
I'm now fearless, and then writing about it and realizing
that actually how important it is and how many people's
lives I changed by telling my story and helped them
to be able to deal with things in there. I
had no idea that would happen. That was such a
shocker to me. And then also to realize that I've
(19:19):
by doing that, I have brought my father back into
my life in a way that he never was before.
So I didn't push him away like I thought. I
actually brought him in. But as you said, it's on
my terms. So it's been a series of things like
that has really truly primarily changed me, and all of
them actually are positive things. I mean, the actual stuff before,
you know, the childhood was awful, but actually as an adult,
(19:43):
the huge sort of cataclysmic things that happened were ultimately
very very positive things for me because it was about
me coming my true, authentic self and not a construct
of something he had made me. Oh, Johnny is so articular.
Bless you, But I mean, I'm sorry there's things happen
to you. But it's feed into the last question that
(20:03):
I have. It's very revealing in your life. Can you
tell me about something that has grown out of a
personal disaster? Well, yes, me, my entire body I grew
out of a personal Yeah. I mean I think I
would say several relationships that are broken up, like a
(20:25):
married a couple of marriages, you know, the sort of
thing that we're when as in them definitely be described
as personal disasters when they were breaking up, and just
the sort of the sort of ugliness of all that.
But actually, you know, getting older and looking back on
things and seeing the patterns, you notice the patterns of
behavior of yours as well as other people's. That gives
you an opportunity to make a decision about are you
(20:47):
going to behave differently now in this when this happens,
or you know, are you going to make the same
mistake or or maybe this is a good pattern to repeat.
That to me is really fascinating. But there's definitely a
couple of relationships that I've had that ended with a
personal disaster and beautiful things came out. But like I
think about talking circle friends anything like Saffon and Ize relationship,
(21:07):
it's such a beautiful, strong, loving friendship. I really feel
that you know, and she knows this too, that we
would be there for each other until we die. You know,
we were together as a couple for a couple of
years and that didn't work out. It worked out for
a while, but then it didn't and actually something so
much better has come out of it. So there's a
couple of people in my life that I feel like
(21:28):
that about. It's kind of funny that I quite a
lot of my very close friends I've been my lovers.
Really yeah, quite a lot. Yeah, too many actually when
you think about it. But I mean not in the
same way like with saf was like we were in
a proper relationship together. But you know, several of my
friends more in the gay world, as several of my
male friends, I've had sex and at some point in
the past, you know, first and then we stayed friends.
(21:49):
And I think that's really good. I think it's really good.
I think it's lovely. I think it's lovely. I think
it's quite unusual. I can count on one hand the
people that have been lovers that are friends. Yeah, it's tricky,
it's truly. I think it's I think it is easier
in the same sex relationship. Actually, do you want Yeah,
because I think sex is easier in general actually in
(22:10):
the same sex relationship, yes, because you understand the person,
like ergonomically or spiritually, spiritually. I mean yeah, well so
I sort of both because you are the same gender
as that person, you automatically understand more things about how
that person works. Thanks and thanks and fields. And also
(22:32):
I think there and therefore you can be more honest
with that person. There's not such a barrier of agenda.
And also, you know, men and women are fed so
much ship that makes it more difficult for them to communicate. True,
you know, it's so true. We ardiculate. We are raised
on a completely and utterly different social, psychic and mental food. Yeah. Yeah,
(22:56):
and impossible to keep up standards. And so anyway, I
think it's easier to be honest with the person of
your own sex, and it's easier to move on from
sex with a person of your own sex as well,
I do. I mean that's your well, look at lesbians
take a joke, but when you see a group of
friends who are lesbians, they've all slept each other at
some point, and they're all great friends, and they're all
god mothers to their children. And I think it's it's
(23:18):
that's a case in point that you can move on
from and still keep a loving thing, whereas with men
and women it's over and that's many years later. You
can come back as a sort of thing. But I
don't think there's the same sort of illigion into great
friendship that that can happen in the same sex relationship. Sadly, sadly,
(23:39):
Oh God, I could talk to you for like, I'm
gonna have to come as soon as we're all aloud.
