Spoilers ahead for the first three episodes of The Traitors season 3.
Alan Cumming is sick, twisted, and needs to be psychiatrically evaluated.” That’s the assessment of one contestant upon learning of a devious new twist in season three of The Traitors, the first three episodes of which are now streaming on Peacock.
But does the host in question agree? “That might be true of the Alan Cumming character on The Traitors, in terms of what he puts those poor people through,” the real Cumming says during a visit to Vanity Fair’s office. “Sometimes we do a mission, I obviously know what they are. [Producers] talked me through. But when we actually come to do it, I think, ‘Oh, my God. Did I make these people do that?’ The last one in this season is so insane and terrifying.”
Cumming’s campy, tartan-covered host, whose frequent crooning of the word “murrrrder” has become the show’s unofficial tagline, helped make The Traitors appointment viewing, and a two-time Emmy winner. Last year, Cumming personally won Emmys both for hosting and producing the series, upsetting Drag Race and breaking RuPaul’s eight-year winning streak as host.
The show returns to its sprawling Scottish castle with its requisite melting pot of reality stars—hailing from The Bachelor, Bravo, Survivor, Big Brother, and, this season, even a queer British royal. New twists abound, including the late arrivals of previously-unannounced cast members Wes Bergmann of The Challenge (and, more recently, House of Villains), as well as Big Brother’s Derrick Levasseur, who enter as Faithfuls. Meanwhile, Rob Mariano of Survivor and Deal or No Deal Island takes his place as a Traitor among the previously tapped Bob The Drag Queen from Drag Race, Survivor’s Carolyn Wiger, and Big Brother’s Danielle Reyes.
The Traitors’ core premise remains: A group of Faithfuls team up to banish the treacherous, murdering Traitors among them in pursuit of a $250,000 cash prize. By the end of the first three episodes, the Real Housewives faction has been targeted, with Dorinda Medley of New York City and Chanel Ayan of Dubai as first murder victims. Meanwhile, Bachelor in Paradise host Wells Adams and Survivor’s Tony Vlachos, both Faithfuls, have been banished at the roundtable, leaving the Traitors untouched by elimination.
“There’s so many psychological layers to this that just keep revealing themselves,” says the 59-year-old Cumming. “It’s maddening. It’s almost like they’re drugged. They take a Traitor’s potion. And then there’s me, just encouraging it all, and cajoling them. Also laughing at them as well—like, a lot.”
The Tony-winning Scot, best known for his performances in Broadway’s Cabaret, TV’s The Good Wife, and the cult-classic film Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, has taken to being “Stern Daddy” with the contestants. “I’m always telling them to be quiet,” Cumming tells VF. “I make it all, ‘This is the roundtable. This is hallowed ground,’ things like that, just to get them to shut up.”
Cumming has infused parts of himself into the performance, including his actual pet Lala as a Bond villain-esque lapdog. Still, he maintains a veil of separation between himself and the show’s cast. “I used to sometimes cross paths with them in the mornings arriving at the castle, and I don’t do that anymore,” he says. “It’s really important I have no connection with them at all unless I’m in character as this weirdo.”
Ahead, the real-life Cumming talks secrets, lies, and why Trump’s reality TV star-filled cabinet is far “too toxic” for even The Traitors.
Vanity Fair: What are the biggest lessons you learned in the first two seasons that you brought into the third season of The Traitors?
Alan Cumming: It’s always a tightrope between making lots of twists and turns, and not losing the simplicity of the game. There’s lots of twists in this one, because we felt that everybody was so familiar with the format that you’ve got to shake it up a bit. I actually thought maybe there were too many twists, but having seen the first few [episodes], I think, no, it’s actually very much working.
Many contestants bring you up during the roundtable, arguing for who you may have picked to be a Traitor, even though you may not be that directly involved.
