Cake or Death's Groovy News

[from thecomet.net]

The Comet spoke to British comedian Eddie Izzard, currently filming in Los Angeles, about Laughs in the Park, Tony Blair’s memoirs, being a marathon man and why the name ‘Steve’ keeps cropping up in his act.

NG: I hear you’ve been busy with acting recently but the focus will be back on comedy for Laughs in the Park. Have you ever worked with comedians Dylan Moran and Reginald D Hunter?

EI: I know both of them but this will be the first time we’ve all done a show together.
Laughs in the Park

NG: It’s a bit of a one-off all round, as Verulamium Park will be the UK’s first purpose-built outdoor stage for comedy. What happens if it rains?

EI: I will carry on if it rains – no one worries when there’s rock and roll…

I just felt, why should it always be rock and roll which has the festivals? Comics need to do their own festivals.

NG: As a Labour supporter, what do you make of Tony Blair’s comments in his memoirs

EI: I don’t think it really matters but it’s good that it came out now, as that’s a lot better than after the new leader is in place. The truth is there are always going to be difficult relationships but politicians are not going to go into great details at the time as they don’t want the two other parties – whether it’s the Liberal Democrats, Conservatives or Labour – to be going over it and over it, so these things will always come out after. But I’m not going to take sides.

NG: Stevenage hosted a Labour leadership hustings debate in July. Have you ever considered throwing your hat into the ring?

EI: I’m not moving into politics for 10 years. At the moment what I want is to have a strong leader and a lot of the people running have the experience with a new look and a new vision and direction.

NG: When your name is mentioned many seem to associate you with your incredible feat of completing 41 marathons last summer. Is that strange?

EI: That’s fine if that’s the way it’s going to go. Some people will say you know he was in that film or whatever. When I started I was known for nothing so I don’t mind that at all. And it was 43 marathons not 41, I did two extra!

NG: And finally, our deputy editor (Steve) is desperate to know why the name Steve appears in your act so much.

EI: Jeff and Steve? They’re mates from school. Comedians often invent ridiculous names and it loses the reality of it. I give them real names so that it resonates on a real level.

Eddie Izzard, Dylan Moran and Reginald D Hunter will be performing at Verulamium Park in St Albans on Friday, September 24, Saturday, September 25, and Sunday, September 26.

Tickets start from £35. Visit www.hmvtickets.com

[from playbill.com]

David Mamet’s provocative legal drama Race, starring Eddie Izzard, Dennis Haysbert, Afton C. Williamson and Richard Thomas, ended its Broadway run Aug. 21 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.

Mamet also directed his play, which began previews Nov. 17, 2009, and officially opened Dec. 6. Race is not only the longest-running play of the 2009-2010 Broadway season, but upon its closing after 320 performances, there will be no plays represented on Broadway until the Roundabout Theatre revival of Mrs. Warren’s Profession begins Sept. 3.

Race, which tests the dynamics of a law office when a crime is committed against a black woman, recouped its entire $2.5 million investment in late April. The original cast featured David Alan Grier, James Spader, Kerry Washington and Richard Thomas. Grier, Spader and Washington departed the production in June. Thomas is the only original cast member to remain with the play.

Producers announced Aug. 11 that plans are underway to bring the work to London audiences, as well as individual regional theatres in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Washington, DC, in 2011.

Here is a look at Race’s final Broadway curtain call: > PHOTO GALLERY

[thanks Jean!]

[from huffingtonpost.com]

Biopics are normally saved for the icons that are old and wrinkled octogenarians reflecting back on their life of accomplishments. But what if through sheer grit, determination, talent and an unyielding belief in yourself, you’ve managed to cram all that life and success into half a lifetime?

Sarah Townsend began working with Eddie Izzard back at the Edinburgh Fringe Festivals in the 80s when he could barely get a time slot, if a laugh. Her career as a budding theater director and filmmaker followed a similar trajectory as the two learned by trying and failing and trying again. Sarah began filming Eddie’s journey and what culminated over the past ten plus years is the documentary Believe. The film is an Emmy nominated, uplifting look of how a transvestite street performer can become one of the most iconic and lauded performers of his time.

ALI MACLEAN: Let’s talk about your early days at the Edinburgh Festivals — starting with the Salieri/Mozart rivalry you had with those evil Fry & Laurie characters who thwarted you.

EDDIE IZZARD: They weren’t evil, they were just better. I think I’ve gotten better since then. Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie and Emma Thompson were in the Cambridge Footlights where Monty Python had come out of. I was trying to get into Cambridge, just to get into the Footlights. So these were the guys who succeeded in getting into Cambridge, and being in the Footlights. And they were better, so it was two kicks in the head, really.

