Tom Cruise and Stanley Kubrick were standing before me. I had met Tom briefly when he had come to see me in the stage show of Cabaret in London, but this was my first encounter with Stanley, who was peering at me over his glasses. “Hey, Stanley, I’m Alan,” I said, proffering my hand to this old man who, on first glance, reminded me of a Hobbit version of Salman Rushdie. “You’re not American!” he retorted gruffly.
I had heard tales of Stanley being formidable and demanding, so I was slightly on guard already. “I know,” I said, still rather taken aback. “I’m Scottish!”
During the previous year, I had auditioned on tape four or five times for his new film Eyes Wide Shut. It was for a role that appeared in only one scene, with only a few minutes’ time. Finally, I was offered the part, or actually, asked were I to be offered it, would I be available. And were I available, would I accept the role? I said yes I was and yes I would, and so I did. This was Stanley Kubrick. The genius. I couldn’t pass up the chance to work with such a legend.
Finally the day came, and I found myself on set. By then, the film had been shooting for over a year and would eventually hold the record for the world’s longest continuous film shoot, coming in at 400 days! So, things were pretty well into their stride by the time I rolled up as a new boy, and here the director was already seemingly angry with me for being Scottish.
“You were American on the tapes,” he continued.
Something in me snapped, or maybe I just took an objective look at the situation – I had been waiting for months to shoot this scene after auditioning for it many times, on several continents. Fuck you, old man, I thought to myself. I know I was American on the tapes. But I actually said, “Yeah, that’s because I’m an actor, Stanley.”
Nothing was said for a moment. Tom cleared his throat a little awkwardly. But I thought I caught the hint of a smile beneath Stanley’s bushy beard. “Let’s run the lines,” he replied.
Like many people who are perceived as bullies, Stanley, I can imagine, could fulfil that prophecy if those around him were cowed or fearful, their anxiety about working with him too obvious. I can see him taking the most familiar path in those situations. We all adjust our behaviour according to what we deduce is expected of us. It’s like people-pleasing, just without the pleasing. But I had stood up to Stanley and I could tell he liked it, found me intriguing because of it, and we went on to develop a strong bond, have great chats and share many laughs.
It’s well known that Stanley did many, many takes of scenes and I was ready to repeat and regurgitate my performance ad nauseam. In the past, when the number of the take announced by the clapper loader went higher and higher, I’d known that anxious shame that I somehow wasn’t getting it right and was wasting everyone’s time. But on Stanley’s set, the clapper loader made no announcement and, instead, the sound recordist in the corner of the set murmured the take number details into his mic, unintelligible to the actors, and therefore that pressure was gone.
Even better, although we did many, many takes on every angle we shot for the scene, I knew exactly what was required of me each time we went for the next one. Stanley would take me to the monitor and we’d watch each previous take and discuss the most detailed intonations, facial movements, or gestures, and he’d give me incredibly precise direction on all before we tried again. Every time we went for a new take, I knew exactly why and I can’t begin to tell you how rare that is for an actor working in film. There is nothing more annoying to me than hearing, repeatedly, a director cry at the end of a scene, “Perfect! One more!” I always think, If it was perfect, and perfect again, why are we doing another?
My scene in Eyes Wide Shut involves me, as a hotel clerk, being questioned by Tom Cruise as he tries to find out information about a missing man. And I think part of the reason it is so memorable, aside from it being the only funny scene in the entire movie, is that I am basically cruising Tom. The clerk is incredibly flirty and I remember voicing my worry to Stanley that perhaps I had gone a little too far. Stanley would have none of it. “No!” he encouraged me. “Keep going! It can go up another notch!”
I worked only a week on Eyes Wide Shut, yet perhaps a reason why my time on this film is so entrenched in my mind is that it was an experience that completely confounded my expectations. All the stories I’d heard before starting were that Stanley was a despot and Tom some sort of sacred Hollywood cow that we mere mortals must not gaze upon. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Tom was sweet and approachable and talked lovingly of his wife, and no, nothing registered on my gaydar. Stanley was hilarious, interested and interesting and we had great chats about Kafka and Chekhov.
I did see quick flashes of the other, darker, fabled Kubrick, though. The makeup artist, a lovely Scottish man named Robert McCann, had told me Stanley was not a fan of makeup, which rather horrified me as I did not want to go down in cinema history as that hotel clerk with the blotchy face. So Robert very discreetly made my complexion a little smoother, and that was our little secret.
One day on set, I was getting a little sweaty with all the lights and the cramped confines, so Robert waited until Stanley was preoccupied and then snuck towards me brandishing a powder puff. Suddenly Stanley turned to us and barked, “What are you doing?” Robert leapt in the air, terrified. “I was just…” he stammered. “NO makeup!” said Stanley as though he were at a protest. I felt I had to intervene. “Stanley, it’s just, well…” I gestured to my forehead. “It’s the shining, Stanley!”
In that moment I realised what an incredibly goofy, yet a propos, thing to say to the man who had terrified us all with his movie of the same title. Stanley smiled, the crew began to giggle, and soon we were all guffawing at my ditziness.