I really like it when they say, “Alan is so wicked, that he’s making us do this.” I’m supposed to be this puppeteer. I think that works really well, that they’re encouraged to think of me as the person who’s making it all up and pulling all the strings. I’m clearly not; there’s hundreds of people doing that. But they’re buying into it. It should be like that. I love the fact that people actually really believe that. When people say to me, “Is that your castle?” I just think, A, “How stupid are you?” But, B, “Hurrah.”
It’s funny to see Real Housewives of Potomac’s Robyn Dixon say, “Alan would only pick a Traitor who he’d think would be good at the job.”
Would he, though?
Sometimes a traitor could be picked because they might be bad at the job.
There’s a variety of criteria, which all are ever-changing. The traitors are chosen because of the combination of who they are, and what sort of drama and good TV they will be in that turret. It’s endlessly fascinating to watch people trying to make logic of something that is, by its very nature, illogical and irrational. That’s the crux of the game, and I love that.
Has there ever been a time, either this season or in seasons past, that you had the most trouble not breaking character?
There was one [challenge] in season two when they had to do bird calls, and there’s a similar thing in this season that’s just hilarious. I remember seeing John Bercow, the former speaker of the [British] House of Commons, doing screaming bird calls whilst running through a castle. Sometimes you stand back from it and you think, “I cannot believe this is actually happening.”
I’ve had to work harder at my poker face, because this season in particular, twice I got into trouble because I was so gobsmacked by the round table. Once by how stupid…the way that the pack mentality happens, the Lord of the Flies of it all. You think, “Clearly this person is the traitor. We all know that, and yet you’re voting for them?” What I thought I was doing was this [Cumming makes a neutral face], and what I actually did was this [he grimaces in disgust]. I heard [in my earpiece], “Alan, your face!” Then the other time was when someone was banished. One of the traitors, in their reaction to this news, fell off their chair with emotion and had to be helped up. I was just gobsmacked at the audacity of this performance.
The lines between reality and reality TV are increasingly blurred. Like, one of Trump’s actual proposed cabinet members was on The Real World.
Which one?
I think it’s the Secretary of Transportation—Sean Duffy, who was a cast member on The Real World: Boston in 1997.
Of course it is.
You’ve had a politician on the show before. Could someone from the Trump universe make their way into the castle, or is that not appetizing?
It’s not appetizing to me. I think that is too soon—far too soon. Also, there’s people you think, “You’re still too toxic…You’re a toxic influence.” There are baddies, like Tom [Sandoval] came with his baggage, but it’s on a different level of toxicity.
It’s interesting to watch people like Dylan Efron, brother of Zac, or Sam Asghari, Britney Spears’s ex-husband, because they are best known for their proximity to another famous person, and somewhat unknown entities themselves. They come in with less baggage from other shows.
In a funny way, I think they come with more baggage, perhaps, because it must be difficult and annoying for your entire life to be, “You’re Blah Blah’s ex.” But I have to say that, when they start the game, it really doesn’t matter because there’s no context for that to be important anymore. In fact, there’s no context for any of the past things that people have done to be useful.
It’s a clean slate—that’s what is starting to be revealed about the show in general. All these people who come from Survivor or Big Brother, when they’re the gamer, the strategist, it doesn’t actually fucking matter. It makes you a clever or sort of analytical person, but in the course of this game, it’s not necessarily going to benefit you. I actually think [Dylan and Sam] have an advantage because they don’t get embroiled in all that lore of past shows.
You’ve said one of your favorite aspects of hosting is encountering people whom you’d never usually meet. Who was someone on the new season that really surprised you?
Dolores [Catania, of Real Housewives of New Jersey] texted me this morning. I did a commercial with Phaedra Parks. I’m having a screening party at Club Cumming [the East Village bar and performance venue he owns], so a couple of them are coming. You end up having a wee friendship with these people. In the same way that I’m clearly playing a character, they’re presenting as their TV personalities. It’s interesting to get to know them a little more and see their less presentational side. There’s some real darlings, like Pilot Pete [Weber of The Bachelor]. He’s coming on Thursday, and Bob Harper, and Peppermint.
