How Alan Cumming chooses the Traitors: 'They're blindfolded for 40 minutes. It's terrifying in case I f‑‑‑ up'

What makes a good Traitor?

The Traitors host Alan Cumming tells Entertainment Weekly that the team behind his Peacock reality competition series look for a group with "a healthy mix of conflict and team spirit" to entrust with the task of ruthlessly deceive and "murder" the Faithfuls that make up the rest of the cast.

Okay, but what about the actual physical act of tapping those selected Traitors on the shoulder? How many trips around the Roundtable does the Emmy-winning host make before allowing his crop of reality TV all-stars to take off their blindfolds and deception begin? After the season 2 cast made such a big deal about what they thought they heard Cumming doing as he walked around, did that change how he made his Traitors selections for season 3 (the first three issues premiering tonight on Peacock)?

"It’s actually one of these moments in the show where I'm terrified. It's terrifying in case I f--- up, but also it's such fun," says Cumming, who answers all our burning questions below.

Related: The Traitors season 3 cast portraits revealed (exclusive)

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How many laps around the Roundtable do you actually make? How long does the process take?

ALAN CUMMING: They have those blindfolds on for a long time, like 40 minutes or something. And I go around, around, around. First of all, we film them all. I touched them all so that's on camera, so we've got it clean for everybody to have been touched just in case. And then I start, you know, stopping...

In season 2, the blindfolded cast thought they could hear things like your sleeve fabric moving beside them, and accused people of being a Traitor because of it. Is that something you kept in mind this time around?

We do it on purpose! You see me doing stuff that you didn't before, doing the clever checks of just [ruffling my sleeve fabric] and stopping ever so slightly and pausing and squeaks on the floor and stuff. You know, when you’re blindfolded, you're hearing becomes much more diligent and refined, and so everyone's listening so intently, and so I have to be even more naughty and like an old trickster than ever. I love when I hear them say “I heard him stop! I heard him stop!”

And that starts right away...

My favorite bit about it this time is when they take off their blindfolds, [REDACTED CONTESTANT NAME] is like a weird owl. They're staring at everybody. It's really disturbing. It's like they're this weird bird, or like a CCTV camera that's spinning out of control. It's just nuts. But good on them, because they're really trying to get as much information as possible.

Related: The Traitors host Alan Cumming gives season 3 castle tour (exclusive)

Speaking of animals, that's your real-life dog with you on the show, yes?

Lala, that's her! And what's hilarious is some [other] dog dubs her. She never makes a noise so any little [dog noise,] that’s not her. I guess [the producers] don’t think her silence is golden, so they have to dub her with some dog from a sound library. The second season she was there, but people said "We need more." I said to [the producers,] "The internet has spoken! We need more Lala on screen! She's got more things to do!"

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