I'm going to come find you in your remote location.
I'd glad you to come here. Oh my God, I
will come. I'll bring I'll come. I'll come play some music.
If you've got piano, bring my guitar. Yeah, we've got
it all. We've got it all. This has been fun.
Thanks many, I've a really enjoyed this. I'm really fascinated
(24:01):
and so grateful You've just shared your heart and your
life so generously. Thank you, my pleasure very much. All right,
let's love to you. In closing, I would like to
make you aware of some projects that Alan has coming up.
I think my particular favorite is a six part podcast
(24:21):
series for Audible about a sperm bank heist that he
produced and directed called Hot White Heist, starring Saturday Night Lives,
Bow and Yang, along with an ensemble of amazing people
including Cynthia Nixon, Abby Jacobson, Jane Lynch, and Margaret show
He also has a show for Apple TV coming in
(24:42):
July called Shmigadoon, and another show for HBMX also coming
in July called The Prince. He is the busiest men
in show business? Quite right? Me Many Questions is hosted
and written by Me Mini d. Driver, supervising producer Aaron Kaufman,
(25:03):
Producer Morgan Lavoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown. Original music Sorry
Baby by a Mini Driver, additional music by Aaron Kaufman.
Executive produced by Me and man Gesh Hetty Cador. Special
thanks to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison No Day, Lisa
(25:26):
Castella and Annique Oppenheim at w kPr de La Pescadore,
Kate Driver and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech
support Henry Driver
I got a call in the post office from my
agent in London, going, I want to see you for
a Bond film. Oh my god. And I was like, oh,
I'm going to be a Bond girl. And she was like, no,
you don't suck anyone and you don't kill anyone. He
just sing a country in western song. I was like, great,
I'm in, I'm in. And then you were in gold
and I too, that's right. Actually, my god, look what
I've got next to me. Here machine, You're on it.
(00:23):
You're on it. I take you, you bastard. I've seen
one of these. I'm on the fucking pinball machine in it.
There you are, Oh my god, on the I'm underneath you. Okay, Alan,
I can't even believe it. I can't believe that you
have the pimball to do. The Other thing about that
(00:44):
film is that it's a video game. I didn't know
about that until years later. And I had an assistance
called Landing at the time, and who I said, Landon,
I'm in a video game. He was like, yeah, I know.
If you pissed me off, I go home and shoot
you in the balls. Hello, I'm Mini Driver and welcome
(01:04):
to many questions I've always loved prus questionnaire. It was
originally an eighteenth century parlor game meant to reveal an
individual's true nature. But with so many questions, there wasn't
really an opportunity to expand on anything. So I took
the format of Pruce's questionnaire and adapted What I think
are seven of the most important questions you could ever
ask someone. They are when and where were you happiest?
(01:30):
What is the quality you like least about yourself? What relationship,
real or fictionalized, defines love for you? What question would
you most like answered, What person, place, or experience has
shaped you the most? What would be your last meal?
And can you tell me something in your life that
(01:52):
has grown out of a personal disaster. The more people
we ask, the more we begin to see what makes
us similar and what makes us individual. I've gathered a
group of really remarkable people who I am honored and
humbled to have had a chance to engage with. My
guest today is Alan Coming. He is an actor in
(02:12):
movies like X Men and in the TV show The
Good Wife. He is an author, He has an O
b E, and he has a podcaster. He's also an articulate,
powerful voice in and for the LGBTQ community, and he's
been my friend for thirty years. We made the short
film together called That Sunday in the early nineties. It's
(02:33):
worth having a dig and finding it if you can,
along with the film Circle of Friends and then Gold
and I. I had a hard time not constantly interrupting
and finishing his sentences in this interview, largely because my
brain likes to go down the same pathways as Alan's,
which is to say, off the main road and deep
(02:53):
into glorious woodland. He is a deep and generous soul
and has a way of sharing the painful parts of
his past with great compassion and great humor. What relationship,
real or fictionalized, defines love for you? Well? Is it
(03:16):
you and me encircle or friends? What did they call you? Again? Yea?
