Eddie Izzard news and features

[Colston]

[SpursFan1902]

Palace....but don't hold that against him!

[faceless]

Interview: Eddie Izzard
22 Nov 2009
By Lewis Bazley
inthenews.co.uk

Emmy winner, multilingual orator, marathon master, "the lost Python", and future MP? It's difficult to encompass the towering ambition of Eddie Izzard and even a ten-minute conversation with him feels an all-too-brief invitation to experience the immense intellect of the greatest living comedian.

How can one person run 43 marathons in 51 days, sell out stand-up tours in the blink of an eye, share the big screen with Clooney and Cruise while simultaneously making no secret of his ambition to stand as a member of the British or European parliaments? Not only is the 47-year-old the most inventive, most popular and most globally marketable comedian of his generation, he's also one of the most intriguing characters in British life. Sarah Townsend's documentary Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story might shed some light on the man behind the freewheeling comedy persona while upcoming live DVD Stripped shows Izzard back to his absurd, astute best after a miniscule - and, compared to most of his peers, negligible - but discernible dip in quality since his Emmy-winning heyday. As he takes the Stripped tour on the road in UK and Europe, Lewis Bazley is granted ten minutes with the heir to Python, discussing arena audiences, acting and his political ambitions.

How do you approach different audiences and venues? You're touring UK arenas with Stripped at the moment but in January, you'll become only the fourth stand-up ever to perform at the historic, cavernous Madison Square Garden in New York City.

It's a very interesting subject, this. A lot of people, and I don't know which side you're on, but most journalists I'd expect to be on the side of the fence that says 'Don't play arenas, we don't like it'. I understand that viewpoint but as you move up from a 100-seater to a 500-seater, to a 2,000-seater, intimacy is still what you want. I believe you can get it in arenas and that's what I've been striving for.

Does it feel different for you onstage in one of these huge venues?

It does, you can see a lot more of the audience, obviously. My Twitter screens are playing before the show starts so people can actually Tweet at the show, and people from other countries can write messages in, so that's a different aspect. The thing that [US president Barack] Obama did - if you watched the crowd at Chicago, the 100,000 of them, they were looking at these six screens, showing his head and shoulders, and he brought everyone into it. The trick is, don't try and push all the energy out there because you'll never do it - you've got to pull all the energy into you. If you think of the Beatles at Shea Stadium - it wasn't a good gig, it was a great event but no-one could hear anything. It took time for these stadium gigs to get to the level of what U2 might do now and arenas are just standard fare now for rock 'n' roll now but before people might have said: 'That can't work'.

Are there a certain amount of arena shows you need to do for it to feel as smooth and natural as possible?

At least 100, I think. By the end of this tour, I'll have done 60 and it'll be 100 during the next tour. You need to have your material down - it doesn't let you drop in and just busk it! (laughs) But the more relaxed and playful I get, the more I'm ad-libbing, the more I just forget there's 11-15,000 people out there. I want [stand-ups] to be able to play [arenas] as well - I think it gives us a higher top-end.

In what sense?

We don't have the biggest film industry in the UK but we have some amazing stand-ups and I want us all to go to America and I want there to be reams of European stand-ups going over. The Beatles had Hamburg and, if you want to find the best environment to do stand-up comedy in the world, it's London. There's 70-80 clubs and there have been for the last two decades. It's an amazing number; New York only has about 15. It's kind of accidental, but you've got South African, Australian, German, Dutch comedians coming over to play and I love that that happens. So I just want us to... not invade the world, but infuse the world, like a tea!

You mentioned Obama and you've always been very upfront about your views toward Europe, social mobility, class - are you still set on the idea of moving into politics yourself?

I said last year I was going to stand in ten to 15 years, so it's nine to 14 now - that sounds a bit weirder, which I quite like. It might be better for me just to be an activist like Bono and stay outside it, because you do have to kill your career, or at least put it on some massive hold. Eventually when you get to a certain age you can't be a politician because you haven't got the energy... but then I could possibly, potentially, go back and do a final decade of gigs, and I intend to have energy. I intend to keep running from now on and I want to be at peak fitness at 90, this is the crazy idea I came up before I did the marathons. We should look at training as part of breathing, same as eating and drinking.

When you do embark on a political career, where on the spectrum do you think you'll be positioned?

I don't want to just leave it to the right wing, I'm going to stand up for social democracy, what I believe in, and radical moderates. The idea of 'for the many, not the few'.

