Caught up with the talented actor Alan Cumming over the weekend at the GLAAD Media Awards. I had seen him often over the summer at the Democratic National Convention in Denver where I was covering the celebrity scene and he was attending events as part of the Creative Coalition.

So, he’s not only politically active, but he’s also busy alternating between roles in films and on stage. I wondered where he gets all his energy.

“Drugs,” he joked.  “Actually, my mom was staying with me last week in New York and she’s 71 and was out every night. That’s where I get it from. As I got in the car yesterday to get (to LA), she said to me, ‘Now slow down, I’m worried about you’ and I was like ‘You slow down! Look at you running along the streets at 71 years old.”

So how is it that Alan, a Tony winner for Cabaret, is as passionate about politics as he is about acting?

“I just do things that interest me. I think that being an artist and being an activist are very, very similar things in a way – it’s telling stories and you want to try and affect people and affect them for the good.”

“I think I’ve always been outspoken but as time goes on, more people listen to you. I also think it’s a thing about being Scottish. In Scotland, politics and social issues aren’t so much an interest but just something that everyone deals with and talks about all the time. I just have this kind of hatred of any injustice.”

Well said.