PROLIFIC actor Alan Cumming says he has experienced “racism” as a Scottish person living in London.
The star of The Good Wife and X-Men, who is originally from Perthshire but now based in the United States, told the White Wine Question Time podcast that throughout his life he was taught that “Scottish-ness was a little less-than”.
Cumming made the comments ahead of the first episode of Miriam & Alan: Lost in Scotland being broadcast on Channel 4.
The programme sees Cumming and Miriam Margolyes on an adventure around Scotland in a mobile home. Margolyes, 80, also has Scottish roots, with her late father Joseph hailing from the Gorbals in Glasgow. The first episode airs tonight at 9.15pm.
READ MORE: Alan Cumming tells Nicola Sturgeon about his plans to move back to Scotland
Cumming, who was involved in the 2014 campaign for independence and continues to be vocal about self-determination for Scotland, told the podcast about his experiences living in England’s capital city.
“Being Scottish in London, there is subliminal and also sometimes not subliminal racism about that and sometimes I think it’s a class thing as well,” he said.
“But assumptions are made about your intelligence, your education, your worth because of how you sound.
"It’s other people, not just Scottish people, of course, but I have definitely felt it. It was definitely there and it wore you down.
"All my life I had always felt that Scottish-ness was a little less than - that was what the world told me.”
Cumming added that when he moved to New York he found a very different response to his nationality.
“All the things that I had been kind of reminded of in London, my Scottish-ness, my difference, the way I sounded, in a negative way, I was celebrated for,” he said.
"So that made me feel like I had a place at the table.”
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In tonight’s first episode, Cumming and Margolyes revisit their childhood homes – which is particularly difficult for Cumming as he recalls his troubled relationship with his father.
However the first of the three-part series is upbeat too, and involves a trip to a tartan factory.
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