Alan Cumming Finds Emmy Nom 'Surreal,' Teases New 'Traitors' Season

RuPaul has some queer competition at the 2024 Emmy Awards.

For nearly a decade, "RuPaul's Drag Race" and host RuPaul have cornered the Emmy Awards in the Outstanding Competition Program and the Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program. The show has won five times since 2018, and RuPaul has won nine consecutive times (since 2015). But this season a break-out hit is out to challenge Mama Ru – "The Traitors" and host Alan Cumming, who are competing with Ru in those categories.

"The Traitors" quickly became a phenomenon when its American spin-off, hosted by Cumming, aired on Peacock. (The show is derived from the Dutch series De Verraders that first aired in 2021.) The franchise quickly expanded to Britain and Australia. Its second American season changed the format by only inviting a diverse group of reality show celebrities to compete and solidified its status as a queer favorite, in part because Cumming, decked in an array of outre Tartan fashions, proved to be both threatening and campy at the same time. A third season is currently being filmed.

While Cumming is no stranger to scripted television, having been a regular on "The Good Wife," this is his first foray into reality television. "It's surreal," Cumming told TheWrap on Wednesday morning just hours after nominations were announced. "Today has made me realize what a bizarre turn my life has taken. I feel, when I do 'The Traitors,' I'm acting up a storm like I always do, but, of course, I'm in a different kind of structure."

"While Cumming admits the Peacock competition series had a "slow build" with its inaugural season, which included both civilians and public figures, its celebrity-filled second season captured the cultural zeitgeist as it debuted this spring, prompting "The Traitors" to break into the 2024 Emmy noms as a contender for Outstanding Reality Competition Program," TheWrap said.

"It became a watercooler moment – they didn't drop them all at once, so we had that great thing of the whole country all being together, finding out who was going to be the winner, week by week," Cumming explained. "I think that really helped ... it's such a well-structured show and really brilliantly produced."

Cumming also took a moment to acknowledge his fellow nominees, calling RuPaul "a legend" and "Survivor's" Jeff Probst "the daddy of hosting."

"It's kind of awful that you kind of get pitted against people you really think are great," he noted.

He also touched upon Season 3 of "The Traitors," which recently completed shooting. "It's about 20 people, a lot of them have been on reality competition shows, a lot of crazy, random celebrities. I think the difference this year is that there's a lot more twists. When you're doing a show like this, and it's relatively new, you want to kind of keep people guessing, because you don't want them to sort of think, 'Oh, I worked out how to do this show.' There's a lot of twists, and some really insane things happen and a lot of celebrities get wet."

Asked to tease this season, Cumming said: "There's a lot of big personalities, and a lot of alpha males and a lot of alpha females as well. It was quite an intense experience, but there was also more of a tender side of 'The Traitors' we haven't seen yet, of loyalty and friendship and all that stuff as well. It's actually really moving in parts."

And does he plan on continuing with the series?

"I'm pretty happy doing this. Once a year I have a month of such fun ... and lovely people. I'm game to go for a while. I'm about to turn 60, and it's sort of one of these things, like, who'd have thunked that when I reach 60, I'm going to be doing this. That's what's great about life and getting older and saying 'yes' to new things and unexpected things. Everyone seems to be loving it, and I'm loving it. So you know, let's just do a few more."

Competing on Season 3 are actor, model and Britney Spears' ex-husband Sam Asghari, controversial "Vanderpump Rules" star Tom Sandoval and "Selling Sunset's" Chrishell Stause. Other notable competitors are Bob the Drag Queen from "RuPaul's Drag Race"; Dorinda Medley, Robyn Dixon, Dolores Catania and Chanel Ayan from the "Real Housewives" universe; Ciara Miller from "Summer House"; Zac Efron's brother Dylan; Gabby Windey and Wells Adams from "The Bachelor" franchise; Britney Haynes and Danielle Reyes from "Big Brother"; and "Survivor" stars Carolyn Wiger, Jeremy Collins, Rob Mariano and Tony Vlachos.

Watch "The Traitors" on Peacock.