Where did your political ambitions stem from?

I was always a political animal but I didn't know what I politically felt - so I was very quiet politically all through my 20s. My dad voted Labour but he was really a social democrat; I was too, so I didn't feel socialist. 'Socialist' and successful never quite went together for me, I couldn't strive to be that and be socialist! (laughs) I like the safety net for everyone but I also like enterprise so I thought I must be a social democrat. I didn't want to have to keep moving the goalposts in terms of where I stood - Churchill did that twice and I don't think he actually did it well, most of his career was actually a screw-up, I think, but 1940 was a brilliant year.

What do you think of the assertion that "If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain"? Often attributed to Churchill but thought to paraphrase a quotation from 19th century French historian Francois Guizot.

Well, Thatcher certainly didn't have a heart, that's for sure! (laughs) She had a stone for a heart because God shoved it in there when he'd run out of time! (laughs)

Well, you're in your 40s now…

I am... I didn't do either of them, really - I had my midlife crisis in my 20s because I came out as being a transvestite (laughs). I will always, I hope until the day I die, want everyone to have as good a chance as they possibly can. That seems to be the most logical thing to do. I think the Conservative thing to do is to let the people who can make money go and do that and then it will trickle down - and I always think:' Why trickle down?' Who the hell said trickle was great? Surely it should be flow down! People making money, being enterprising and creating wealth - that's great - but have the safety net because a lot of people start out in a very tough situation, unlike, say, Mark Thatcher! I think I've stayed exactly the same and always tried to analyse where I am - I've always been into enterprise but I've also just raised a large amount of money for charity, so hopefully I'm putting my money where my mouth is.

With the marathons, and your admission that exerting yourself is a vital part of life - do you think you set yourself different challenges every year? You've done the shows in French, the stand-up in America, the acting, now the running - is there a desire to continually meet a new challenge?

I didn't have the running as an ambition, but the rest of it all was just ambitions when I was a kid. You want to be a fireman, an astronaut, all this multiple thinking you do when you're a kid, and at seven, acting suddenly became a passion. It was due to the loss of my mother, I think, and the substitution of an audience. But I couldn't get the straight acting going, they weren't giving me the roles, so I discovered Python and writing, and giving yourself the roles, so I thought: 'OK, comedy, that's what I'll do'. And that's all I was going to do, I was trying to get a TV series at 25, and be a comedian forever... and that then didn't happen, so when it eventually took off, I decided: 'No, I'm going to do acting too'.

Do you view your acting career in a different way to your stand-up?

That hasn't been an easy run. That's been 15 years of pushing on that and now the roles are getting better, and now I'm getting better at the roles - which is a logical chicken-and-egg thing.

We'll see you on screen in the new year in the TV adaptation of John Wyndham's Day of the Triffids - how was that experience?

I play a character called Torrence, who's a sort of flirty sociopath (laughs). I hope I've delivered it right - it's the weirdest thing I find with acting: with stand-up you know you've done something right...

Because people laugh?

Yeah, and within half a heartbeat. But with [2008 film] Valkyrie, it was a year-and-a-half before I knew how I'd done, with Triffids, it's going to be about nine months, so I really just like to see my scenes and think: 'Oh, that's alright!' (laughs) My problem in the past has been to think: 'Right, I've nailed it' and then go back look and realise: 'That is not nailed' (laughs).

Eddie Izzard's new DVD Stripped is released on November 23rd.

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I got the new dvd today, so I'll check it out later on.

[faceless]

Seriously its the real Eddie Izzard
Ahead of his Belfast gig tomorrow, the comedian tells Andrew Johnston about his early years in Northern Ireland
11 December 2009
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Eddie Izzard is forever reinventing himself. First, the transvestite stand-up comedian tried his hand at straight acting, with roles alongside the likes of Uma Thurman in The Avengers and George Clooney in the Ocean’s movies, as well as an acclaimed turn as Irish Traveller con artist Wayne Malloy in two seasons of FX’s The Riches. Most recently, he could be seen as one of Tom Cruise’s fellow Nazi plotters in Valkyrie. Now, in a move as unlikely as they come, the somewhat plump 47-year-old has turned sporting hero.