As expected, at the end of the week, Stanley asked me to stay on and shoot the scene again. I told him I would like nothing more, but I had to leave for LA and a junket for a film I was in that was about to come out. He understood and told me it was because he was having such fun and wanted to keep on exploring, rather than having any problem with what we had shot. We hugged goodbye and I thanked him truly, for being such an inspiration. For I genuinely believe that had I not worked with Stanley Kubrick, had I not auditioned more times than I have ever auditioned for any role ever, had I not decided to take some time off and hold out to be free to experience that week with him, I might not still be an actor today. I was feeling very ambivalent about acting in general at the time. The theatre seemed too terrifying, exhausting and unsure, and I had no desire to pursue new stage projects, and after my initial Hollywood sojourn the prospect of film acting felt unchallenging and pedestrian. But Stanley changed all that. The detail and precision with which he encouraged me to imbue every second I was onscreen truly reignited my interest in acting. I felt more excited by those few days of work, and those few minutes onscreen, than I had by anything in years.
If Eyes Wide Shut had been a normal film or TV project, my scene would have been shot in a morning and I’d have been sent home before lunch. But there is a saying that there are no small parts, only small actors, and Stanley revealed to me how much of a truism that can be. So, thank you, Stanley Kubrick.
There are very few actors who can say they made back-to-back films with Stanley Kubrick and the Spice Girls. In fact, I know there is only one, and that is me! “Darling, I have a rather weird one for you,” said the voice on the other end of the line one morning after my return to the UK. It was my London agent. “Uh-huh.” I remember being preoccupied with something (actually someone) at that exact moment.
“Have you heard of the Spice Girls?”
“I’m currently alive, so yes!” I quipped.
“Well, they’re making a movie and they want you to be in it!”
“What?”
It turned out that Geri Haliwell, aka Ginger Spice, had come to see me in Hamlet on a college group outing just days after her own father had died. Seeing me in the throes of lachrymose mourning about my character’s father’s loss connected with her in her recently bereaved and vulnerable state. Four years later, she insisted I was the natural choice to play Piers, a documentarian chronicling the band’s every move in Spice World: The Movie.
I am eclectic in all manner of ways. Some might see it as fighty or ADD- ish or trying to cover all my bases. But truly I am excited by many things and I keep my mind and my heart open to everything. My lack of desire to be restrained in any form is central to my very being, my taste certainly, my output definitely, but also my sexuality, and even my hair. I am as engaged by Beckett as I am by Bananarama. So, the consecutive culture clash of Stanley to Spicey was very me, and the experience of shooting the film only augmented the already glorious summer of love I was having in my real life.
The Spice Girls’ music and their ethos of girl power – which is essentially equality and empowerment combined with an unabashed and jubilant embrace of fun – vibed completely and became the soundtrack to a Dionysian season of discovery I was engaged in during that year (albeit their version was a tad more PG-rated). They were that rare thing, a band that was popular with kids and grannies, their music catchy and fun enough to top the charts and their sociopolitical phenomenon revelatory enough to be the subject of the culture and opinion pages of even the loftiest tomes. They were young, humble, irreverent, and talented, and on the ascension. That moment I spent with them working on the film was their time, their innocence, when everything they did was charming and powerful at once.
I am often asked my favourite of all the films I have made, and I always answer Spice World. I do it partly to confound any intellectual snobbery, but also to point out that for me, the experience of making a film is far, far more important than how it turns out, or is perceived, or performs at the box office, in the ratings or reviews.
I have done films that had amazing scripts with great casts, and I had great fun making them, and they have turned out to be terrible. And I have had the most miserable working experiences of my life, jobs where I literally counted the minutes for them to be over, turn out to be something I am really proud to have been a part of. The point is, there are so many extenuating circumstances in the making of a film, so many things that are out of your control, that all you can do is your best and try to have as good a time as possible while you’re doing it. Hopefully the gods will smile and you will be proud of how the final product turns out – as God knows, you will be reminded enough about it for the rest of your life.
So, that summer running around London, laughing, and frolicking with five girls who were at the very zenith of their pop princess potency, being taught the dance moves of the Spice Girls’ songs by the Spice Girls themselves, was golden for me. I felt at home, I felt happy, I was carefree. Every day was an adventure, and anything seemed possible, and that’s how I want all my life to be.
On my last day the girls called me into their trailer. Yes, the five of them shared one trailer, often with their mums in tow, while Richard E Grant (who played their manager and who Melanie C recently quipped to me is the only manager they’ve never fired) and I each had equally as big trailers just for ourselves. Mine even had a bath. I still wonder who is ever going to have a bath in their trailer. I was presented with a card full of messages of thanks for agreeing to be in their film. Yes, they were that nice. But best of all, the message from Emma called me a “Special Spice boy”. Drop the mic. Thank you, good night. That card, along with Polaroids of me with each Spice on my last day of filming, is framed and has pride of place in my study.
Extracted from Baggage: Tales from a Fully Packed Life by Alan Cumming, published by Canongate Books on 28 October at £18.99 – £16.45 at guardianbookshop.com. Alan will be appearing in a very limited run of live events for tickets and fane.co.uk/alan-cumming