ALAN CUMMING

At 15 my main focus of concern was trying to avoid being hit by my father, and hoping to get out of my home situation. My brother had left home by then so I was alone with my father and I felt very desperate. I was just living in terror. But at the same time, at school I was starting to do some acting in plays, so that was a big change. And I think by then I was also going along to the theatre club in Carnoustie. Also, my sexuality was beginning to raise its adolescent head. So there were some brighter things on the horizon, the hint of a way out.

When I was 16 I left school and went to work for DC Thomson. That’s when everything suddenly changed for me, even more dramatically than when I went to drama school. I wasn’t my