A: Was it hard for you to believe back then? Did it take time for you to build your confidence?

E: I decided at seven to become an actor and at sixteen I made a private pact in my own head that I was going to do this and I wasn’t backing out of it. At the same time I was going to career advisors with my Dad and Step-mom and saying I might be an architect, but I just was coming up with things. I knew I wasn’t going to do those things. I wanted to do this. It just seemed a million miles off.

A: Your one hundred percent belief in yourself has worked out for you. I, for one, am glad that you didn’t give up, but are there any people out there that you wish had given up on their dream?

E: I don’t know if I should start that list. If you think about determination, if people have a heart and are determined, they can get to that place. But there are a lot of negative people who were enormously determined. All the Nazis were determined. They wanted to murder everyone. Everyone with a bad heart, who doesn’t care about people, I wish they hadn’t started. People with a bad heart can all fuck off.

A: What do you think about mass marketed guru stuff about believing like ‘The Secret’ and best selling books that teach people how to manifest their dreams? You know, all the books on tape and workshops and week long retreats.

E: I have done my own version of that for myself. I do realize that the word ‘believe’ is part of the word ‘faith’. And I don’t believe in God. So I’m a non-believer in the non-visible. I’m a believer in us; in humans. I think people either see the glass half full or half empty and suffer from depression or are prone to depression. I’m like my Dad and I don’t seem to have that. I’m consistently able to regroup fairly quickly. It’s much harder if you suffer from depression. You know, comedy improv has a lot of positive thinking in it. It’s all about ‘Yes, and…” If someone says “I am the King of Prussia.” You have to say “Yes, and I have your new shoes.” It’s a glass half full method. So positive thinking is great, as long as you’ve got a positive message. If you’re a positive thinker and you’re a dickhead, well, these are the complicated things of human existence.

A: Sarah really showed in the film how controlled and structured you are with putting together a show. A lot of comedians and actors spend their lives complaining on TMZ or their act is completely neurotic, like a Rorschach test. Do you attribute your success to your military background and that discipline?

E: It definitely helps. I kept pulling back and regrouping. You get knocked down and you get up and go back into the fray. Though, I don’t feel that disciplined because I’m incredibly lazy. I’m like a large ship. Once you get the ship going you can’t stop it. But once you stop it you can’t get it going again. I tend to like to watch black and white movies on Turner Classic or AMC. Apart from talking to you today I’m not doing anything and I like that.

A: I have a feeling our ideas of lazy are different. I think I could challenge you to a sloth-off and I could probably win.

E: Oh, I don’t know. Get me going…but I do start hating myself. People are offering me things now. So I’m trying to catch up on the years when I had nothing going. As you know the media is full of people taking off at seventeen. At sixteen years old they come in at number one.

A: Yeah, but they go to rehab when they’re twenty-three.

E: Yes. If I had to do it all again I’d do it the same way, but at the time, you want it to happen immediately. Learning that you have stamina is an excellent thing to know. If a project fails, I know I can pick myself up. Just like Clint Eastwood in a Fistful Of Dollars.

A: You’ve talked about future plans for politics and that your model would be more Franken than Schwarzenegger. I’m wondering if you think if Schwarzenegger would be a better politician if he were funny? Or maybe not a Terminator?

E: I’m more linked to Al Franken because of the comedy and because he’s a democrat. There’s no particular advice I can give Schwarzenegger…I’m pleased Prop 8 was overturned in California.

A: Do you think there is something about comedy and Al Franken’s satirical mind that lends itself to critical thinking and political policy?

E: Comedy is good at tearing down. If the right wing government is in power, comedy is good at tearing away at that. If the left wing government is in power, they will tear away at that too. So, I think comedy may be a hindrance in a way. I don’t subscribe to the theory that all politicians are crap. I think the ‘cool people’ often take that position.

A: So, are you prepared, when you take office in 2020, for Larry the Cable Guy to make fun of you for giving people clean drinking water?

E: Oh yeah, it’s gonna happen. If you’re a performer, people tend to be quite positive about you or they have no opinion. If you go into politics, it will be polarized. I’m ready for people to take swings at me. But then again I am a transvestite, so how much harder can it be to deal with political pressure?

A: You’ve talked in your shows and on The Riches about The American Dream. And you’ve mentioned the European Dream. Do you think you’ve achieved either?