“It was a great, weird thing to do,” Eddie says of the gruelling seven-week marathon run he completed earlier this year in aid of Sport Relief. “Toenails came off and there was blistering on the feet, and I was pulling muscles in different legs — well, you know, one side, then the other side — but it wasn’t too bad.”

The run took Eddie from London to Cardiff to Belfast to Edinburgh and back, with the comedian carrying a flag for each country in which he ran, including a specially created banner for Northern Ireland.

“The exhaustion was the main thing,” he says. “The first three weeks were really tough, because it was raining and my feet were falling apart, sodden with rain. There was a lot of pain involved, but I had decided I was going to do it, so I never thought about stopping. That’s what you have to do.”

It is a mentality Eddie applies to his live performances, too. The hard-working star, who brings his box office-record-breaking Stripped tour to Belfast’s Odyssey Arena this Saturday, says he will carry on with a gig “no matter what”, adding: “It’s a bit like driving from one city to another city, and it’s really rough but you just have to keep going, because you have to get there. I think the run was a slightly separate thing. I could have given up. I could have said, ‘This is too hard,’ because it was off the scale. With the shows, no way.” Eddie says he has now “fully recovered” from the marathon and intends to keep on running — though at first he wasn’t so sure. “I did a five-mile run a couple of days after I finished, and then I don’t think I ran for about eight days,” he laughs. “I was a bit stiff.”

Izzard has come a long way since his early years in Northern Ireland. The comic was raised until the age of five in Bangor, Co Down, after being born in Aden, Yemen, where his father worked as an accountant with BP. “I left in ’67, so it was before the Troubles,” he says. “I wasn’t politically aware — I was too young — so it was a wonderful time for me. My mother was alive, and I used to muck about with all the kids on the housing estate. That was great fun, but it’s difficult for me to compare back. I went with my dad to Belfast, but you don’t really get a sense of what the city looks like, or how Bangor was then, except through the eyes of a four-year-old.”

Still, Izzard has always retained an affection for Northern Ireland. Soon after he and his family had moved from Bangor to Skewen in South Wales, Eddie’s mother became ill with cancer and died. Consequently, many of the performer’s happiest childhood memories are tied to here, and he makes an effort to include Ulster in each of his tours.

“The Northern Ireland audiences have always been great,” he says. “There’s a real vibrancy in Belfast now. I do think it’s an amazing distance that Northern Ireland has come, and it should be celebrated. South Africa and Northern Ireland are the big success stories, even though both still have their problems.”

Even at the height of the Troubles, Izzard made a point of performing in his former homeland. He recalls a visit in the days following the October 1993 Greysteel massacre, when UFF gunmen killed eight civilians in a pub in Co Londonderry.

“My tour manager refused to come up to Northern Ireland,” reveals Eddie, “so I drove the car up myself from Dublin and played three gigs at the Arts Theatre in Belfast, and then went on to Derry, or Londonderry, and played there at the Rialto. I was very pleased with that, because I did have such a positive time growing up in Northern Ireland.” Warming to the theme, he continues: “When I ran through Northern Ireland, the big thing was that people were saying, ‘We’re building with glass’. No one was building with glass during all the bombing, and now all these glass buildings are coming up, and that’s great. One English person I met told me: ‘I came to work over here because there’s such a great atmosphere’.”

Tomorrow’s Odyssey date comes near the end of a lengthy UK and Irish tour, Eddie’s first in six years. Yet he is adamant that Ulster fans will see the same high-energy show as anywhere else in the world.

“This tour has been developed from last year,” he says. “I did 34 gigs with this tour in America, and I played London for five weeks, and I think if you saw it at the beginning, or if you saw it on the last gig, at Madison Square Garden (in New York City), it won’t make any difference. The material will be somewhat different — I like changing it, and moving it, and ad-libbing — but if you see it in Belfast, Dublin or Nottingham it won’t make any difference. If I’m playing it in Paris, or Moscow, or New Zealand, or Iceland, in a 10,000-seater, in a 15,000-seater, or in a 100-seater, it’ll be exactly the same show.”

Certainly, Izzard, who claims to be entirely comfortable with the arena format (“I’m playing Madison Square Garden, so I must be, mustn’t I?”), is one of the few British comics with truly international appeal. He attributes this in part to the universal nature of his material. “I design my stuff so that it will work anywhere,” he says. “I will talk about Romans, cavemen, the whole history of the world, religion, sexuality, Moses, Darwin? I tend not to talk about what’s on Britain’s Got Talent, or the 159 bus to Streatham.”

