Alan Cumming Says Hosting ‘The Traitors’ Makes His Heart Pound

Alan Cumming admits that he has a hard time keeping secrets.

(Spoiler alert!)

“I’m the most indiscreet person that you can meet. When I was on The Good Wife and Will was murdered, I told everyone,” he says, adding, as he laughs, “I remember doing this fashion thing, and this guy started to do my hair, and he went, ‘I’m a huge fan of The Good Wife. I went, ‘Will dies!’”

Because of this, it might seem silly to have made Cumming the host of a competition series which requires him to keep a lot of secrets.

Based on a Dutch series, the show features a group of contestants of which a tiny fraction of become the “Traitors” who must work together to eliminate the other contestants in order to win the grand prize. The remaining contestants are “Faithfuls” and are tasked with discovering and banishing the Traitors by voting them out in order to win the grand prize.

But now Cumming is in his second season of hosting The Traitors, and because he’s also a producer on the series, he says, “I’m very conscious about [not giving anything away]. I have a responsibility now.”

In the beginning of the series, with all contestants seated at a round table donning blackout masks, Cumming must circle the table and tap those who will act as traitors on the shoulder.

He says that during this time, “my heart is pounding.” He adds, “But I do all these tricks to sort of confuse them, stop, and walk back, and do things with my arm, [etc.].”

The series takes place with all contestants residing in a castle in Scotland. They participate in missions to earn money and build up the prize pot. Each night, the Traitors come together and decided to ‘murder’ a Faithful and that person leaves the game immediately.

The next morning the Faithfuls discover who’s been murdered. At the end of that day, all of the players vote to banish one person. The Faithfuls hope they’ve found a Traitor to remove but that’s not always how it plays out.

Sam Rees-Jones, executive producer of the show, says that this is one of the best parts of the series, “I think the beauty of the game is that anyone can go at any point, and we, as producers, don’t have any hand in that, which is terrifying, but sort of thrilling at the same time.”

When the game ends, if all remaining players are Faithfuls, then the prize money is divided evenly among them. However, if any Traitors remain, they win the entire pot

For Cumming, he says that, “For me, I think what is interesting is that, I obviously am hosting this show, but I feel like I’m playing a character. I don’t really sound like that. I don’t live in a castle. I’ve hosted other things as me, but this is different, because this is a sort of a heightened version of me, and a very heightened theatrical, dramatic show. So, I think the way I’ve managed to make that work for me is to act a character as the host.”

The series features mostly reality TV personalities, with a few other famous non-reality TV participants included, and season one had a few average citizens playing the game as well.

Because the series has soared in popularity, Cumming says, “I have to stop looking at my DMs on Instagram because there’s so many people asking me if I can get them into the show.”

When asked his dream contestant, he’s very quick to yell out, “Beyoncé!”

No matter what’s happening in the game, with his front row seat to the action, Cumming says that he’s all in. “When I’m watching it, I’m like a viewer. I’m completely obsessed.”

‘The Traitors’ streams on Peacock. There are also international versions including ‘The Traitors UK.’ ‘The Traitors New Zealand’ will debut on March 28^th.

Follow me on Twitter.