ALAN CUMMING / Two

'TOMMY'S TALE' IS HEAVILY autobiographical, drawing on Cumming's outlook, observation and experiences - from his failed relationship with a model-turned-actress, or the detail of the sex in hotel rooms and disabled toilet cubicles to the importance of drinking a lot of water every day. And the emotional landscape through which Tommy travels is one that Alan has been through himself. It made him very nervous about what would happen when it was published.

"It's quite personal. I can understand why people think Tommy is me. Parts of me have been him at certain times in my life, you know. I'm more, I'm not as er... och, you know. I do relate to him. I do think, or have thought, everything that he thinks... but I'm not him. Right now, in my life, I'm not him."

He says the superficial details are not real: he is not a photographer's assistant; he is not in his late twenties. But the characters are the essences of his friends- he warned them all about it before the book was published. He's still reluctant to say how much of it is based on his own life.

"You must understand why I'm resisting that - I don't want it to be just like a semi-failed autobiography. I was trying to write a proper book. I did want to write a story that I knew a lot about. And I do think that as an artist what's most interesting about you is yourself, your experiences. And that's what I've been trying to do with my work for a long time. So this a phase of my life, in my work. This is a culmination... the nearest to me."

Have you ever had sex in a disabled toilet?

"I have," he says, slightly sheepishly. "Yeah."

He has asked his mother not to read the book. To begin with, she thought it was because he'd written about the family. He had to explain that it wasn't that. It was just the sex and drugs: the rimming and the K-holes. "I said, I don't want to be the person to have given you certain visuals that you'll get from this book... I'd be happier," he says, "that my mum didn't know about certain things. She'd be shocked. You understand."

But his brother, Tom, read it. He knows all the people the characters were based on. He said it took him a while to view it as a novel, and not some form of adapted diary. And that when he read the fairytale prologue about the little boy who lived his life backwards, it made him cry.

Because he recognised him?

"Yeah."

As you?

"Yeah... or... as a child in that family."

THERE IS A STORY Alan Cumming likes to tell of his childhood, of how he became an actor. "I hope this is true," he says, "I say it so often I just think it is." This is how it goes:

Alan Cumming grew up in the highlands of Scotland, in a big, remote house on a private estate, where his father worked as a forester. The nearest shop or bus-stop was five miles away. His brother was six years older than him. So, when he wasn't at school, he usually played alone. After tea, he would go out into the forest, or down to the shed in the garden, and make up little stories to act out. Spy stories, mostly. There was an unlimited cast: "Me and my dog. And imaginary others." He says it's why his approach to acting is different. Because becoming famous was never part of it for him. He just enjoyed playing out different parts: "It was the first thing I had any sense I was good at." At primary school, he remembers the theatre education group visiting, staging a play about Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Highland Clearances. "I thought it was the most magical thing I'd ever seen. And I saw them putting all their props in a van afterwards and going on to the next thing. And I just thought- I want to do that."

But Cumming has another story about growing up that he tells less frequently. This one too, he says, has much to do with what he has become. The last time he touched on it, he was deliberately vague about his and his brother's childhood and alluded to "things his father had done to them in the past". The British tabloids immediately decided he must have been abused. But he wasn't. This is one of the things that he wants to clear up. It takes him a while to get around to it.

Do you think you've lived your life backwards?

"Yes. Absolutely... During my childhood, it was a very silent house... I was witness to things and aware of things between my parents that forced me to understand adult things and try and adapt to adult... you know." He trails off.

"My dad," he says eventually, "was quite strict. We did a lot of work on the estate all the time. My brother and I worked. And it wasn't, like... easy. It wasn't easy stuff we had to do."

At the weekends and throughout the summer holidays, while his friends played together and went off on bike rides, Alan and his brother would be up at seven every morning. Off to the forest, the nursery, or the sawmill: lopping branches off trees, cutting logs with a chainsaw. It was not voluntary.

What was the idea?

"I don't know. To make us... aware of the work ethic perhaps. But you know, at eight or whatever - there's time enough to do that later. You could have a chat about it. You know?"

As a small boy, Alan often found it physically impossible to successfully complete the tasks that were set for him. His father would watch him try and, when he failed, he'd hit him.

"We were terrified of him. When there's an adult person who's scaring you... you grow up pretty quickly. The whole area of my dad is obviously very difficult for me to talk about. But my brother and I often talk about it: things like mowing the lawn in the dark. With his car lights on, so that I could see... it was a little excessive."

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