Despite his success as a comedian — he was voted number three in Channel 4’s list of the 100 Greatest Stand-ups — Eddie says his “first true love” was acting. “Stand-up is actually the scariest thing you can think of,” he explains. “Bands can rehearse. Actors can rehearse. If you’re a stand-up there is no rehearsal. You can do it in front of your mirror — that’s no good. You can do it in front of an invited audience of friends — that’s not really any good either, because they’ll probably laugh anyway, even when it’s not funny. The only real rehearsal is in front of a paying audience and that’s what makes it so bloody hard at the beginning. It’s tough as hell.”

Izzard’s success in the USA, along with that of Monty Python’s Flying Circus decades earlier, pours cold water on the idea that the Yanks don’t ‘get’ surreal or offbeat humour. “They do get it,” says Eddie. “They love surreal; they are great with surreal. There’s a lot of very surreal stuff in The Simpsons. If you look at The Simpsons Movie, they’ve got a big, bloody Perspex dome over Springfield, and Homer’s going up and down it on a motorbike.

“Surrealism wasn’t a British movement; surrealism came out of Europe, with Dada. Human beings around the world could get that, and Python’s already proved this. The key thing about America is you have to go there and push away. I went over and pushed my way in — specifically in New York. Sacha Baron Cohen went over there and worked it as well. U2 — the same principle. You go there and you play and you play and you play, and eventually they give in — hopefully. The American dream is actually a world dream — go for it, go shoot for your dream. I wasn’t supposed to go and break America, but I did that. I wasn’t supposed to go and run 34 marathons, but I did that. I just like going for things that seem off the charts, and hopefully it’ll inspire some kid somewhere, and we’ll all be going for our dreams: ‘We’ll shoot for the stars, and could get to the moon.’ That’s what I always thought.”

[faceless]

[Colston]

Thought that was a great touch and well deserved.

[SpursFan1902]

Awww...he is such a sweetie! I love me some Eddie.

[faceless]

Eddie Izzard - Marathon Man

I'm watching the first part of this BBC documentary about his massive marathon challenge and I'd say it's a must-see for any fan - genuine, honest and painful!

It will be available in the Streaming TV section later...

[faceless]

This is Eddie's pro-Labour election video.

[SquareEyes]

Oh dear. Stick to comedy, Eddie.

[faceless]

Eddie Izzard ready to talk 'rubbish' with Canadians
KEITH CARMAN
METRO CANADA
April 26, 2010

In his high-heels, lipstick and earrings, there’s no mistaking Eddie Izzard. Yes, the 42-year-old British standup comedian is a transvestite, an issue he’s addressed many times during various performances. Discerning between types of cross-dressers (“weirdo” versus “executive”) and asserting that many men in women’s clothing are in fact heterosexual, after 20 years as a comic, film and television star, Izzard is well beyond justifying his looks.

Not that it matters anyway. Slick, self-assured and quite intellectual, as Izzard delves into his shows, the initially shocking visual aspect quickly evaporates as one becomes enraptured in his alluring ability to regale with engaging tales steeped in history and hilarity.

“I always say I talk about everything there ever was ... with gaps,” he smiles, referring to his penchant for relaying factual situations with a humorous twist. “(Comics) have to talk about something and if you have no point of view on anything, you end up doing dick jokes or mother in-law jokes which is incredibly boring. You have the pressure of talking about something but if you can articulate a point of view, you can talk about absolutely anything. I discovered history which was waiting to be used.”

Taking that modus to its extreme on his latest tour dubbed Stripped, Izzard reveals plans to discuss everything from God — or the lack thereof — to old people dying in their beds, Greeks and Romans, Egyptians, cavemen and more. He notes that the show is yet another wealth of information delivered with sincerity, brevity and most importantly, humour.

“I saw a professor lecture on a subject that I’m interested in and it was incredibly boring. There was too much detail and it was monotone. I break it down: ‘There were these people and they were f—ed up. Then these people came along and they were really f—ed up.’ I cut it down and make it more street-accessible. Hopefully I’m not offering lessons so much as observations, though.”

Still, as any devout Izzard fan knows, despite a general outline, there’s always the potential for Stripped to careen off the rails nightly. Continually succumbing to his own tangents and affection for improvisation, Izzard often becomes so caught up in entertaining unscripted tales he becomes lost. “Where was I?” is as much a fixture of Eddie Izzard shows as his shocking appearance. At that, Izzard reveals that even with a host of items to discuss on Stripped’s Canadian stint, he can’t be sure exactly where it will go.