What did it you call me? I can remember holder,
I can see it, remember, says in a bit of
the Succulent Bird. But that wasn't about talking about the chicken.
What do you think? As I was loading? But at
the end, I say something awful to you. He called
me something bit and I can't rememberd it? Yeah? Yeah,
(03:38):
But back to love, unconditional love. I think with Grant Schaeffer,
my husband upstairs, not that I've got another one downstairs,
but you know what I mean, I was going to say,
show me the one on the basement. I feel I've
reached a point with him after so long where it's
you know, it pisces me off. But I just feel
this completely solid, true thing that I just can't imagine
(03:58):
we can get over anything. Does that define love for you,
that notion of solid unconditional love, unconditional love it, yes,
I think, yeah, because I have no matter what happens,
I'm going to have this love right, no matter the circumstances,
the vagaries of the circumstance in life exactly. But then, actually,
what I would say is more unconditional love is my
(04:19):
relationship with dogs. So I've got La Lah and Jerry upstairs,
and I'm very attached to La La, and prottached them both.
But you know, I think I'm more of a special
relationship with La La. And I had my dog Honey
before that. There's a sort of statue of her over
there on a little deck. Who was my longest adult relationship.
I mean, like Grant has now superseded her, but she
was the longest relationship I had through thick and thin,
(04:40):
terrible things in my life. That was a true, unconditional love.
And I talked about her all the time. Actually she's
she's sort of very pleasant in our life. And then
she's in the portrait of me at the Scottish National
Portrait Girl that is she's referenced the one that replaced
the queen. Yes, and replaced the queen. I love that
your portrait replaced the queen. They brought the queen. Let
the queen was blanket over there, taken into somebody, put
(05:02):
the queen down and they put another clean up in
set your queen jokes here. They moved me around the
last time. I think I was in between Tilda Swinton
and Nanny Lennox. So that's a nice sandwich. Oh my god,
that's the best sandwich ever. But but Honey's in that portrait.
But she's yes, because she died just before I got
painted and the guy was asking me about things. So
there's a little jar beside me and it says honey
(05:24):
on it in a picture. Oh my god, it's ashes. No, No,
it's just a jar. I just put it into the picture.
Ashes are upstair. I was gonna say, was it her
ashes that just said honey? No, actually was a jar
of honey. Yes, it's the jar Fanny, but it says
honey on it, and then it says yes, yes, yes,
Because I was really sad about this Scotch independence thing
had gone the wrong way. What was hilarious was I'm
(05:45):
wearing this kilt around my neck in the portrait and
it was unveiled at the Scott's National Portragarity in the
big main place to take the queen down, you know,
and it's all posh and everyone's having drinks and this
film true because they're filming it for that sky Portrait
Artist of the Year thing, and that say a few words.
I said, Oh, it's so exciting because this tartan the
killed him wearing. It's the official tartan of the Yes
campaign for independence and never it was all this clinking
(06:07):
of glasses of the of the old unionists in the room,
and it was such such a great thing for me,
like to know that in that painting ways will be
there forever. Not only is little honey reference, but this
subversive little message that I managed to get in. But yes,
when I realized she was going to die, before me.
I remember just thinking, what honey's in my life. She's
my sort of girlfriend. And I just remember when someone
(06:30):
sort of said some of the reference about her dying
and I thought, oh my god, she's a dog. Yes,
she dogs die before you. She's going to die, and
it's such a weird thinks. I so thought of her
as like a human relationship. How much sort of time
I took to think about her and the way she
featured in my life and the decisions had to make
because of her. It was very much like having an
actual person. I totally understand that you've got to what's
(06:52):
his name down on you look at your feet. Okay,
well Bob. Bob's a difficult soul and I have closes this.
