For Alan Cumming, the Highlight of a Transatlantic Cruise Was Secret Midnight Strolls

Charlie Hobbs
·2 min read

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Sara Singh

A Traveler’s Tale: Actor Alan Cumming on crossing the Atlantic—

“I went on Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 for the first time in 2011. A lot of weird stuff was happening in my family back then: My father had recently died and, right before that, told me I wasn’t his biological son. A few years prior, my mum’s partner passed away as well. They loved to do this sailing, so I thought it’d be nice for her and me to do it together and process everything going on in our lives. I’d just made a movie in Los Angeles, and when I finish a film I love leaving the next day and doing something completely different, so I flew to meet my mum in Southampton. Sailing across the Atlantic was a profound experience as well as an odd one, jet-lag-wise; the time zone changed practically every day. Naturally, I was awake at four o’clock one morning and decided to have a wander around the ship. It was like nobody else was on board. I went through the ballroom and heard nothing but the clinking of chandeliers. All the cutlery and glasses gently rattled as the ship moved. I went downstairs to the staff bit in the middle where they bring on the trucks and all of that. There was a corridor lined with windows where, during the day, people played games like Scrabble while looking at the sea. I found an abandoned, half-finished jigsaw puzzle, and the view outside was at such an angle that the water on the horizon line looked like it was halfway up the window, as if we were underwater. I just thought that was the perfect way to capture how I was feeling in that moment. As I wandered, the sun came up, but I saw no one the whole time. I went back to bed feeling like I’d had this secret, magical adventure. To think I was dreading the whole thing at first—seven days on a boat where I couldn’t get off. But by the end of it, I didn’t want to. Spending time on the ship, watching the sea go by, was the most mesmeric sort of cleansing.” —Alan Cumming, as told to Charlie Hobbs

Alan Cumming hosts season three of The Traitors, premiering January 9 on Peacock.

This article appeared in the January/February 2025 issue of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the magazine here.

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