Alan Cumming plays a character on Traitors, but season 2’s surprises snapped him back to reality

If you happen to assume Alan Cumming, host of the U.S. model of The Traitors, offers off “guy who killed someone” vibes, he’ll giggle — you’re choosing up what he’s placing down. It’s why, in episode 8 of season 2, when he despatched the contestants off on their mission, he gleefully turned to the digicam and stated, “And they were never seen again.”

“I said that many times, on every task,” Cumming admits. “I wanted that to be my new catchphrase, but they only used it a couple times.”

That is precisely why the staff behind Peacock’s hit reality recreation present wished Cummings within the first place, even when he didn’t perceive it at first. He met with producers, initially, out of confusion and curiosity.

“I couldn’t understand why they would want me to do it. Then I realized they wanted a sort of character. And I said, ‘Do you mean you want it to be sort of like a James Bond villain?’”

The reply was an enthusiastic sure. And out of the blue Cumming may see the entire persona: “He’s the sort of Scottish Laird, and he’s kind of Machiavellian, [and] brings all these people here,” Cumming says. The look can be a form of “dandy” Scottish tartan. Cumming’s canine may even include, so the actor may menacingly pet her whereas staring down contestants.

“I really love this character. And it’s funny, life just flings these things at you that you never would have seen coming. I never thought I would be hosting a big, successful competition reality show in Scotland and a castle with a bunch of reality stars. I mean — you couldn’t make it up. But I obviously go out going through life open to certain things. I’ve always been quite eclectic. And these things come to me and actually, this one I really, really enjoy.”

And it’s a position he takes actually significantly. As he will get prepared within the morning he listens in on the gamers’ breakfast dialogue, watching on a large display screen so he can “really feel a part of it” as he will get prepared to make his large entrance. “It’s good for me to understand, when I walk into the room, the mood of the room and the atmosphere,” Cumming says.

Cumming is commonly across the citadel, but not with the contestants — after his breakfast entrance he often has a little break when he can look over scripts for the following day, then he and the gamers go to movie the mission. After that, the contestants hang around and Cumming has one other break (he says he’s often consuming or strolling Lala the canine), but stays briefed on what’s taking place. “When the roundtable comes it really does feel like this big theatrical moment because they all go in and they play this scary music in real life,” Cumming says. “It’s like these little performative spurts. And in between I’m trying to keep an eye on what’s happening and trying to get an understanding of how the wind is blowing.”

Even nonetheless, he’s simply as on the sting of his seat as the remainder of us. He likes to preserve a distance between himself and the solid (he feels his character ought to all the time have “quite a stern, daddy demeanor” that leaves the contestants scared), and Cumming has been stunned by how issues went as soon as he acquired into the room. “That’s what’s great about the games — there was a person I thought was doing really well, a faithful, and was going to help tear the whole thing apart. And people turned on them. It was like hyenas going for a baby elephant, it really was. I was gobsmacked.”

Whereas he wouldn’t say who that was about, he would say among the contestants he’s most stunned by: Bergie (when he turned the MVP of the graveyard problem), Phaedra (he appreciates her showmanship and the way in which it gives her cowl), and Parvati (he hadn’t watched Survivor, and he or she appeared like a “sweet little thing with a hairband”).

But even with a nearer view, he’s simply as keen to let all of it play out as the remainder of us. Effectively, form of — at the least the remainder of us don’t stay in concern about bumping the fallacious shoulder when choosing traitors on the roundtable.

The Traitors season 2 (the U.S. model) airs new episodes on Peacock each Thursday at 6 p.m. PST/9 p.m. EST.