When promoting new memoir 'Baggage: Tales from a Fully Packed Life', the actor playing James Bond villain Boris Grishenko admits the casting director gave him a reason to live.
- Oct 27, 2021
AceShowbiz - Alan Cumming will always be grateful to James Bond bosses for saving his life. The Scottish actor reveals he was at a real low and feeling suicidal on the day he auditioned to play Boris Grishenko in 1995's "Goldeneye" and the 007 casting director gave him a reason to live.
During an appearance on "CBS Mornings", as he promoted his new memoir - "Baggage: Tales from a Fully Packed Life", Alan recalled, "It was one of the worst days of my life, actually. I felt really, really, really low. I just now think, 'Oh you poor little thing, you could've said I am feeling suicidal today.' "
"That's something I realized when I was writing, like, 'Oh my God, Hollywood saved me.' I have this sort of mantra, which is 'Cancel, continue.' When something bad happens I think, 'OK, that happened. We can't change that. Let's move on.' "
The actor's new book is the follow-up to 2014's "Not My Father's Son", in which he recounted the abuse he suffered at the hands of his father. "When I was 28, I suddenly remembered all this stuff from my childhood," he said, talking about his mental health struggles, "It's still with me; I still get triggered by things. And we all have baggage, we all have trauma."
While he credited his 007 role for saving his life, Cumming previously opened up about the accident he suffered on the "Goldeneye" set. In 2018, he recalled the time he filmed the gruesome ends of Grishenko that involved liquid nitrogen.
"When I was shooting it I had a strap thing around me that held me so I couldn't move when all the stuff started to fall," he told EW. "There were some big lumps of liquid ice, liquid nitrogen at the bottom of the thing, and it landed on my head and I couldn't move. It started burning my head." He added, "These firemen came rushing on to the set and put my hair out."