E: I’ve started saying that I’m living the European Dream. Now I want Europeans to have the dream too.

A: Congrats on the Emmy nomination for Believe.

E: Well, I’m not nominated, Sarah is. She made my life worthy of being nominated. But hopefully there’s some lesbian girl in Pakistan or some transgender kid in Chile that sees the documentary and says, ‘Shit, I can do that!”

A: Or maybe some kid who’s trying to put together a tight ten-minute set to go up at The Comedy Store.

E: As long as they have something interesting to say and a good heart.

A: Yeah, we’re not trying to encourage any more Hitlers.

E: No. They can fuck off.

***

As Eddie said, Sarah Townsend made his life worthy of being Emmy nominated. How does one follow a man that runs 43 marathons in 51 days, performs his shows to sold out crowds at Wembley Stadium, and films blockbuster like Oceans 12. How do you capture a hummingbird on film?

ALI MACLEAN: This is your first feature length film and you are nominated for an Emmy. You run the risk of being called an overnight success — even though the film took, what, seven years to make?

SARAH TOWNSEND: Well over seven years. It’s one of those magical overnight successes that wasn’t really overnight. That’s really the storyline of the film. People really do work for ages. We wanted to make something that reflected what Eddie has put into his career because he gets the same comment. And of course it wasn’t. It was years and years before he finally got attention.

A: Eddie seems like a private person and the film shows that he is in control of things, certainly his emotions. Did you feels, as a filmmaker that it was hard to get behind that? Were you surprised that he wanted to do a documentary and let you behind the scenes?

S: I don’t think he thought that’s what we would be doing. I thought “Oh, because I know him, this will be so much easier.’ Far from it. I don’t think it was easy for anyone. It took four years to get an interview that was genuinely in the moment that was absolutely honest. He has like a sixth sense of when that little red light on the camera was on. It was unbelievable. If something interesting was going on and we started shooting he would instantly change his demeanor. Just at the point where we thought, “What are we doing? This is a special, but not a full movie”, then it happened. We got that scene with him. I think it was a real moment for him – he really shocked himself.

A: With his military background and the marathon running, he is so disciplined.

S: With the military stuff I was trying to show that he is a very early 20th century character. They don’t really make them like that anymore. Very stiff upper lip, “Carry on chaps”. You don’t encounter that much. He doesn’t complain. He doesn’t say: “That’s not fair.” He’ll just say: “Right, I’ll do some extra work, then.” In Britain we have a very powerful tabloid culture with celebrities on the front page crying with their make-up smeared and tears, and it’s kind of what you’d expect from someone who likes to dress up that way. It’s a very contradictory bunch of things going on with him, and that’s what makes him so fascinating.

A: Would you ever consider doing a documentary about Eddie’s future political run?

S: No. At this point it will be a while before I do another documentary. Doing it was an enormous film school experience and I don’t regret it for a moment. It was very humbling and exhausting and an incredible experience. I’m grateful for every moment of it now.

A: The theme of the film is believing in yourself. Eddie talks in his shows about believing in the American Dream and the European Dream. Do you believe in those?

S: In the UK a lot of people don’t like to try. There’s a different cultural thing. Here if you try and fail, you get up again and start again and keep going. People respect you for it. Even if you keep failing, they respect the tenacity.

A: We are a country of failures.

S: I love the fact that trying is respected. The American Dream: if you try, if you build it, they will come. I love that. It’s honorable. That’s part of what got this film finished in the end. It’s not really how it is in the UK.

A: It’s funny that you bring up ‘If you build it they will come’ the Kevin Costner movie quote, because he just built that oil spill machine and sold it for millions.

S: What? Not the Hadron Collider? In Geneva?

A: No, Kevin Costner, the actor, invented some centrifuge type device that supposedly separates oil from water and he sold it to the US government to help clean up the oil spill.

S:…You’re kidding.

A: No. He went before Congress. I guess anything is possible. I mean after The Postman and Waterworld, he staged this comeback. It’s The American Dream.

S: That’s the maverick spirit.

Believe has been nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Non Fiction Special at the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards 2010. It is available on DVD.

Eddie Izzard is currently performing on Broadway in David Mamet’s Race through August 21.

[from broadwaysbestshows.com | thanks Jean!]

One of the funniest stand up comedians is now on Broadway. British born Eddie Izzard first conquered American audiences with his Emmy winning comedy specials. Eddie talked to Pat Collins backstage about why he is open and honest about a personal topic.