Would Traitors ever do an all-stars season?
I think that’s such a good idea. You don’t necessarily have to be a winner. We’d get Peppermint [who was banished first in season two] back. I also liked how we’ll bring people back for a wee guest appearance, like when Kate [Chastain] came back in. All-Stars would be great. I also thought we could do a Drag Race crossover and have Traitors with all drag queens. Wouldn’t that be funny? Me and RuPaul could duke it out.
New twists are introduced, starting with the unconventional entrance of Boston Rob. What would have happened had one of the cast members taken you up on your initial offer to add him to the castle?
Rob would’ve come into the game, and then the person who shook my hand would have to choose another person to banish. Actually, maybe they would’ve probably taken Rob’s place in the cage. Because then, of course, they’d be like, “Fuck you.”
I was very surprised to see Wes and Derek, considering that their casting hasn’t been publicly known. How did you keep it under wraps?
For me, it was easier, because I had no idea who either were in the beginning. But there’s such tight security—literally, they get bags over their heads. It’s really intense.
You also reveal that contestants who make it to the final will no longer reveal whether they are a traitor as they leave. Why make this change?
It’s to up the ante. We say that in the first episode, so all through it, they’re thinking, “When it gets down to it, we’re going to have less information.” You have to be more manic and assertive in your finding out as much as you can sooner. The Studio Lambert people are so clever at all that stuff. It’s been fascinating for me to go into this field, completely green about it all. Look at me now: “Dolores calls me.”
Would The Traitors ever do a season where, like the Faithfuls, the audience doesn’t know who the Traitors are?
I don’t think that would work. That would be like The Mole. The whole point of the show for me is the joy, and the curiosity, and the naughtiness that we get to experience knowing, watching people lie.
Do you have more or fewer trust issues since working on this show?
But the thing is, it’s not real trust.
Right, but that gets fuzzy for people.
Luckily they have some sort of psychiatric help when they leave the show, because it’s insane. They’re in a bubble. They’re not allowed their phones. They think of nothing else but this game, and so they become irrational. They’re nuts. Then, of course, the only thing they’ve got is, “Do I trust you?” You know that anyone could be lying to you. That’s what I love, when someone is completely trusting of someone, and then they find out. It’s devastating. Especially when it’s a Housewife, the Housewives’ sort of Mafia bond. You say, “I could never be a traitor.” I think, “Yes, you could, bitch, if I tapped you on the shoulder.”
It’s made me appreciate how well people lie, and about what great performances are going on all around us every day by people lying. Danielle—honestly, I’m just in awe of her performance, of how huge it is. I was like, “How can she get away with that?” Falls off a chair [at the roundtable], tears, everything.
What have you learned about yourself by playing this role?
It has made me remember how much I like playing on my own. I love going out into the middle of a field and there’s all these random things going [on], people saying things in my ear, but I’ve just got to be in the moment and go with it.
Over the years I’ve done more things that are getting further away from conventional acting in a play or film. I just recently did a dance-theater solo show; I’m the artistic director of a theater. I’m like a little boy who plays on his own in the sandbox, but there’s people all around me, and I’m controlling them from the sandbox.
Has that changed your threshold for accepting a more straightforward film or TV role?
Sometimes people have asked me to do things and I think, “I see. You want me to be like The Traitors person.” My agents have told me that there’s now this thing where when they do reality-competition shows, people want to have The Alan Cumming effect, like someone playing a character as the host, not just being a host.
That’s hilarious and flattering, but it’s made me want to look for something that’s completely different. I did this movie last summer straight after The Traitors with Brian Cox. He’s in it, and directing it. I’m his brother, this older straight man who’s got a daughter and a granddaughter. [The Traitors has] made me look for extremes more, because once a year I go to this castle and I’m a fiend. I wear insane things, I do insane things, I laugh at people—at their misfortune. Then I want to do something completely different.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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