Comedian-actor Eddie Izzard lives up to both parts of his hyphenate, though thanks to the awards he's won for his stand-up specials, the "comedian" part usually gets top billing. As a stand-up, Izzard is known for his dizzying stream-of-consciousness monologues, as well as for his occasional onstage cross-dressing. As an actor, however, he tends to play smaller, darker character roles—villains (My Super Ex-Girlfriend), historical figures (Charlie Chaplin, Lenny Bruce), and in one case, a wise-ass hacker (Ocean's 13). But Izzard's latest role, in FX's The Riches as Wayne Malloy, paterfamilias of a clan of con men, has let him add a few more labels to his hyphenate: "TV star" and "writer." Recently, The A.V. Club spoke to Izzard about writing for TV, never writing for stand-up, and the difference between dramatic and comedic actors.
The A.V. Club: You've been performing a bit in L.A. recently, right?
Eddie Izzard: Have I been performing? Yes, yes, I have been performing in L.A. 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.
AVC: How was it for you when you had long breaks from performing?
EI: Well, it's fine. If I'm doing stand-up regularly, I like it. If you have breaks for too long and you come back into it, the first time back in is all a little bit weird. It's riding a bicycle, you can get back on it, but it's just a little bit—I don't know quite what's going on, and then I get back in it. It's better to be constantly doing it, and that way I can just seamlessly leap onstage. I like ad-libbing as much as I can, so that needs a certain amount of practice, a certain amount of speed and being happy with what you're talking about, or interested in what you're talking about, that's one of the main things.
AVC: You tend to work kind of stream-of-consciousness. How do you approach that?
EI: It sounds kind of crazy, but the trick is, it's like a conversation. It's a one-sided conversation, so it's the equivalent of some sort of thing where you're passionate about a subject, and you go "Let me tell you what I've learned about fly-fishing. Here's what I know about the Israeli-Palestinian situation." So you can just unload a whole bunch of information. That's what I think about it: Have a one-sided conversation, and then make it phenomenally interesting. And that's how you can bring in stuff that you haven't talked about before.
AVC: Have you always worked that way?
EI: Mmm, yes and no. It's kind of advanced. You can't start off doing stand-up this way, I don't think, because initially, you're just trying to get the laughs. No one trusts you, no one wants to book you, so you've got to be very sharp on the laughs, got to get your gag-rate up—no matter what you're talking about, it doesn't really matter, as long as it's funny. If you get experienced, you can hopefully stay funny when you're talking about something that might be interesting to you and hopefully interesting to an audience. That way, you can go stream-of-consciousness, you're talking about one subject, then you're going to another subject, and then you go off on a tangent, and all you got to do is keep the gate in your mind open, you've got to. If you ever get fear in your brain, then you think, "Oh, I'm not going to be able to do this, it isn't going to work any more," and it suddenly stops. You think you can't do it, and you suddenly can't. And then it stops and you get fear and then you're just stammering. It's a little dodgy, it's like walking a tightrope and having a conversation at the same time.