He's not listening. He's a bit deaf. Anyway, the true
great love of my life was my labrador Bubba, who
had for seventeen years, who died in my arms, and
he was the greatest precursor to having a child, particularly
(07:13):
having a son. And there's a lot of similarities, like
if anyone wants to have a road test having a
baby boy, get a labrador. Right. They just want to
be loved, functus, They want to eat, They jump around
a lot and need exercise, and you need to go
to sleep when they do. That's it, right, it's the
same practocol. I always think people should have a dog
(07:35):
first when they're thinking about Remember Rachel Vice, we were chatting.
She said to Grant, do you have children? You went, well,
we have two dogs and Bubba, and they're the conversation
about dogs for a bit, and then he said to
about you. Rachel went, well, I have a human child.
I don't bless you if I entertaining these two old
(07:55):
queers who are just talking about their dogs, and you
have to remind us that your child, as they humans,
very very respectful to qualify that it was a human child,
so as to not denigrate your fur babies. Yeah, I
hate fur babies though. I hate that way. I hate it.
It's like it's hashtag blessed lives in the same space.
And also like when the Honey died and people said, oh,
(08:17):
they'll meet them at the Rainbow No they fucking want Yeah,
I want to dynamite that ship. I hate that me too,
it snow Rainbow Bridge. I do sometimes see Bubba when
I'm in a soul cycle class, though, like he's running
beside me on the stationary bike. It's really weird. Wow,
a sort of fever of sweat, and so it feels
(08:39):
exactly cultish. It's totally cultish. It's amazing, and I can
imagine you're getting into a reverie. It's like it's like
being in a really sweaty cult with their motivational speaker
at the helm of this ship. And I think you
do go into a bit of a trance and then
you start seeing your dead dog. This is my favorite question,
(09:13):
what would be your last nail? I would have still?
These stories is an old Scottish thing. I guess it's
because it's on the store. It's like supposed to be
when you're drinking. You leave it there and you're going
you have a little some stories. It's potatoes and onions, meat.
I do a vegan version. It's delicious. It's just the
most carb starchy thing, so delicious. I put guardic and
other things and so sor and blah blah blah. See
(09:33):
I'm I really think I'm a peasant. I really it's
so interesting. I discovered recently I'm part of Portuguese. I
did that thing you sent off. I'm six percent Portuguese.
Oh that's quite a lot, is it. I had no idea.
I'm a little bit sort of German, and there was
a few percentage of there, but you know, mostly Scottish
and north of England. I'm literally an Anglo saccon like
I basically was either one of the people that the
(09:55):
Vikings came and found who already lived here, a bit
of picked, a bit picked. I have nothing exotic in
me at all, unless i'm you know, drinking tequila. That's
the most exotic I get something interesting in me. How funny?
I love that I was a little more saucy than
I thought, but mostly you know, white Scottish boy. But
(10:16):
the thing was, I'm very much a peasant. I really
feel very peasantee and I know that I am from
sort of peasants stock and my father's side of the
family too. Are you utter complete peasants, some of who
could play musical instruments, and so we're musical peasants. Musical peasants.
I love that. That's a good band. Where you going?
(10:38):
So you're a peasant? So what does that mean? You
like eating? So my dad's family all worked and lived
on kod Or estate for generations like on the farms
or in the forestry. My dad was a forester. And
then what was hilarious is that if you go to
Quota Castle you look up on the wall there's a
portrait of me. Seriously, it looks at me in a
period film. It's insane. And when it was open to
(10:59):
the public in about the nineties something or whatever, people
send me this postcard to the sense of what the hell.
And then I thought, wait a minute, maybe there was
some dabbling below stairs, because I mean, of course that
I so much like that man who was like the
first day of Cord or something, so actually you think
that you are an aristocrat of peasant stock. But there
(11:20):
was dabbling blow stairs. And if I could just get
one of the Cord families chunk of their hair and
do it, I would be able to prove. But I
don't think I want to do that. Yeah, we need
to go to a few more parties and like steal
some whiskey glasses. Hilarious. I'm sorry, duchess. It was always
that that thing about member they were trying to get
Prince Hattie's people was trying to steal bits of Prince
(11:41):
Hattie's hair. I felt it was happening a nightclub. I
think my brother was working the door and some yeah,
somebody was trying to sort of snip Harry's hair. Can
imagine pull off and no wonder he's gone to California.
