 |
SPECIAL ISSUE ON SALE NOW
|
|
 |
The Tower of Babble
British comedian Eddie Izzard talks to TIME's Chris Thornton
Eddie Izzard has made his career by leaving high heel marks all over conventional thinking. He became famous in the U.K. for his stream-of-consciousness, unscripted and hilarious performances. Then he came out as a transvestite — he calls himself a male lesbian — while still managing to turn on fans of both sexes. And when many of his comic contemporaries were heading for Hollywood, he went to France, armed only with some schoolboy French and the will to be witty in a foreign language. TIME caught up with him in Vienna, where he is filming a cross-dressing World War II comedy, "All the Queen's Men" ("The Guns of Navarone" meets "Some Like It Hot"), with Friends star Matt Le Blanc.
TIME: What possessed you to do stand-up in French?
Izzard: I learned French at school and then dumped it. I also became sort of hip at the turn of the 1990s [to the idea] that the European thing needs to have a vision. We needed to have some people putting forward a vision. Because it's a very difficult thing that's happening in Europe, with mature democracies and baby democracies and all with huge 2,000-year-old historical backgrounds choosing to come together — even though we don't really know what we're saying to each other. Having been a street performer, I'd played to international audiences. I came to this big theory that comedy is universal — it is human and not national. I'm going to Germany next. I've planned to do German, Spanish and Italian. There are so many languages in Europe, it's going to be difficult to learn them all.
TIME: Was | |
| |
