Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / Eddie Izzard

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Eddie Izzard · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

0:00
Good day humans. We've got a delightful uncomfortable conversation for you today. Not so much a big huge in-depth, uncomfortable conversation about big controversial issues with a world-leading intellect. No, today we plonk our delicate buttocks down on the comfy couch.
0:20
And speak with one of the world's greatest stand-up comics, writers, producers, actors, comedic thinkers Eddie Isard shook up the British stand-up scene in the late 1980s and went on to become a powerhouse of global stand-up shows playing Madison Square Garden in New York and everywhere in between.
0:44
Eddie has won two Emmy awards, been nominated for a Tony and has this weird and eclectic life not just in terms of her gender and I'm saying her because it seems that now there have been some reports about her apparently telling some journalists that she would prefer to go by her even though you would probably know Eddie as a he because he has been presenting as a man all his life but also cross-dressing.
1:12
It's terribly complicated but fortunately Eddie doesn't think that that is particularly interesting as you'll hear in this interview.
1:19
Anyway, Eddie is written and is a co-producer on and the star of a new movie. It's coming out, a big British blockbuster. If you don't know, Eddie, you should certainly check out her stand-up. You may know her also from on the tally starred in 20 episodes of a show called The Riches.
1:38
It was in the United States of Tara, it was in Hannibal, I mean I'm looking at all these, it's not from any point in reading it out.
1:45
In film The Avengers, Oceans 12 and 13 across the universe, Valkyrie, Eddie's one of those people who if you don't know Eddie as a you should get to know Eddie as a because there's no amount of biographical information that I can give you that will quite impart the wow factor.
2:03
Quite apart from anything else, Eddie has run 31 marathons and performed 31 stand-up gigs in 31 days this year, this year at the age of almost 60.
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She ran seven weeks of back-to-back marathons across the UK 12 years ago and this has now become sort of her thing five years ago she ran 27 marathons in 27 days.
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She's very politically active and very kind of philosophical and an enormous out, has an enormous output of energy both creatively and intellectually.
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So it was lovely just to grab 20 minutes while she was on a media tour promoting this new movie to ask her about anything and everything that I thought was interesting.
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I hope you enjoy this conversation with me and Eddie as I.
3:04
Here we are. I'm a tiny little speck. Hello Eddie!
3:10
Hi there, how are you doing?
3:12
I feel like I'm controlling a spaceship because it's the it's night and it's dark outside.
3:19
It's 8.37pm.
3:23
Oh wow.
3:25
I'm a big fan Eddie and I've read your memoir and seen you perform and I actually want to start by asking you about your marathons because I think it's incredible.
3:38
And I'd love to know where the idea came from. Can you tell people what you actually achieved?
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Well in January of this year I ran 31 marathons in 31 days so each day I did a stand up gig at the end of the marathon.
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And on the last day I threw in an extra marathon as well so I did 32 and I spoke to people for six hours a day on podcasts because we was in a lockdown situation in London and I was on a treadmill and I was going to go out of my mind if I was just going to look at the wall.
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Just line up people I'll talk to them on the zoom and so I talked to everyone in the world as it's well a whole bunch of people including George Clooney at the end for the last half.
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We counted down the last 10 seconds as we got to finish it on I did it all 32 marathons so kind of crazy raising money.
4:29
Make humanity great again is the is the fund that I worked I don't know where I got to slow them from.
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Make humanity great again came to me one day one else had a slow a bit like it but they.
4:42
I think it was originally originally wasn't it and not sure that we can even credit Trump with the originality on that front.
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It was either the fewer or Mussolini or some such yes wasn't it wasn't an original Trump.
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But make humanity great again is inclusive and all of America is included in that so everyone you know and it's raising money for charity and it was good.
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I mean raise a third of a million pounds which is about half a million US dollars.
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Fantastic which both of which made nothing to Australians of course but we can do the mental the mental method which is which is the easiest one for Australians to translate from.
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Oh everyone probably understands pounds and US it's fine you raise a lot of money.
5:22
Well yeah I know I would like to do with you tell me what it actually I'm going to tell you what it is right.
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Okay do the calculation put in.
