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Traitors US returns for a third season this week, with Peacock‘s hit competition series that promises to bring the cast together “larger than life personalities” who will battle it out to win $250,000.
However, as fascinating as the celebrity contestants are, it will be hard to top the host Alan Cumming who is undoubtedly a larger-than-life personality in his own right.
The Scottish actor was the host The Traitors US since it was launched in 2023, and is also one of the producers of the show. The 59-year-old won countless fans with her eccentric performance in the role, which involved donning a number of unusual outfits and a distinctive accent that Cumming described as “I’m playing Moira Rose from Schitt’s Creek playing Alan Cumming.”
Cumming was born not far from the filming location in the Scottish Highlands TheTraitors Aberfeldy, Perthshire, and grew up on the east coast of the country in a similarly expansive feudal estate, Panmure Estate, where his father was head forester.
He made his television debut at the age of 19, starring in an ITV drama The traveling man. His big break came when he landed the lead role bernard and the ghost, 1991 BBC Christmas comedy Love Actually directed by Richard Curtis and starring Rowan Atkinson and Lenny Henry.
He was introduced to international audiences in 1995 when he played Boris Ivanovich Grishenko, a brash computer programmer who teams up with Sean Bean’s duplicitous spy in the James Bond film. GoldenEye.
Fame and success gave Cumming a springboard into a deliberately eclectic film and theater career. He won an Olivier Award for his performance in Accidental death of an anarchist 1991 and Tony 1998 as Emcee in Sam Mendes’ acclaimed production Cabaret. In 1997, he appeared in two cult comedies: Romy and Michele High School Reunion and camp The Spice Girls vehicle Spice World. A few years later he worked with Stanley Kubrick on the final film of the late director Eyes wide shut.
Since the turn of the century, Cumming has appeared in all three Spy Kids in films as TV star Fegan Floop and played a blue-skinned night crawler in 2003. X-Men continuation X2. Two decades later, he said The Independent doubted he would ever return to the superhero franchise. “Never say never,” Cumming said. “But those movies take forever and you end up acting with a big screen and dots on your head. It’s fun, but I like things where you have to talk to real people more and wear real costumes.”
In addition to his varied acting career, Cumming also wrote a novel, Tommy’s Taleand a couple of memoirs. He is a prominent LGBTQ activist, raising funds for organizations including the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. in 2023 he hit the headlines when he announced he was returning his OBEsaying that since he first accepted it, he had been “opened up” to “the way the British Empire profited at the expense (and death) of indigenous peoples around the world”.
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Even for someone with such an extensive resume, Cumming’s decision to host Traitors it felt like an unexpected left turn. Still, the decision paid off, earning him a fifth Emmy nomination. He was previously nominated three times for the role of Eli Gold’s campaign manager A good woman and once for co-hosting the 2016 Tony Awards with Kristin Chenoweth.
more importantly, Traitors has given Cumming another flashy role to sink his teeth into. “I’m acting my socks off Traitorsas I did A good woman“, he said recently The Hollywood Reporter. “And it’s this very juicy thing like I do in the theater or I’d do at the Tonys.”
Traitors of the USA returns January 9 at 9:00 PM ET/6:00 PM PT on Peacock. The first three episodes of the season will be released all at once before switching to weekly releases on Thursdays thereafter, with the finale airing on March 6.