Alan Cumming trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, from 1982-85. Before graduating he had already made his professional theater, film, and television debuts and soon found himself celebrated for both his TV work (including the Scottish soap Take The High Road) and his stand-up comedy (the legendary Victor and Barry, which he wrote and performed with drama school pal Forbes Masson).  

In 1988, he appeared in Manfred Karge’s Conquest of the South Pole at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh. The play transferred to the Royal Court in London, and he received his first Olivier award nomination. He went on to work with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre where he won an Olivier Award for his performance in Dario Fo’s Accidental Death Of An Anarchist. For the National Theatre Studio, he directed Michel Tremblay’s Bonjour La, Bonjour and played Romeo in Romeo and Juliet. He was nominated for further Olivier Awards for David Hirson’s La Bête and Cabaret at the Donmar Warehouse, and his sensational Hamlet for the English Touring Theatre won him a TMA Best Actor award and a Shakespeare Globe nomination.

He made his feature film debut in Ian Sellar’s Prague opposite Bruno Ganz and Sandrine Bonnaire, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1992. His introduction to American audiences came with Circle of Friends, followed shortly by Goldeneye and Emma. His first movie shot in Hollywood was Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, and since then he has alternated between blockbusters such as X2:X Men United, the Spy Kids Trilogy, Burlesque, and smaller independent films like Titus (opposite Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange) and Sweet Land (which won him an Independent Spirit award as producer). With Jennifer Jason Leigh he wrote, produced, directed, and acted in The Anniversary Party, which won them a National Board of Review award and two Independent Spirit nominations. More recently he appeared in George Lucas’ Strange Magic, Travis Fine’s Any Day Now (for which he won great acclaim and numerous Best Actor awards at festivals around the globe), Battle of the Sexes (opposite Emma Stone and Steve Carrell), Neil Jordan’s Marlowe, Katie Holmes’ Rare Objects, and Jono McLeod’s My Old School.

In 1998, Cabaret opened on Broadway and Cumming was instantly embraced by New York City and heralded for his stunning performance as the Master of Ceremonies. He won the Tony®, Drama Desk, Outer Critics’ Circle,  NY Press, Theater World, FANY, and New York Public Advocate’s awards for his work, but for him the biggest prize was finding his new home.

He has continued to work on Broadway in Noel Coward’s Design For Living, The Threepenny Opera opposite Cyndi Lauper; Off Broadway in Jean Genet’s Elle (which he also adapted); and The Seagull, opposite Dianne Wiest. He returned to the West End in 2006 in Martin Sherman’s Bent, closely followed by a triumphant return to his homeland in the National Theatre of Scotland’s production of Euripides’ The Bacchae, which opened the 2007 Edinburgh International Festival and toured Scotland, before transferring to London and New York. His next collaboration with the NTS and director John Tiffany was a radical reimagining of Macbeth, which premiered at the Tramway in Glasgow in 2012 and the following year Cumming’s tour de force performance of all the play’s roles stormed Broadway. He returned to Broadway, Studio 54 and Cabaret once more in 2014-15, recreating his now legendary performance opposite the Sally Bowles of Michelle Williams, Emma Stone, and Sienna Miller. Most recently he was seen in New York in Jeremy O. Harris’ Daddy and opposite Daniel Radcliffe in Beckett’s Endgame at the Old Vic in London.

His many UK television appearances include The High Life (written and performed with his Victor and Barry cohort Forbes Masson), Bernard and the Genie (British Comedy Award), Mark Cousins’ Heavenly, and more recently the miniseries The Runaway,   Queers (the series of monologues curated by Mark Gatiss to mark the decriminalization of homosexuality) a highly acclaimed turn as King James in Doctor Who, and the much loved docu-series Miriam and Alan: Lost In Scotland in which he traveled round his homeland in a van with Miriam Margolyes. In the U.S. he has appeared in Broad City, Sex In The City, Frasier, The L Word, Web Therapy, and is also the host of PBS’ Masterpiece Mystery. He played Eli Gold in seven seasons of the CBS series The Good Wife, for which he has received multiple Golden Globe, Emmy®, SAG, Critics’ Circle, and Satellite Awards nominations, and starred in the CBS series Instinct, which premiered in March 2018 and made history by being the first ever U.S. network drama to have a leading character who was also gay. He was most recently seen in Apple TV+’s Schmigadoon and is the host of the U.S. version of the cultural phenomenon known as The Traitors!

In 2015, he premiered his cabaret show, Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs, at the legendary Café Carlyle in New York City. The show was described by the New York Times as an ‘emotional firestorm’ and went on to tour all over America, Canada, Australia, England, and was the hit of the 2016 Edinburgh International Festival—a particular source of pride for him as this was where he first performed in cabaret, with Victor and Barry, 32 years earlier! The show was filmed for a PBS special, and a live album of the same name was released in February 2016 to coincide with his sold-out debut at NYC’s Carnegie Hall. His next cabaret show, Legal Immigrant, debuted in 2018 and was recorded for Audible, followed by Alan Cumming Is Not Acting His Age, which debuted at the 2021 Adelaide Cabaret Festival before touring the world and ending up on Broadway at Studio 54. He is currently touring with NPR’s Ari Shapiro in Och and Oy:  A Considered Cabaret!, as well as Uncut, which he developed at the Yaddo artists retreat and premiered in April 2024.

As an author Cumming made his debut with a novel, Tommy’s Tale, and in 2014 released a memoir Not My Father’s Son, which became a #1 New York Times bestseller and the recipient of the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Award, two Audible awards, an Audie award, and a Lambda Literary award nomination. In 2016 Rizzoli published his book of stories and photographs You Gotta Get Bigger Dreams, and in 2017 he released a children’s picture book, a collaboration with his illustrator husband Grant Shaffer about their beloved dogs, The Adventures of Honey and Leon. The sequel, Honey and Leon Take The High Road, followed in 2019. An animated TV series of the books is currently in development. His most recent publication was the memoir Baggage which was released in late 2021.

Cumming’s activism and passion for various civil rights, sex education, and social justice causes has earned him over 40 humanitarian awards. He lives in New York City with his husband, Grant Shaffer, and their two dogs, Jerry and Lala.