“Anyone gets bored with doing the same thing over and over again so I ad-lib as much as I can in every show (but) this show is well up to speed. I’ve performed in about 40 or 50 arenas so far, so Canada’s getting it when it’s in good shape ... I’m ready to talk more rubbish.”

[faceless]

Eddie Izzard to play Jack Lawson
newyorktheatreguide.com

Eddie Izzard will assume the role of 'Jack Lawson' from 21 Jun 2010 in David Mamet’s new play Race (at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre), taking over from original cast member James Spader who will play his final performance on 20 Jun 2010.

Izzard is no stranger to David Mamet, having originated the role of 'Del' in the 1994 world premiere of Mamet’s 'The Cryptogram' at London’s Ambassadors Theatre.

Izzard made his Broadway debut as 'Bri' in 'A Day in the Death of Joe Egg' for which he was nominated for a Tony. London theatre credits also include '900 Oneonta,’ 'Edward II,’ and 'A Day in the Death of Joe Egg.'

[faceless]

Eddie Izzard Sounds Off on Politics, Soccer and Race
Michael Mellini
June 21, 2010
broadway.com

British stand-up Eddie Izzard first made a splash on this side of the pond with his 1998 HBO special Dress to Kill, which introduced America to Izzard’s outrageous, rambling, self-deprecating (and occasionally cross-dressing) Monty Python-esque style. Since then, Izzard has juggled comedy gigs in huge arenas, film (My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Ocean’s Twelve, Mystery Men, Prince Caspian), TV (the cult hit The Riches opposite Minnie Driver) and a Tony-nominated performance as the father of a disabled child in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg. Now the multitalented Izzard is returning to Broadway for a summer run as lawyer Jack Lawson in David Mamet’s Race. Izzard first tackled Mamet in the original London production of The Cryptogram, and his attention to language makes him an ideal match for a play filled with fast and clever banter on a serious subject. Just before his first performance at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, we checked in with Izzard about his affinity for lawyer-speak, his future political career and the ongoing World Cup.

How does it feel to return to Broadway?
It’s good to be back. It’s a slightly different way of coming in, in that it’s just after the Tonys and all that stuff, but it’s a good role to come for.

A lot of people felt you deserved a Tony for [the 2003 revival of] A Day in the Death of Joe Egg.
I won the Drama Desk that year, and then [Brian Dennehy] won the Tony [for Long Day’s Journey Into Night]. Obviously the Tony gets more press, but there’s politics involved and whatever. It gave me somewhere to go even if I didn’t win. I was very happy with what I did with that role. In the end me, Stanley Tucci, and Philip Seymour Hoffman all got nominated but didn’t win, so I thought, “Well, this is still a pretty good group to be in.”

Did you decide to return to Broadway specifically for this piece?
Yes. The offer came in and I’m playing a lawyer in a play that’s very interesting, with all these racial politics. I’ve just come off the UK elections because I’m standing for election [for Mayor of London or Member of European Parliament] in 10 years in the UK so I was very involved in campaigning [for Britain’s Labour Party]. A lot of lawyers end up going into politics because of the precision of the speech, so I found that very interesting training.

What was your campaigning experience like?
They shove cameras in your face everywhere you go, and say, “Why are you here? Why are you supporting the Labour Party and where do you feel the future of things is going to go?” You have to be very precise, and that’s the same in law.

As a politician, what are you hoping to achieve?
One of the problems in politics is vision. If you’re just there administrating, that really isn’t what people want. They want a direction in which you’re heading. I’m a pretty good communicator and good at setting up systems that haven’t existed before. I don’t want to leave it to the bleeding-head right wingers!

Would political office mean the end of your acting career?
I’ll have to put everything into deep hibernation. But I could go up for election, then after four years everyone’ll say, “We don’t want to see him again” and then pick [acting] back up.

What’s it like to work with David Mamet? He has a reputation for telling actors that everything they need to know is already in the script.
He does give stage direction within the way he writes, which actually makes things easier. When you get Shakespeare you think, “Well, which way am I supposed to do this? What was he actually meaning?” With [Mamet] the guy is actually there in front of you. He is very much saying, “Just let the play serve you.”