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I've got a machine I can do it quick so keep asking me quick.
5:32
Yeah well well this is only the last stage in your long marathon career.
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I mean this comes this comes on the back of having done successive marathons was in South Africa.
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And then you do I mean what was the what was the longest stretch of you doing marathons back to back.
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I did 43 and 51 days the first time.
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I just okay Australian dollars are going to it's about 600,000 Australian dollars.
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So there you go.
6:03
So yeah I ran 30 I bet 43 marathons in 51 days that was 2009 but I took a day off a week which I certainly decided no you shouldn't take a day off.
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I don't quite why it didn't seem that day I wasn't really much of a day off.
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You know you you like you were lying in bed and going I got to do something and so it was a bit weird.
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And apparently the two of France people when they have a day off they all go for a ride.
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Otherwise it's too bulky.
6:31
That's funny isn't that almost sad like a gerbil in a cage.
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No I think we need to have a better analogy.
6:38
It's more like there are athletes that need to exercise their loins.
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Right.
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They are the lion who must who must remain on the prairie on the hunt.
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Yes they do it just a leisurely kind of thing.
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And what psychologically just before we leave marathons.
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What is going through your head on day 47 while you've been pounding the ground day after day?
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Well on that one day 47 I was always towards the end.
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See the first ten hellish if you ever do multiple marathons your first ten are pretty hellish.
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Don't worry I won't.
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It gets someone easy.
7:17
Someone listening in Australia might get it.
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And then it gets easier.
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And then but not that much easier doesn't get like like easy peasy that was crazy.
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But it just gets a bit more grabable the brain links up with the body and then you become a bit of a machine.
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So on the last day the double marathon that I did on the 30 on the 31st day wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.
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And when I didn't set up it was really tough.
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So you just try and keep your mind open.
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And when I was doing the one just recently I was on trebles I was talking to people.
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I was trying to keep nothing in my head like you know I didn't want to think about all legs egg.
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This is going on I wish this would stop.
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You just don't want to think about that.
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I want to talk to people and say oh yeah so what did you do then?
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I never tried that.
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So you want to get your mind off the pain.
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Is that a fact Mr. Clooney I didn't know that Mr. Clooney.
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Yeah well he was talking if you saw that bit but it's it's out there.
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He's talking about I got to talk about his arm bros me Clooney.
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And he used to drive her.
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This is amazing thing.
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He was as a kid and 18 years before he got and he was driving her around and she was with a lot of other older.
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And he had a lot of pain as he was going around doing Lake Tahoe and Vegas and doing the series on the 50s.
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Great stories he had which I didn't you know he just totally opened up on that stuff.
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Seen you wouldn't have gotten that if you weren't running a marathon on a treadmill talking to George Clooney.
8:45
Is there an endorphin rush?
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Are you experiencing pleasure at the same time?
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Because I'm asking because I have never derived any pleasure from physical activity whatsoever.
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So there's clearly something else going on.
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And dolphins.
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I call them endorphins but I think it's more fun for kids to think that dolphins are coming to.
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Is there an endorphin rush?
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No it's good when you finish.
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I get a bit of a rush but when you stop where you go.
9:11
Oh that was good.
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I did that.
9:13
Oh that's nice.
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When you're doing it it's a bit of a grind.
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It tends.
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If I'm running in training if I have to do a certain time that's tougher.
9:24
Because in my early days of running marathon I just used to run and I would take as long as I wanted to take.
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And I was going through the running around the UK the first time I did.
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So it's kind of a wonderful way to take in the country and go over to this.
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Look at that.
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Ah this mister these trees of the hills and the valleys that was all great.
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But on a treadmill it's not much fun.
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No.
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And it doesn't bother you while you're going through the glens and the valleys that you've got your hair stuck to your forehead with sweat and your face is red and your heart's pounding and taste blood and all that.
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Now it tastes blood.
9:59
I taste blood when I exercise but perhaps I got to exercise a little bit more.
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Are you eating raw animals?
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It's the lion on the prairie again.
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Yes.
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No.
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You get used to it and you become this sort of machine that can do it.
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And I felt like when I was running around the UK particularly, well actually in the South Africa as well.
