Tag Archives: The Traitors

Entertainment

How Alan Cumming Built His ‘The Traitors’ Host Character by Acting

On this version of THR Frontrunners, Emmy-nominated actor and host Alan Cumming opened up — and shared loads of behind-the-scenes secrets and techniques — about Peacock’s smash hit actuality competitors sequence The Traitors at a stay occasion hosted by the San Vicente Bungalows in Los Angeles. 

“I really feel prefer it’s an enormous performing job,” says Cumming, who scored his fifth Emmy nomination for The Traitors, which additionally earned a nod for finest actuality competitors sequence along with actuality competitors host. “I give it some thought as a personality. Clearly it’s me — his identify’s Alan Cumming — however clearly it’s not likely me. I don’t actually sound like that. I don’t costume like that. I don’t have a citadel. Alas, that’s too dangerous.”

The Traitors (an Americanized model of a Dutch sequence, which is impressed by basic occasion video games like Mafia) brings collectively a solid of actuality TV stars from sequence like The Problem, Love Island, Survivor, The Bachelor and Actual Housewives to play a recreation of treachery and homicide — and compete for a money prize of greater than $200,000. Every episode sees the gamers competing in bodily challenges so as to add cash to the prize pot. However hidden amongst them are three traitors, who every night time “homicide” one of many “faithfuls” — eliminating a participant from the operating. It’s as much as the faithfuls to determine who the traitors are and banish them at every episode’s roundtable, wherein tensions flare up when accusations of double-crossing are lobbied between gamers (and people accusations are sometimes incorrect, as seen when faithfuls banish certainly one of their very own to the traitors’ delight).

Cumming admits he’s not a fan of actuality TV, so he typically is unfamiliar with the contestants earlier than the present begins filming. “I don’t actually know who loads of them are, however I actually examine very exhausting,” he says of the “crash course” into the gamers’ biographies simply earlier than capturing a season. “It’s vital for me,  particularly within the first interviews that I do with them, that I’m type of all honest with their shtick.”

Contemplating the place the contestants come from, there’s loads of drama on the present — and factions kind shortly based mostly on the truth reveals the gamers symbolize. For instance, the second season noticed cliques kind between the avid gamers (from The Problem, Survivor, Large Brother, and many others.) and the Bravo stars (Season 2 featured alumni from Actual Housewives of Orange County, Miami and Atlanta). 

“They have been all the time going, why are you all the time gunning for the Housewives?” recollects Cumming. “I believe it’s fascinating that the several types of actuality stars go into these little packs. If certainly one of them is attacked, they sort of rally round prefer it’s an assault on them too. It’s type of feudal, and it’s very just like the present.” After all, that sort of infighting all the time makes for good tv — however for The Traitors, it’s merely a part of the sport. “A whole lot of the present, I really feel it’s like Lord of the Flies,” provides Cumming. “Everybody will get into the little packs, after which it turns into ‘kill the pig!’ No one really actually has any rationale about it. I imply, from a sociological viewpoint, I discover it endlessly fascinating.”

Any fan of actuality TV can count on some knock-down, drag-out arguments between solid members — which definitely occurs through the tense roundtable discussions that, most of the time, finish with a trustworthy banished from the sport. For Cumming, sustaining a poker face whereas realizing precisely who’s mendacity to their friends is the largest problem.

“Generally I really feel like, Oh, my God, is there going to be a struggle? I felt that a few occasions on this [upcoming third] season — I assumed it was going to get actually ugly,” says Cumming, teasing the upcoming season that lands on Peacock in January. And it’s in these moments that the producers, speaking with the host via an earpiece, must intervene and remind Cumming to not react and provides all of it away.

“When individuals I do know are traitors react to [a faithful being eliminated], I’m in awe and horrified by their response, generally by the overreacting that’s concerned — that’s my division!” says Cumming. “That’s what I believe makes the present nice. Everyone knows who [the traitors are]. So whenever you see that degree of dedication and overacting, it’s, it’s enjoyable — but additionally galling, you realize, that individuals are ready to try this.”