You're best known as a stand-up comedian, but this is a very serious role.
Drama is my first love.When I first started as an actor, that’s all I was aiming for. I sort of went in this big curvy direction with comedy, but since around 1993 I’ve been, in a schizophrenic way, developing comedy and drama separately—and it confuses the hell out of agents!

Why is race an important subject matter to investigate?
Racism is a bizarre thing. We’ve had wars about race, and apartheid, and wars over [religion]. Race shouldn’t make any difference whatsoever. If we were attacked by monsters from outer space or something I’m sure everyone would drop the whole race thing and come together very quickly and say, “Who the hell are these bloody monsters?” [Laughs.] It confuses me because I went to a boarding school where there were loads of different skin colors. It’s a fascinating subject, but one that would be great if it could go away.

Is there any truth to the rumors about a possible film version of The Riches [in which Izzard and Minnie Driver played con artists who move to suburbia]?
There are a million hoops to get through and [in this economy] the idea of scaring up money for an independent film got really tricky. It’s still a possibility. There were ideas going around but no actual script. Even if we picked up with the family a few years down the line, we could pick up new fans and keep the old ones.

You had a memorable scene as Mr. Kite in the 2007 Beatles musical Across the Universe. Any interest in doing a musical for your next Broadway gig?
Not really a big Broadway musical. I might do something with music—my mother was a singer—but that’s not my next project. It’s there in the back of my mind, but I think it’d take months of training before I could do anything.

You grew up playing soccer. Are you still a big fan?
I’m a fan as long as we win.

What’s it like spending World Cup season in a country where the sport isn’t hugely popular?
I want America to understand what world football can do. In America, soccer is seen as a middle class game, but it’s really working class—kids kick around cans in the dusty streets in South America and Africa. It’s the whole world coming together and meeting and challenging each other, like the Olympics but more simple. [Soccer] is one of the few sports where players aren’t genetically disposed—which is not an American trait because Americans are all about meritocracy and “Anyone can do whatever they want, and anyone can be president” and so on. With basketball, if you’re not tall, you’re not playing, and for [American] football you need to be huge. You can be tall, wide, small or thin and be good at soccer.

Speaking of sports, last year you ran 43 marathons for the charity Sports Relief. Sounds pretty intense.
That’s the “action transvestite” for you. The Sports Relief people in the UK ask celebrities to do challenges, and they usually want it to be non-sporty people because it’s more of an “Oh my god, that person’s doing that” idea. I told them I’d do it and I don’t think they believed me. Once I did 15 marathons, it got easier. It’s that “stay the course, keep fighting” thing. I’m quite good at setting up things and doing them as long as I’m motivated. If I’m not motivated, I won’t get out of bed.

See Eddie Izzard in Race at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.

[faceless]

(Photo: Patrick McMullan)
76 Minutes With Eddie Izzard
Firmly in “boy mode,” the actor and comedian takes on Mamet, chicken salad, and BP’s critics.
By Jada Yuan
Jul 4, 2010
nymag.com

While he tries to embody Jack Lawson—a macho, rather soulless lawyer endeavoring to defend a rich white man who almost certainly raped a black woman, in David Mamet’s Race on Broadway—Eddie Izzard needs to maintain, as he calls it, “boy mode.” Which means the dresses and heels are on hiatus. Boy mode was not necessary during his stand-up tour in Canada, which he concluded the day before the start of Race rehearsals. “I spent the first half of the tour in boy mode, and then I swapped to girl mode.” Izzard’s “girl off, girl on” existence, he clarifies, is “the inverse of drag.” (Izzard, who’s straight, is big on semantics.) “Drag is about costumers. I’m just trying to wear a dress. I’m a straight action-executive transvestite. Action is, ‘I’ll beat the crap out of you if you give me a hard time.’ Executive is, ‘I travel first class.’ That’s just the genetic gift I was given. When you’re born they go, ‘Okay, that one’s gay, that one’s straight, straight transvestite, bi, good at swimming, crap at swimming, good with hedgehogs, likes pictures, eats fish fingers.’ ” He doubts that the dress-wearing mixes with playing Lawson. “You try to hug that character to you.”