I mean, seriously, man, quick, get back to the first food.
Because of my peasant thing, I food that is one
ball of the same thing. Like you know, if you
(12:03):
have too many different options that you've got, like you know,
lots of vegetables, and it's too overwhelming for me. I
don't like it. I like to mush them all together,
and I like to eat things with a spoon. It's
that I love more than anything, the feeling of having
the same taste again and again I'm eating it with
a spoon. That's what I would do. I suppose it's
very like baby food. It's probably going back to there's
like there's seven ages of man. But that's what my
(12:23):
last meal would be, stub. It's very safe then, it
feels very primal that and also understandable. Something that is
in one ball comforting. It's comforting, do you know what
I mean? I get confused in part restaurants sometimes. I
mean I've been undone by like a foam on top
of something good. God saved me from phone. It looks
(12:45):
it looks like it looks like fish spit. I can't
do it. I agree with you. I like a bowl
and there's a confashionable now you know they're on the menu,
like a bowl. Would you like the the ancient grain bowl? Yes,
that's right, there's the Buddha Bao halls and things. Do
this make you happy? Yeah? Like those? And I think
I'm more in the Asian thing as well. Like you know,
I loved I made a film in Australian. They had
(13:07):
coranji for breakfast, which is like poor ridge, and then
you put all these things in it. I love. That's
my dream. God, that is delicious. I like poke balls
in a like in in Hawaii pookeyboard. Yes, yes, I
lived there for a while and I a lot. What
did it in Hawaiian? I left Hollywood. I left Hollywood.
I hated it, and nobody not just started left because
I had all like I had like two films come
(13:27):
out the year that I went and lived in Hawaii. Um,
it was quite funny. I went there just to write
music and to surf and to live on the beach
and hang out. Gosh, I made a film there, that
tempest film that Julie Timore's right, Marin was was prosperal
prosperer and were it was just so hilarious, like being
in the hot tub with like Chris Cooper and David
(13:51):
Strath there and Tom Conti and Russell Brand and you know,
practicing our lanes for the next day in the hot
tub of the Four Seasons and in that funny lit
Leyland camera. It's quite a long time. I went back
and forward a bit. Such a hoot though, love, Okay,
what question would you most like answered? I mean, I
(14:14):
think it would have to be what was wrong with
my father? What it was? The true mental diagnosis of him?
You know. I think I think maybe ten years ago
and said why did my father not love me? And
I've got over that one, you know, as I found
out all there's evidence about him, you know, I came
to the conclusion not just that he's insane an awful,
but he just was mentally ill. And I would love
(14:36):
to get proper diagnosis. And I never will because I
was I can't examine him or have seen anyone examine him,
But that to me is something I would really love
to have answered just what it actually was that made
him behave the way he did. Do you think that
if a person can give something a name it can
be understood better, does it stay nebulous and therefore threatening
(14:58):
if you can't contain it with the world. I think
it's just the thing of it takes it outside of
your experience. It makes it something that has exists in
the world that wasn't just about you, you know, So
perhaps that is what you're saying. And I've talked to
psychiatrists about this, you know. I have actually spent quite
a lot of time trying to diagnose my father from
beyond the great personality disorders that you clearly had. But
(15:19):
there's more, and I just I don't know quite why
and when, you know, when what kicked it in And
because something that was such a big part of my life,
that is kind of a mystery. And I've definitely made
peace of that, and I understand truly that he was
mentally ill, and I've made it easier to to come
to terms with and to forgive, and to sort of
not too much to forgive that was easy, but to
(15:39):
sort of place what happened to me in a context
that I can get myself out of it. But obviously
I'm never going to have an proper answer. So that's
that's that would be the thing I would like the
answer to. Yeah, I'm sorry you won't have the answer
that question. I hope that the exploration or the interrogation
of what it might be. I hope that there were
(16:01):
enough people that said the same thing that I've given
you a good idea of what it might have been. Definitely,
there's you know, narcissistic disorders, psychotic personality, there's there's all
these things. But you know, you can't really do that
just on one person's memory. You have to getting a
bit deeper. So it's so interesting to me. I always
I'm really fascinated by the various sort of little psychological
(16:23):
quirks we all have. And I think that's maybe because,
you know, from such an early age, I was so
aware of it. I was so aware of them. I
was aware that my dad was not right from and
not right as in wrong as well as being not
right psychologically. I had a very good sort of balance
between my mom and my dad, so I knew they
both couldn't be right. And also, I you know, I
(16:44):
hate to see it but I think that's also why
I am quite a good actor, as that I can
understand get into sort of people's psychological quirks because I'm
aware of the difference. You know, I see it. So yeah,
I just used to looking for it. What person, place,
(17:14):
or experience most altered your life? Again, I'm going to
see my father. I know, I keep the sort of
bringing it back there, but no, no, no, it's good
because you wrote a book about your experiences with your father.
