Alan Cumming Shares Raunchy ‘Spice World’ Anecdotes on the ‘Keep It’ Podcast as the Show Celebrates 200 Episodes

GayNrd Editors October 6, 2021

Keep It, the singular pop culture podcast led by Ira Madison, is celebrating its 200th episode today with special guest Alan Cumming, who spills a couple of stories about his time in the Spice World universe. First, he tells us where he was when he got the call to join the cast and dishes on the time he was memorably cat called by Mel B in front of his neighborhood Trader Joes.

Alan Cumming on “Keep It” Ep. 200

Ira: Two of my favorite roles of yours are, Josie and the Pussycats and Spice World. Duh, I’m gay, but I loved you also mentioning how you got the role in Spice World and it was from Geri visiting the theater and seeing Hamlet after she had lost her father and really connecting to you, which has to be the wildest way anyone’s gotten cast in a movie about the Spice Girls.

Alan: I was, I would think so. It was so lovely, actually. I feel it’s like I talked to Geri quite recently, and I feel we’ve got this sort of special connection because of that, you know, her dad died and about two or three days later, she came to see me playing Hamlet and I was a very young and lachrymose. I love that word. It just means try a lot. I cry a lot in Hamlet, and I was in a bit of a state in my life at the time myself. But, I think in a funny sort of way, she sort of, you know, Hamlet is mourning the death of his father. And so in a funny way, she.. and she was very kind of, you know, sort of not shut down about it, but she wasn’t able to grieve yet. And so in a funny way, she saw me as this person who kind of understood her, what she was going through, and was sort of grieving for her in a way. And so that’s why, a couple of years later when she was not just a student anymore, she was Geri Spice and they were, you know, the hugest people in the world, she sort of demanded that I be in Spice World. And I actually remember being in bed with someone when my agent called one morning and I kind of answered the phone you know, mid shag. And he actually said to me, “This is a weird one. Do you know the Spice Girls?” I was like, well, you know, “Hello, I’m alive.” And so then he said, they want me to be in their film, and I was like, fuck yeah. And then I discovered the real reason Geri told me. And I always wanted to get T-shirts saying “Ginger Spice saw my Hamlet.” They’re all such darlings, actually. I’ve kind of kept in touch with her, most of all, but I’ve run into them over the years.

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One time, this is funny. I was in L.A. shooting something and I was staying at the Chateau Marmont and I went to the, you know, where the supermarket is – Trader Joes – and I had my dog. I had a bag of groceries as I was walking back to the Chateau Marmont and a car drove up behind me and the window came down and this woman shouted, “Aye, Cumming.” And it was Scary Spice. It was Mel B and I was like, “How did you know? I had my back to you. I’ve got a pile of groceries in one hand and a dog. How did you know it was me?” And she said, “I’d recognize that ass anywhere.”

Louis: Excuse me, by the way, I am by that Trader Joe’s all the time. I do not see Mel just walking around. That’s a very shocking thing to happen.

Alan: You know, it was kind of crazy, but I was in admiration of her people spotting skills from behind, and she must check out a lot of asses.