At Angus McIndoe, Izzard munches on a chicken salad, which, he says, he shouldn’t be eating anyway. “I don’t need food. I think I’m not designed for it. I really have come to that conclusion. I’ve heard of people in the mountains who live on berries and stuff, and I think that’s what I’m supposed to do.” He is very girl off in a Savile Row suit. Izzard comes to Race as a replacement for James Spader, who does nothing if not play skeezy lawyers well. “People don’t necessarily see me that way,” Izzard concedes, “but my brain does work in a very logical, military way. I could have been that lawyer; I would have been happy to study that at university. I did accounting and financial management, in fact.” Reviews for Race came out July 1, and the critics weren’t as convinced. There are mentions of tentativeness and botched lines, almost certainly owed to Izzard’s having just three weeks of rehearsals and one week of previews. “What do they expect? I came in very fast. Do they think that no one ever gets a line wrong on Broadway, ever? They should come and try and do it for a weekend.”

But he’s sure he’ll get it. “I’m a determined bugger,” he says. “I’m a transvestite with a career, and I ran 43 marathons in 51 days.” He’s referring to a challenge he gave himself last September to run around the U.K. with only five weeks of training (still a bit more than he had for Race). “There’s no learning how to run, I don’t think,” he says. “There’s just deciding that you want to run. This”—he points to his head—“controls it all.” He ran to raise money for the charity Sport Relief. But the run was also a journey to places from childhood, including the home in Wales where his mother died of cancer when he was 6. That early loss is what Izzard thinks drove him to seek the love of an audience. Also on the itinerary was a facility where his father worked for British Petroleum.

“We grew up with BP,” Izzard says, rather wistfully. “They are an oil company and they are what they are, but I’ve had this relationship with them that’s a sort of rich uncle, because that’s sort of what they were to our family situation. BP transferred us from refinery to refinery.” Izzard finds it hard to suppress his affection for the company, even now. “It’s a calamitous thing,” he says, “but there’s a part of me that just wants BP to do good. I need to follow more closely, but my understanding is it’s a deep well. The top casing, which was subcontracted out, has blown up, and this is all due to relaxing in the laws that came from a Bush-Cheney administration, right? And they’ve never had a breach like this before … I want the problem to go away, and I want BP to get to a better place. And in the end, if blame has to be apportioned, it should go to the right people. All you hear is BP, BP, BP. In the end, the subcontractor, they’re going to go away scot-free and BP will be blamed for everything.” I mention that BP’s had 760 OSHA violations to Exxon’s 1. “Wow,” says Izzard, reconsidering. “Then they deserve the blame.”

If he sounds like a politician—sure with the narrative if not always the facts—it’s because he plans on being one. Earlier this year, Izzard campaigned for the Labour Party in 25 cities and towns. The timing is incidental, but he sees campaigning as good practice for playing a Mamet lawyer, and vice-versa. “I think people in law get into politics because of the precision of language and precision of thought,” he says. “If people are shoving cameras in your face and saying, ‘Why do you feel Gordon Brown said this?’ or ‘What does this mean for the economy?’ you try to get some ideas out that can grab some of their imaginations or make them think at least.” He’s thinking maybe mayor of London or representative to the European Union. “I’ve already told everyone I’m a transvestite, so that should immediately stop me from going into politics, but I don’t think so.”

[faceless]

A Day Out With Eddie Izzard
On Ellis Island, a Kinship With the Huddled Masses
By ABBY ELLIN
July 16, 2010
New York Times

ON a breezy, clear summer morning, Eddie Izzard — the British actor, comedian, transvestite and aspiring politician — took a trip to Ellis Island. He’d wanted to go ever since he first set a stiletto-heeled foot in this country in the 1990s, but never got around to it.

“I would have absolutely been one of those people who got on the boat to the New World,” said the goateed Mr. Izzard, 48, who is starring on Broadway in David Mamet’s “Race,” and whose documentary about his life, “Believe,” was just nominated for an Emmy. “And if they didn’t let me in, I would have jumped overboard.”

This time, Mr. Izzard, who is spending the summer in New York during his Broadway stint, was determined to see the centerpiece of American immigration, which is why he was on a late-morning ferry, slathering sunblock on his neck and savoring the skyline. He had traded his girlie wear for black jeans, boots, blue blazer and sunglasses, and wore only a hint of foundation on his face. Not that he looked like he’d just stepped out of the Nebraska cornfields; still, for the moment anyway, he might have been just another tourist taking iPhone shots of the Statue of Liberty.

