Edward John "Eddie" Izzard (born February 7, 1962) is a double Emmy-winning English stand-up comedian and actor. His comedy style is expressed in rambling, whimsical monologue and self-referential pantomime. In addition to touring, he is also a television, stage and film actor and is active in charity work.
His stand-up work brought him British Comedy Awards in 1993 (for Live at the Ambassadors) and 1996 (for Definite Article). After the British leg of the tour, he took Definite Article to major cities outside the UK including a successful stint in New York City. However, his U.S. breakthrough did not really come until 1999, when Dress to Kill was shown on the American television channel HBO, about a year or so after he performed the show on tour in the U.S., the U.K. and France (that same year, he played a supporting role in the movie Mystery Men). Suddenly, America was aware of Izzard, and the show went on to earn him two Emmy Awards in 2000 (for performance and writing). However, he only rarely performs his stand-up act on television, as he says it uses up material at too high a rate whereas stage material can be continually re-used in front of different audiences for several months.
In 2005, Izzard provided the voiceover (again, in his unique 'rambling' style) for the British government's series of television advertisements promoting recycling. The tagline of the ads was "Recycle. The possibilities are endless!"
In January 2006, the U.S. television network FX announced the production of a new drama series co-written by Izzard called The Riches (formerly Low Life). Izzard and British actress Minnie Driver star as a married couple, Wayne and Dahlia Malloy, who have been part of a caravan of con-artist Irish travellers swindling their way across the U.S. with their children. After finding another family killed in a car accident, the Malloys assume their identities and start a new life as law-abiding suburbanites in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The youngest son has shown a preference for wearing girl's clothing, leading to some speculation that the role was based upon Izzard's experiences. Izzard has stated in several interviews that the character of Sam had been given transvestite tendencies long before he was cast as Wayne Malloy, but he has contributed his perspective to keep the character believable.
Izzard also performed with Scottish musician Midge Ure at Live8 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He played the piano accompaniment for the song "Vienna".
In 1994, Izzard made his West End drama debut as the lead in the world premiere of David Mamet's The Cryptogram with Lindsay Duncan, in the production at London's Comedy Theatre. The success of that role led to his second starring role in David Beaird's black comedy 900 Oneonta. In 1995, he portrayed the title character in Christopher Marlowe's Edward II."
Izzard portrayed comedian Lenny Bruce in the 1999 production of Julian Barry's 1971 play Lenny. In 2001, he replaced Clive Owen in Peter Nichols' 1967 play A Day in the Death of Joe Egg at the Comedy Theatre. Izzard and Victoria Hamilton then repeated their lead roles when the show was brought to Broadway in 2003, with The Roundabout Theatre Company production. The revival received four Tony Award nominations including Best Revival of a Play, Best Leading Actor and Actress for its stars Izzard and Hamilton in their Broadway debuts, and Best Direction for Laurence Boswell.
In 2001, he also portrayed Charlie Chaplin in Peter Bogdanovich's "The Cat's Meow." Izzard recently made an appearance in the film Across the Universe. He played Mr. Kite in the "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" sequence, where he spoke the lyrics, as opposed to singing them. He also had a small role in Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen as Roman Nagel, an expert thief. He also provided the voice of the Narnian mouse knight Reepicheep in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian film.
Izzard's style is heavily influenced by Monty Python, especially in his use of a stream-of-consciousness delivery that jumps between topics as he free-associates onstage. He does not generally work from a script, due to his dyslexia. Instead, he interrupts himself with new joke ideas, the characters he portrays turn into other characters, and he nonchalantly leaps from historical analysis to musings about household appliances. This often results in brief pauses in the routine which he fills with 'so, yeah,' and other verbal tics that have become his trademarks. Thinking aloud is also part of Izzard's ongoing attempt to make the process of writing the show itself part of the humour. As he put it in a 2004 interview with The Guardian, "It's the oral tradition. Human beings have been doing it for thousands of years". He frequently notes the reaction to a joke midstream by miming writing on his hand ("should be funnier" or "lost them there"), asks the audience questions, and verbally engages with hecklers.
Among Izzard's comic talents are mimicry and mime. He portrays God (as a sometimes bumbling authority figure who doesn't really seem to know what he's doing) using the voice of James Mason, and John F. Kennedy and Noah as Sean Connery, impersonations of whom appear in all of his performances, and also imitates activities such as sawing wood, vacuuming, and mowing the lawn, anthropomorphizing the machines with accents and personalities. Successful impressions are turned into running gags which recur across different shows such as his Scottish clarinet teacher, Mrs. Badcrumble. He tackles topics both contemporary and historic, including frequent re-imaginings of historical events which result in scenes like 'Cake or Death: Church of England runs the Inquisition,' or 'Jesus Ministers to the Dinosaurs.' When asked about his comedy style by George Stroumboulopoulos, host of CBC Television's talk show, The Hour, Izzard described his use of history by saying,
"I just talk complete bulls***. The history, the politics, I noticed that no one was using history, so there's a lot of history lying about the place, and it's all free, and it's on Wikipedia! You know, I use Wikipedia like a crazy idiot, now. Then I take all this stuff, and I regurgitate it into a weird angle".
In 2008, in his Stripped tour, Izzard began using Wikipedia itself as part of his stand-up act, reading from a live copy of an article (via an iPhone) and mocking Wikipedia's self-referential editorial style. To date, he has read from a variety of different articles.
Although much of his humour deals with sensitive issues, with special emphasis on religion, it has generally not been intended as mean-spirited or rude. Izzard, however, took a different tone in 2008's "Stripped" tour. Professing that he had learned he was an atheist, he explains that he doesn't like the word "worship" because he doesn't see why anyone would want to worship someone who had "fucked the whole thing up from the beginning." The show's theme was an apologetic, humorous presentation on how one can see that there's no God.
Traditionally, Izzard has focused on the creative possibilities of thinking through absurd situations in real time. He also turns much of the attention on himself and his personality, including his cross-dressing ("it is my manifest destiny to wear a dress on all seven continents"). Contemporary pop culture (Harry Potter, Star Wars, etc.), is also a frequent subject, brought up both to critique its weaknesses and to enhance his anecdotes.
His bent towards the surreal even went so far as to produce a sitcom called Cows in 1997 for Channel 4, a live action comedy with actors dressed in cowsuits.
He's also been referred to by some as the British Marlon Wayans.