[from Backstage.com]

Eddie Izzard is best known as a transvestite standup comic. He is also a film, television, and Tony-nominated dramatic actor. He’s a political activist for Britain’s Labour Party; within 10 years he expects to run for mayor of London. Also an endurance athlete, he recently completed 43 marathons in 51 days to benefit Sport Relief, a charity that benefits the poorest and most vulnerable populations in the U.K. and across the globe.

Currently he is performing on Broadway, replacing James Spader in David’s Mamet’s “Race,” and as Izzard sees it, all the pieces of his life inform one another, incongruous as they may seem. “In politics you have to pay attention to detail and be precise, and that’s especially useful for Mamet’s language,” Izzard says in his dressing room before a performance. “My own diction had gotten sloppy, which works for me in my standup act. But in politics you have to articulate, even overarticulate, and that’s also helpful for Mamet. The challenge in doing Mamet’s language is to get its rhythm and then the sense of what’s being said across to an audience.” The actor speaks a perfect American English in the role.

Izzard’s years as a standup comic have served him well too. “It teaches you to be in the moment, and that’s the key to all acting,” he says, adding that it gives you looseness and flexibility. Still, the comic may go for the easy laugh, and that’s a danger in a straight play. “Comedy has to serve the story and come out of the character, and if that’s not happening—even if it’s interesting—we can’t do it,” he says. As the conniving, amoral attorney in “Race,” he plays “a man who has lost his soul,” Izzard reflects. “He was an idealist who ended up poor and he didn’t like it. He’s run out of everything that gives a fuck. Yet he still wants to win and he’s always a showman.” “Race” explores the emotionally charged dynamics of three lawyers (two black, one white) defending a white man accused of raping an African-American woman.

One of the many elements that drew Izzard to “Race” was the chance to perform for a racially mixed crowd, which is rare on both sides of the Atlantic and, he says, virtually nonexistent at his standup performances. He was last on Broadway in the 2003 Roundabout production of “A Day in the Death of Joe Egg,” and the audience was overwhelmingly white and subscription-based, or what he dubs “conscription”-based.

Audience demographics aside, for Izzard the story and director take precedence over all considerations, including financial. “Money is secondary,” he says. “If cash comes first, you make stupid decisions.” Nevertheless, he has a fondness for film work in general and television work in particular. He loved doing the FX series “The Riches,” playing a con artist, because of the intensity of the process—specifically, shooting each 45-minute drama in seven days.

He is every bit the risk taker and consistently tries to overcome challenges and fears—the more daunting the better. He was terrified of flying and therefore learned to fly. He doesn’t like to read fiction, he is dyslexic, and he finds memorizing lines a stumbling block. Thus his goal is to perform in Shakespeare and do more Marlowe (he has already tackled Marlowe’s “Edward II”). His ideal roles are Iago and Richard III. “I think of myself as an actor-comedian,” Izzard says. “But I’m more experienced as a comedian.”

An Androgynous Transvestite

Born in Yemen—where his father was an accountant and his mother a nurse—Izzard grew up in Northern Ireland, Wales, and the south of England. His mother died when he was 6, and he and his elder brother were sent to boarding school, where he mastered the art of the stiff upper lip. He also fell in love with the world of Monty Python, its anarchy and wit. Izzard toyed with the idea of performing. Still, at Sheffield University he studied accounting and financial management. He excelled in these courses but dropped out of school after one year, determined to launch a career in comedy. Making ends meet wasn’t easy, though he refused to take a regular job. “I was a waiter for three weeks,” he says. “When one waiter asked me what my plans were and I said to act, he said, ‘Oh, no one gets to be an actor.’ I didn’t want to be around people like that. I felt I was going to do it or die. I burned my bridges.”

Izzard honed his comedy skills at the competitive Edinburgh Festival, where he appeared 12 times. “I did three years of sketch comedy, four years of street performing, and five years of standup,” he recalls. Performing solo on the streets was where he learned how to improvise, ad-lib, and make decisions on the hoof. Izzard’s free-associative standup comedy is not scripted. “I have an innate suspicion of the written word,” he says. “I write it all down in my head and then I workshop it endlessly.”

He did not incorporate his transvestitism into the performances until he started doing standup. He knew it was a risky move, but as a comic—unlike an actor playing a part—he was determined to be himself “turned full on,” he asserts. Still, his transvestitism has an almost androgynous flavor. His nails are painted and he sports makeup and jewelry, yet his voice, gait, and persona are masculine. He has defined himself as a “male lesbian, “male tomboy,” and “action transvestite.” It’s a “confusing sexuality,” he acknowledges, adding that his transvestitism might have gotten in the way of his landing certain dramatic roles. “But when I ran 43 marathons in 51 days, that’s more in the ‘boy’ area, and that’s got to figure somewhat in the producer’s mind. I’m obviously not just spending my time being camp. I’m not camp at all. I’ve pushed through barriers.”