And someone very early on said to me, when I
not drawing a comparison between an abusive childhood and heartbreak,
but I was suffering tear me from a heartbreak and
(17:35):
I wrote a record and a musician that I love said, oh, yeah,
you know, wherever possible, you should profit off your pain.
Whatever that well is of your of your father, that
he that he would be the question that you would
want answered that it's the person who altered or affected
(17:55):
your life so much. They are connected those questions for you.
So yeah, exact actually, and also it's sort of you know,
in positive ways as well. I mean, like what's really
been fascinating as right after we made Circle of Friends, actually,
I had this nervous breakdown. It was basically because I realized, oh,
I'm this person. I'm alannaha, happy Allen, not not terribly
(18:16):
different from how I am now. I mean into this
on the surface, but I was a construct of something
my father done that I had not remembered. So I thought,
I've become this person by ignoring, you know, suppressing this
whole side of these things that happened to me. I
don't want to be this person anymore. I want to
embrace this terrible thing's happened to me to become the
(18:37):
person I'm supposed to be. So that was a huge
thing he influenced me. He got completely changed my life.
And then when he told me I wasn't his son,
that was pretty huge. And and then the ability to
go back and talk to him and tell him I
was indeed his son. After I got the day Natist
and everything. You know, things like that are monumental moments
that really changed you in terms of like I stood
(18:59):
up to the scariest possible monster I could stand up to.
I'm now fearless, and then writing about it and realizing
that actually how important it is and how many people's
lives I changed by telling my story and helped them
to be able to deal with things in there. I
had no idea that would happen. That was such a
shocker to me. And then also to realize that I've
(19:19):
by doing that, I have brought my father back into
my life in a way that he never was before.
So I didn't push him away like I thought. I
actually brought him in. But as you said, it's on
my terms. So it's been a series of things like
that has really truly primarily changed me, and all of
them actually are positive things. I mean, the actual stuff before,
you know, the childhood was awful, but actually as an adult,
(19:43):
the huge sort of cataclysmic things that happened were ultimately
very very positive things for me because it was about
me coming my true, authentic self and not a construct
of something he had made me. Oh, Johnny is so articular.
Bless you, But I mean, I'm sorry there's things happen
to you. But it's feed into the last question that
(20:03):
I have. It's very revealing in your life. Can you
tell me about something that has grown out of a
personal disaster? Well, yes, me, my entire body I grew
out of a personal Yeah. I mean I think I
would say several relationships that are broken up, like a
(20:25):
married a couple of marriages, you know, the sort of
thing that we're when as in them definitely be described
as personal disasters when they were breaking up, and just
the sort of the sort of ugliness of all that.
But actually, you know, getting older and looking back on
things and seeing the patterns, you notice the patterns of
behavior of yours as well as other people's. That gives
you an opportunity to make a decision about are you
(20:47):
going to behave differently now in this when this happens,
or you know, are you going to make the same
mistake or or maybe this is a good pattern to repeat.