This version of THR Frontrunners is delivered to you by Peacock.

Entertainment

Alan Cumming to Host .Org Impact Awards (Exclusive)

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Alan Cumming is about to host the .ORG Affect Awards in Washington, D.C., The Hollywood Reporter has completely realized.

Placed on by Public Curiosity Registry, the nonprofit that manages the .Org area, the awards are an initiative that goals to focus on mission-driven changemakers and organizations from around the globe for his or her “constructive contributions to society,” in accordance with a launch. The group has introduced 35 finalists, hailing from greater than 87 nations.

Finalists are grouped into seven classes together with group constructing, high quality training for all, environmental stewardship, variety, fairness, and inclusion, well being and therapeutic, starvation and poverty and rising stars, who’re labeled as leaders, beneath 25 which can be making a distinction of their communities. There are 5 finalists per class, and they’ll all obtain $2,500.

Jon Nevett, the president and CEO of Public Curiosity Registry, says the awards have impartial judges are available in to judge candidates, trying to see the impression made. “It doesn’t must be the most important or flashiest group on the earth, however we actually try to have a look at the .Org Affect Awards as a car for actually a deep dive into which candidates are having essentially the most impression,” he provides.

“It was form of a no brainer,” Cumming tells THR about taking over the position of internet hosting for the awards celebrtation. “I’m excited as a result of going to fulfill all of the individuals who have been deemed to be doing essentially the most unimaginable work out of an unimaginable quantity of individuals around the globe doing nice issues and serving communities for the widespread good.”

“He’s a broadly devoted philanthropist,” Nevett says about why Cumming makes an ideal host. “He embodies the spirit of the .Org Affect Awards,” he provides. The 59-year-old actor has earned greater than 40 humanitarian awards for his work supporting causes equivalent to civil rights, LGBTQ+ rights, intercourse training and social justice.

Cumming notes that his background rising up in Scotland influenced him to get entangled philanthropically, saying it’s a “cultural factor” to verify “everybody’s acquired an equal footing or there’s a security internet.”

“Getting extra well-known and having extra of a platform, that’s been an ideal factor for me. I truly really feel that you simply truly see that you simply’re making a change,” Cumming says, including that it’s a “actually beauty of being well-known.”

Cumming has had fairly a yr when it comes to internet hosting, with The Traitors incomes him an Emmy nomination for excellent host for actuality or actuality competitors. “I’m doing this loopy kind of character of an individual who lives in a citadel and wears all this humorous garments,” the actor says of labor on the Peacock present, which was nominated this yr for a complete of 4 Emmys.

“Although I’m turning into extra well-known for being a number, I truly really feel it’s much less host-y than numerous the internet hosting gigs I’ve executed up to now,” he says of the fact present, including that he loves taking over jobs such because the .Org Affect Awards.

“I cannot be carrying a cloak and a veil [to the .Org Impact Awards],” Cumming jokes, referencing his extravagant seems to be worn on The Traitors.

“I’ll be carrying a pleasant swimsuit or one thing, however I’m not saying issues like ‘You disenchanted yourselves’ and ‘You disenchanted me,’” he provides. “It’ll be a extra light model of the person on The Traitors.”

The finalists for this yr’s awards embrace a number of organizations equivalent to The Centre for Renewable Vitality and Motion on Local weather Change, which gives clear power and water to underserved communities in Nigeria and Youngsters Working Room, which “strives for a world the place each baby has entry to secure surgical procedure.”

The winner of the .Org of the 12 months award will obtain a donation of $50,000, in the meantime different class winners are anticipated to every obtain $10,000. Winners shall be introduced in-person at Washington, D.C. celebration on Oct. 8.

Winners from 2023 embrace Hope for Justice, a company that works within the UK, U.S., Ethiopia and Uganda to finish human trafficking, together with HERhealthEQ, a company that hopes to “enhance girls’s well being in creating nations by offering entry to medical units and gear.”

For extra data on the .Org Affect Awards and an inventory of the finalists, go to the group’s web site.