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Plenty of actors light up a room, but Alan Cumming is more of a disco ball reflecting every possible angle of show business.

That's how the critic Emily Nussbaum introduced Alan Cumming when they sat down at the recent New Yorker Festival.

And he does seem to do it all. He acts in

mainstream dramas like The Good Wife, as well as more indie projects like his one-man version

of Macbeth. Coming is a Broadway legend. He also owns a nightclub. He recorded a duet about

Scottish independence with a Gaelic rapper.

His memoir, Not My Father's Son, was a bestseller, and he stars in the Emmy-winning reality show, The Traders, on Peacock.

Here's Alan Cumming at the New Yorker Festival, speaking with staff writer Emily Nussbaum.

So straight out of Scotland, but eternally beloved in New York, welcome Ellen

coming. Thank you. Thank you very much. So for anybody who hasn't seen it, Traders,

is a reality show that stars, reality stars from a lot of people from the reality universe, as well as some random famous people.

It's sort of, you know, celebrities and they all go to a castle, and it's supposed to be my castle.

It's not.

And I pretend it is, and we do these, you know, they play this game.

It's basically the parlor game, mafia.

Yeah.

So who is this guy who owns this castle?

Like, did you think at all about him as a character?

Does he have a backstory?

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