Spoilers ahead for the first three episodes of The Traitors season 3.
Alan Cumming is sick, twisted, and needs to be psychiatrically evaluated.” That’s the assessment of one contestant upon learning of a devious new twist in season three of The Traitors, the first three episodes of which are now streaming on Peacock.
But does the host in question agree? “That might be true of the Alan Cumming character on The Traitors, in terms of what he puts those poor people through,” the real Cumming says during a visit to Vanity Fair’s office. “Sometimes we do a mission, I obviously know what they are. [Producers] talked me through. But when we actually come to do it, I think, ‘Oh, my God. Did I make these people do that?’ The last one in this season is so insane and terrifying.”
Cumming’s campy, tartan-covered host, whose frequent crooning of the word “murrrrder” has become the show’s unofficial tagline, helped make The Traitors appointment viewing, and a two-time Emmy winner. Last year, Cumming personally won Emmys both for hosting and producing the series, upsetting Drag Race and breaking RuPaul’s eight-year winning streak as host.
The show returns to its sprawling Scottish castle with its requisite melting pot of reality stars—hailing from The Bachelor, Bravo, Survivor, Big Brother, and, this season, even a queer British royal. New twists abound, including the late arrivals of previously-unannounced cast members Wes Bergmann of The Challenge (and, more recently, House of Villains), as well as Big Brother’s Derrick Levasseur, who enter as Faithfuls. Meanwhile, Rob Mariano of Survivor and Deal or No Deal Island takes his place as a Traitor among the previously tapped Bob The Drag Queen from Drag Race, Survivor’s Carolyn Wiger, and Big Brother’s Danielle Reyes.
The Traitors’ core premise remains: A group of Faithfuls team up to banish the treacherous, murdering Traitors among them in pursuit of a $250,000 cash prize. By the end of the first three episodes, the Real Housewives faction has been targeted, with Dorinda Medley of New York City and Chanel Ayan of Dubai as first murder victims. Meanwhile, Bachelor in Paradise host Wells Adams and Survivor’s Tony Vlachos, both Faithfuls, have been banished at the roundtable, leaving the Traitors untouched by elimination.
“There’s so many psychological layers to this that just keep revealing themselves,” says the 59-year-old Cumming. “It’s maddening. It’s almost like they’re drugged. They take a Traitor’s potion. And then there’s me, just encouraging it all, and cajoling them. Also laughing at them as well—like, a lot.”
The Tony-winning Scot, best known for his performances in Broadway’s Cabaret, TV’s The Good Wife, and the cult-classic film Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, has taken to being “Stern Daddy” with the contestants. “I’m always telling them to be quiet,” Cumming tells VF. “I make it all, ‘This is the roundtable. This is hallowed ground,’ things like that, just to get them to shut up.”
Cumming has infused parts of himself into the performance, including his actual pet Lala as a Bond villain-esque lapdog. Still, he maintains a veil of separation between himself and the show’s cast. “I used to sometimes cross paths with them in the mornings arriving at the castle, and I don’t do that anymore,” he says. “It’s really important I have no connection with them at all unless I’m in character as this weirdo.”