That to me is really fascinating. But there's definitely a
couple of relationships that I've had that ended with a
personal disaster and beautiful things came out. But like I
think about talking circle friends anything like Saffon and Ize relationship,
(21:07):
it's such a beautiful, strong, loving friendship. I really feel
that you know, and she knows this too, that we
would be there for each other until we die. You know,
we were together as a couple for a couple of
years and that didn't work out. It worked out for
a while, but then it didn't and actually something so
much better has come out of it. So there's a
couple of people in my life that I feel like
(21:28):
that about. It's kind of funny that I quite a
lot of my very close friends I've been my lovers.
Really yeah, quite a lot. Yeah, too many actually when
you think about it. But I mean not in the
same way like with saf was like we were in
a proper relationship together. But you know, several of my
friends more in the gay world, as several of my
male friends, I've had sex and at some point in
the past, you know, first and then we stayed friends.
(21:49):
And I think that's really good. I think it's really good.
I think it's lovely. I think it's lovely. I think
it's quite unusual. I can count on one hand the
people that have been lovers that are friends. Yeah, it's tricky,
it's truly. I think it's I think it is easier
in the same sex relationship. Actually, do you want Yeah,
because I think sex is easier in general actually in
(22:10):
the same sex relationship, yes, because you understand the person,
like ergonomically or spiritually, spiritually. I mean yeah, well so
I sort of both because you are the same gender
as that person, you automatically understand more things about how
that person works. Thanks and thanks and fields. And also
(22:32):
I think there and therefore you can be more honest
with that person. There's not such a barrier of agenda.
And also, you know, men and women are fed so
much ship that makes it more difficult for them to communicate. True,
you know, it's so true. We ardiculate. We are raised
on a completely and utterly different social, psychic and mental food. Yeah. Yeah,
(22:56):
and impossible to keep up standards. And so anyway, I
think it's easier to be honest with the person of
your own sex, and it's easier to move on from
sex with a person of your own sex as well,
I do. I mean that's your well, look at lesbians
take a joke, but when you see a group of
friends who are lesbians, they've all slept each other at
some point, and they're all great friends, and they're all
god mothers to their children. And I think it's it's
(23:18):
that's a case in point that you can move on
from and still keep a loving thing, whereas with men
and women it's over and that's many years later. You
can come back as a sort of thing. But I
don't think there's the same sort of illigion into great
friendship that that can happen in the same sex relationship. Sadly, sadly,
(23:39):
Oh God, I could talk to you for like, I'm
gonna have to come as soon as we're all aloud.
I'm going to come find you in your remote location.
I'd glad you to come here. Oh my God, I
will come. I'll bring I'll come. I'll come play some music.
If you've got piano, bring my guitar. Yeah, we've got
it all. We've got it all. This has been fun.
Thanks many, I've a really enjoyed this. I'm really fascinated
(24:01):
and so grateful You've just shared your heart and your
life so generously. Thank you, my pleasure very much. All right,
let's love to you. In closing, I would like to
make you aware of some projects that Alan has coming up.
I think my particular favorite is a six part podcast
(24:21):
series for Audible about a sperm bank heist that he
produced and directed called Hot White Heist, starring Saturday Night Lives,
Bow and Yang, along with an ensemble of amazing people
including Cynthia Nixon, Abby Jacobson, Jane Lynch, and Margaret show
He also has a show for Apple TV coming in
(24:42):
July called Shmigadoon, and another show for HBMX also coming
in July called The Prince. He is the busiest men
in show business? Quite right? Me Many Questions is hosted
and written by Me Mini d. Driver, supervising producer Aaron Kaufman,
(25:03):
Producer Morgan Lavoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown. Original music Sorry
Baby by a Mini Driver, additional music by Aaron Kaufman.
Executive produced by Me and man Gesh Hetty Cador. Special
thanks to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison No Day, Lisa
(25:26):
Castella and Annique Oppenheim at w kPr de La Pescadore,
Kate Driver and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech
support Henry Driver
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