“Funny that France gave that to the United States,” he said, admiring the statue. “What did the U.S. give them in return?” It was a good question. But then, most of Mr. Izzard’s observations are dead-on. That is a large part of his acclaim; he’s known for his political and historical humor, for his accents and mimicry, for leapfrogging from topic A to topic Q, for being, as John Cleese once anointed him, the “Lost Python.”

He is also known for his social conscience (he has raised more than $400,000 for a British charity) and his athleticism. He is a marathon runner and is contemplating triathlons (“Animals in the wild are lean, and I think we should be, too”).

He speaks and performs stand-up routines in German and French (he uses the A.T.M. in French “to keep my brain working) and is planning to learn Russian. And his politics are passionate; earlier this year, Mr. Izzard, who is a Social Democrat, voraciously campaigned for the Labour Party across England, Scotland and Wales. He plans on running — “standing,” in British parlance — for mayor of London or a seat in Parliament “sometime around 2020, if not bang-on.”

Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a more engaged visitor on the 27.5-acre island; he wanted to see and do everything. “We’re here, we might as well,” he said, slipping a headset over his ears. “Look at that,” he said, reading a display. “Those in first class were allowed to walk right off the ship. Those in steerage were stopped. I never knew that.”

He wandered up the stairs and into the Great Hall, the soccer-field-size room where new immigrants waited for admittance into the country. Mr. Izzard, who was born in Yemen and raised in Northern Ireland and England, moved from exhibit to exhibit, taking in everything: a gurney (“in England we call that a trailer”), a buttonhook used to inspect eyes for infections like trachoma.

He glanced at a manifest of impossible-to-pronounce last names. “This would be a funny bit,” he said. He pantomimed an immigration officer holding a clipboard. “Here we are at Ellis Island. ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Smith.’ ‘What?’ ‘Smith.’ ‘Again?’ ‘Smith.’ ‘O.K.— Yacjgdaw.’ ‘You?’ ‘Jones.’ ‘What?’ ‘Jones.’ ‘Wazinskawnsky.’ It’s the reversal.”

Every so often a fan approached. “Aren’t you that bloke who did all those marathons?” “I love you in ‘The Riches’!” “ ‘Dress to Kill’ is my favorite!” Mr. Izzard was polite, asking their names, where they were from, posing for pictures. Still, he seemed slightly hesitant, as if he were embarrassed by the attention — odd for a guy whose iPhone screen saver is a shot of himself in heavy makeup, a sparkly shirt and elbow-length black gloves.

When a reporter suggested his fans see him on Broadway, he demurred. “They only have a few days — go see a big musical like ‘Billy Elliot,’ ” he said. “If you have more time, see my show.” After a while, he abandoned the audio tour — it was difficult to follow, the walkways weren’t well marked — and latched on to a group tour with Jesse Ponz, a park ranger. Mr. Ponz explained the history, pointing to the medical facilities where those who were refused admittance were kept, as he led his charges through the bowels of one building and into another. Mr. Izzard was rapt.

“Did people escape?” he asked, nodding toward New York Harbor. “We’ve heard of that,” Mr. Ponz said. “But the current was pretty strong.” “It’s like Alcatraz,” Mr. Izzard said. “People said you couldn’t swim, but now they have an Alcatraz triathlon.” A woman piped up. Actually, she said, prisoners in Alcatraz were allowed to shower with hot water so they wouldn’t acclimate to the cold water. “Did you hear that?” Mr. Izzard said later. He was almost glowing. “You never know what you’re going to learn. That group was exactly like the people who came over here. A mix of everybody.”

At the end of the tour, Mr. Izzard thanked Mr. Ponz, who, as it happened, is a great fan. He offered to take Mr. Izzard around privately, and Mr. Izzard happily accepted. As they wandered around the museum, the two men debated the merits of disco versus punk, the War of 1812, Winston Churchill (Mr. Izzard, who is dyslexic, is listening to a Max Hastings Churchill biography), capitalism and immigration.

“I don’t know what it’s like in the U.S., but immigrants in the U.K. do the jobs the citizens won’t do,” Mr. Izzard said. Five hours later, Mr. Izzard was heading back to Manhattan, with a little less than 120 minutes to spare before he had to be on stage. I do find history fascinating, I find people fascinating, and I’m quite good at standing somewhere and taking out all the new stuff and imagining people coming in,” he said, looking at the city unfold before him. “And I would have been with them.”