‘The Traitors’ host Alan Cumming on being the ‘castle daddy’
If you think Peacock’s reality TV series “The Traitors” continues to get better and better, you’re not alone, because Alan Cumming fully agrees. “I feel that the show has got such an inherent, obsessive nature to it, both for viewers and for people participating in it,” says the impeccably dressed host/producer. He adds that for Season 2, “Everyone was hiked up a notch … we were just really lucky that the combination of the players and the tasks and the personalities all made for a great, great season.” Watch the exclusive video interview above.
This time around, “The Traitors” cast featured recognizable faces from TV shows like “Big Brother,” “Survivor,” “The Challenge” and “The Real Housewives,” plus sports stars and political leaders. The competition tasks regular players (the Faithfuls) with trying to identify who among them are actually murderers in plain sight (the Traitors). For Season 2, Trishelle Cannatella and Chris “CT” Tamburello made it to the end and split the prize pot of $208,100.
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When we ask how Cumming would describe his host character, which is a heightened version of himself, he doesn’t hold back. “I think I’m sort of this James Bond villain-style, Highland-layered dandy in this castle, bringing all of these people into this lair,” he explains. “It’s kind of a Pied Piper sort of role — you have to let them follow you into this weird Neverland that is ‘The Traitors’ … Also it’s really important that I’m quite stern and have some authority, because at times I have to intervene and be the ‘castle daddy,’ as Phaedra called me.”
Cumming readily admits that he “kind of invented the whole wardrobe thing” for his character, and now dressing extravagantly is perhaps what he’s most known for by “Traitors” fans. Looking back on when he first signed up for the project, he declares, “I couldn’t understand why they wanted me to do it actually. It does seem a little left field if you look at the rest of my career. But I met with the Studio Lambert people, and they were so lovely, and I really got excited about their vision for the American version of the show to have more of a dramatic, theatrical flair to it.”
Also in our exclusive video interview, Cumming talks about how Dan Gheesling and Phaedra Parks‘ styles of being Traitors “were more similar than you might imagine,” what it was like exploring the castle in the Scottish Highlands, how he helped increase the number of LGBTQ+ contestants for Season 2 after noticing they weren’t “properly represented” in Season 1, and how he would be “grateful and happy” to receive an Emmy nomination for hosting the program.
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