He is hoping to do that in the political arena too, though he would not be the first elected official who has an “alternative sexuality,” he says. But his larger ambition is to help forge a truly cooperative universe where nationalistic boundaries have become blurred: “I want the world to be a giant melting pot like Manhattan.” It’s no accident that he has mastered French, German, and Russian and has, indeed, performed his shtick in all of those languages. Nonetheless, he is not prepared to say what the hallmark of his administration would be if elected. “If I knew that, I’d be running now,” he asserts.

Should his political career take off, he concedes, his acting would have to be put on a back burner. Many would disagree, suggesting politics takes performance art to a whole new level.

“Race” runs through Aug. 21 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 243 W. 47th St., NYC. Tickets: (212) 239-6200 or www.raceonbroadway.com.

OUT TAKES

-Made his West End debut as the lead in David Mamet’s “Cryptogram,” and played Lenny Bruce in Peter Hall’s West End production of “Lenny”

-Appeared in “Secret Agent,” “The Avengers,” “Ocean’s Twelve,” “Ocean’s Thirteen,” and “Valkyrie”

-Has performed to sold-out crowds at Madison Square Garden in New York and the Wembley Stadium in London

-Is the subject of the Emmy-nominated documentary “Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story”

[thanks Jean!]

[from nytimes.com]

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.”

[thanks Jean]

This interview was done in the Netherlands during Stripped featuring some nice behind the scenes footage.

[from Playbill.com]

Eddie Izzard takes a break from stand-up (and high heels) and gets serious in Race.

The last time many of us saw Eddie Izzard, he was dressed to kill: in a cheongsam, or perhaps a bustier and leather mini, smudged eyeliner and deep berry lipstick, teetering about in spike-heeled dominatrix boots and riffing on such subjects as frumpy English queens and Christopher Walken (Izzard doing Walken doing Shakespeare is absurdly funny — and available on YouTube). Currently, however, he’s in legal-eagle mode, suited up as “warhorse” lawyer Jack Lawson, banging on about sex and lies in David Mamet’s hot-button Broadway play Race.

At first, it may look strange — seeing the self-described “British European,” cross-dressing comic on stage at the Barrymore Theatre pontificating about a red sequined dress which may or may not have been ripped off by his alleged rapist client (Richard Thomas) — as opposed to, you know, wearing a red sequined dress. But Izzard has always been drawn to weighty stage roles — the dad of a brain-damaged daughter in Broadway’s A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (2003), troubled ’60s comic Lenny Bruce in the West End revival of Lenny (1999)…dating all the way back to 1994, when he played a creepy gay enigma in the world premiere of Mamet’s The Cryptogram. (On picking Mamet for his first professional stage production: “Well, I’m a transvestite who runs marathons, so I haven’t been known to be a shrinking violet.”)

“I’m looking for drama that’s going to stretch me. It can have comedy in it, but it has to be dry or weird or twisted,” he explains. “And I’m not all about theatre.” Indeed: His respectable list of screen credits includes Ocean’s Twelve and “Thirteen,” “Across the Universe” and “Valkyrie;” and in 2007–08, he starred in the FX original series “The Riches.” “Drama and film and television,” he ticks off, then adding — lest we forget — “and then I do stand-up around the world as well.” Right, and in 2009 he ran 43 marathons in 51 days across the U.K. to raise funds for Sport Relief.

“I seem to have the ability to apply myself to wherever I feel I want to go,” he says. “I seem to have gotten quite good at stand-up.” Selling out Madison Square Garden in January would seem to prove that. “And I couldn’t do stand-up to save my life when I started. It was a year and a half between the first two gigs. My drama ability started off and it wasn’t terribly good; I’ve developed that.” See: a 2003 Tony nomination.

His next challenge? Politics. “I’m standing for election in ten years’ time in the U.K.,” reveals Izzard, who recently finished a 25-city campaign on behalf of the Labour Party. “Socially progressive people make the world move forward.”

And of his ten-year plan, well, “I’m going to have to shoot the career in the head — or put it into deep hibernation,” he reasons.

“I have a fine wine approach — I get better over years,” says the 48-year-old actor. So by the time he’s, say, 80… “I should be on top of my game!”