Eddie Izzard's not wearing a dress

March 11, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN
Chicago Sun-Times
Eddie Izzard was in his 30s before he became famous as a comedian, but he wanted to be a dramatic actor way back when he was a 12-year-old schoolboy in the U.K.
"They did Shakespeare's 'Caesar,' " Izzard, 45, says. "There's a lot of male roles in that. A lot of stabbing roles. A lot of Brutuses and Cassiuses and Marc Antonys. And I couldn't get any of them. I was Trebonius, which is s---.
"He doesn't do any stabbing, which is no good," Izzard says.
Izzard moved from stand-up to film actor in the 1990s, then landed in "Shadow of the Vampire" and "The Cat's Meow." Now, he's creating the mostly dramatic lead part of a gypsy father in FX's "The Riches."
Izzard plays Wayne, a traveling thief. He and his drug-addled wife Dahlia (Minnie Driver) take over the identity of a dead couple, move into their Louisiana house and pretend to raise their kids in a normal way for the first time.
Izzard does bring a respectable resume to the role. He earned a Tony nomination in 2003. Before that, he played Lenny Bruce in a stage revival of "Lenny."
Last year, Izzard almost took a villain's role on this season's "24." He went with "The Riches" instead, partly because he sees himself as a sunnier actor than "24" demanded. An actor must know if can be believably sinister, he says.
"I did a film with John Malkovich," he says of "Shadow of the Vampire." "If John says, 'Come and have a cup of tea,' you do think John has just murdered his family. He has that interesting feel, like, 'John, what have you done?'
"And I have that light thing, a more positive, upbeat thing."
Izzard sees the transition from comedy to drama as a feast.
"There is a coke-y aspect to comedy. It is a very heady drug. It's like a dessert drug," he says. "It's like eating a lot of cream pies. And drama's like a savory meal. It hits different buttons. It takes you on a journey."
The trouble Izzard had for years was convincing people he could serve dinners as well as pies.
"If everyone's ready for you to make dessert, and you say, 'I'm gonna come and do a savory chicken. It's got minerals and carbohydrates,' a lot of people [will object to that]," he says.
Going from Trebonius to stand-up to meaty drama roles "was a long slow burn," he says. But he made it happen.
"Lenny Bruce said, 'I'm a hustler.' I really am kind of a hustler. I want to hustle myself forward into the best possible career I can get," Izzard says.
"And I've finally been given a chance to do this."