Alan Cumming’s Book Tour Stops in Cambridge This Weekend

Photo by Francis Hills

Emmy and Golden Globe nominated actor Alan Cumming is making a trip to Cambridge this week in support of his new book You Gotta Get Bigger Dreams:My Life in Stories and Pictures. The project is a snapshot into Cumming’s life and career through original photographs taken by the writer and activist accompanied by hilarious and often insightful stories. Ahead, Cumming talks about one of the featured photos set in Boston, the meaning behind an Oprah Winfrey quote that became the title of his book, and why he’s terrified by Donald Trump and the 2016 election.

One of your photos in the book is from the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. What was that experience like?

I had a really amazing time. It was the time when [John] Kerry was running for president, but also it was a point in time when a young wannabe senator named [Barack] Obama made a speech, which rocked the floor. It was such an inspiring [speech]. That’s what I remember from the DNC. As well as the parties and people’s rooms and vodka and feet.

The political landscape has changed quite a bit since then.

I remember thinking, “Man, oh gosh, how terrible it would be if [George W.] Bush got in again.” Now Bush seems kind of positively benign. I’m really horrified by the level of rhetoric that’s happening in our country. The rhetoric that’s deemed acceptable. I have to say, I do think that the media, the political media and the news media, have really failed in trying to contain and take to task. You don’t just have to report. You’ve got to keep people on their toes and keep people accountable. I think that’s not happened. There’s just all these blatant lies being throw about and nobody seems to be caring. I find that so worrying.

You write about listening to a lot of volatile, right wing political radio shows while driving through middle America during a roadtrip in the book. Having seen that side of the country, are you that surprised by the rise of Donald Trump?

I think what Trump does is give voice to a lot of people who perhaps would have not have been comfortable to say some of the things that they’re now able to say, some of the more extreme things, some of the more racist, and prejudiced things, and bigoted things. I do think that the level of suppressed racism about the fact that we’ve had a black man in the White House is now being given a voice. I think that is terrifying, but it’s always been there. An interesting thing that Ru Paul said the other day was that the culture hasn’t really changed, it’s just how we are able to gain access to information or how information is able to be spread now, that has changed and makes it just a wee more pandemic. I do think that a big part of this is the idea of the “Other,” they’re coming to take our jobs, they’re coming to rape and kill us. This idea of being afraid of the “Other” has some basis in this suppressed rage of inherent racism. I actually think over the last eight years this whole thing of not wanting to talk about racism has been a mistake. Now we really got to talk about it.

The title of the book, You Gotta Get Bigger Dreams, comes from a great quote Oprah told your friend when he said it was his dream to get a picture with her at an event. What’s the lesson from that moment?

We live in a culture where everyone has been told they can do anything and some people can’t do anything, but are actually very lucky. We have this idea that we all got to aim for all these big, huge things. What I think was great about the Oprah thing in that moment with [my friend] Eddie was that she was saying, just have something better than getting a photo with me. She’s just saying, getting a photo with me should not be the apex of your life. I think that’s great. But I do think we live in a culture that asks us to aspire all the time, too much. We should be more content with what we got.

The book is filled with great stories accompanied by photos from those moments. Why did you decide to format it this way?

I wanted to let people have an insight into my life and give them literal snapshots as well as figurative ones. I think it’s a good way to talk about your life, as opposed to, “I was born, then that happened…” Also, we live in a culture now that deals in the currency of visual representations of people’s lives with Instagram, Tumblr, and all these things. I like to take photos and I like capturing moments. I was glad to be able to combine those two things.

Alan Cumming’s book tour stops at the First Parish Church in Cambridge on Sunday, September 25, at 6 p.m. For tickets and more information, check out harvard.com.