Eddie Izzard
![Eddie Izzard](/assets/img/authors/eddie-izzard.jpg)
Eddie Izzard
Edward John "Eddie" Izzardis an English stand-up comedian, actor, and writer. His comedic style takes the form of rambling, whimsical monologue, and self-referential pantomime. He had a starring role in the television series The Riches as Wayne Malloy and has appeared in films such as Ocean's Twelve, Ocean's Thirteen, Mystery Men, Shadow of the Vampire, The Cat's Meow, Across the Universe, and Valkyrie. He has also worked as a voice actor in The Wild, Igor, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionComedian
Date of Birth7 February 1962
I try to keep performing as much as possible - I just like to. I used to take huge gaps off between gigs, now I just like to do stand-up gigs as much as I can.
I'm quite good at taking in information so I voraciously inhale Wikipedia - which may have some things wrong in it, but I think is generally more information than we had before. Last tour we didn't have Wikipedia. And then Discovery Channel and History Channel. I can take it in and retain what I think are the most important facts.
We stole countries with the cunning use of flags. Just sail around the world and stick a flag in. "I claim India for Britain!" They're going "You can't claim us, we live here! Five hundred million of us!" "Do you have a flag …? "No..." "Well, if you don't have a flag, then you can't have a country. Those are the rules... that I just made up!
But with dogs, we do have "bad dog." Bad dog exists. "Bad dog! Bad dog! Stole a biscuit, bad dog!" The dog is saying, "Who are you to judge me? You human beings who’ve had genocide, war against people of different creeds, colors, religions, and I stole a biscuit?! Is that a crime? People of the world!" "Well, if you put it that way, I think you’ve got a point. Have another biscuit, sorry.
Father, bless me for I have sinned, I did an original sin… I poked a badger with a spoon.
We will now sing forth, hymn 405, 'Oh God, what on earth is my hairdo all about?
In stand-up it really helps to play yourself and talk about your own feelings. You cannot fail to be original if you're just talking about what you think about X, Y and Z. Unless you've got a twin brother who's also a stand-up.
So the American government lied to the Native Americans for many, many years, and then President Clinton lied about a relationship, and everyone was surprised! A little naive, I feel!
I just play to progressive audiences. You know, if they're watching Discovery Channel, History Channel, that kind of thing, "Monty Python" have already laid the groundwork. They're known around the world. People like that kind of surrealist, left-field humor, and that's what I do. And "Saturday Night Live," a lot of American humor. "The Simpsons," above all, the weird, left-field humor, which I love. And sardonic. So that's all I'm doing. I find that audience, and they're in every developed country around the world.
They tend to come out a colour called 'Pants left in wash'
If you get anything creative going, then the work and play thing is the same thing, I feel.
Someone's killed 100,000 people. We're almost going, "Well done! You killed 100,000 people? You must get up very early in the morning! I can't even get down the gym. Your diary must look odd: 'Get up in the morning, death, death, death, death, death, death, death - lunch - death, death, death - afternoon tea - death, death, death - quick shower ...' "
For me to put a look together, if it's going to be a boy look or a girl look or whatever, is quite a tricky thing to do. I'm not doing drag because drag is seen in a certain way and my comedy has got zero to do with what I'm wearing. I could wear an elephant suit and say the same thing.
If there were a god, don't you think he would have flicked Hitler's head off?