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I was running across the dusty lands in South Africa.
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It came more grabbable.
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It just became like you know you were at one with nature because you think that's what we came from.
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We you know we were hunter-gatherers.
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That's what we did in the old age we lived on those lands.
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And I became much more closely in contact with that which I found kind of fascinating.
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That confidence that you get.
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Six minutes to midnight.
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Let's talk a bit about this pictures.
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Is it a true story or is it?
10:50
It is based on true events.
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So basically it's even World War II.
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Obviously World War II is a true thing.
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And I don't call Bexel on sea a true town where I grew up in half my life.
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And my grandma was born and great grandma.
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And it had 26 schools in this town.
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Now for Australians, a British seaside town.
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I suppose everyone can grab hold of that idea that it used to be a big thing before Second World War.
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Everyone going down and take the waters and that kind of thing.
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Particularly in the late 1800s.
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But then in a post World War II, it's just like a retirement town, you know, down for the South Coast of England.
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But before the war, it was linked with a lot of money.
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And the Delaware family who started the state of Delaware, they were involved in it.
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And Aristocracy would come down and molecule would come down and stay in Bexel on sea.
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And they had 26 schools, which is just an unusual number of schools.
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One of these was the Augusta, Augusta Victoria College for Girls.
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And it had German girls there who were coming over to learn English and make friends.
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And because it was the 30s, they were the daughters and the Goddaughter of the Nazi High Command.
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Himmler's Goddaughter was at this school.
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Von Riventrop, who was the German ambassador to Britain, his daughter was at the school.
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And they were making friends listening to Hitler speeches on the radio, saluting the radio.
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We know that they were kind of, you know, positive towards the Hitler National Socialism,
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making friends and learning English going up to the German embassy in London
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and hanging out there at the time with the coronation of George VI.
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So I thought, because their blazer badge had a British flag on hand and Nazi flag.
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And I saw this blazer badge. That's where we'll start it from, this blazer badge.
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I just thought there's a story surely on that.
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And we've built this thriller on top of it, a 39 steps hitch coffee in kind of thriller.
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With characters that we made up, someone who did exist and somebody didn't exist.
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And we mix that together into six minutes to midnight.
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And it's coming out now after finishing it in the summer of 2018.
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And you only managed to get Judy Dench in it, so you couldn't convince anybody decent.
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Judy Dench playing the woman who is very beguile by the National Socialism,
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running the school for the girls.
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And Jim broadband, both Oscar winners and Jim broadband's playing Charlie,
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the bus driver. And my granddad was Charles is the bus driver.
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So how wonderful.
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Are you a bit bored of talking about gender fluidity?
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Are you?
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Yes.
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You're asking me the question.
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Yeah, you know, well, I am getting thrown up in out since 1985.
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There we have 36 years now.
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And suddenly people are talking about it as if I've just carried yesterday.
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No, no, no, no.
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You don't have to, you don't have to feel the need to repeat, you know, well worn territory here.
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But the change in pronouns from from heater, they to she.
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I thought was interesting.
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I was just wondering whether or not for someone as self expressed as, as you,
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that to change in your conception of yourself or whether that's a,
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just a change in how you present.
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I didn't use, there isn't a day in my thing.
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I'm not using those.
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It's just, I'm, I'm gender fluid, you know, I'm, I'm playing male role in this.
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Uh, girl, um, you know, I have it boy mode and girl mode.
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I call it because I see transgender being a superhero thing.
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I've decided positive, I see it because, you know, it was so toxic when I came out back in 1985.
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If anyone can remember back to two generations ago.
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And so I've been out for a long, long, long, long, long, long, long time.
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I was on a TV television program last year and they said,
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oh, you're wearing a dress and as you usually do, as you have done for really decades.
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What pronouns would you like?
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They asked me.
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So I said, oh, well, she and her would be nice.
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She's like cup of tea.
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I see.
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She and her, that went viral around the world.
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And in a day, all my pronouns change.
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So, okay, if that's, uh, uncle with that, um, and I'm sort of more base that way.
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But, um, you know, I am gender fluid and it's, it's just me.
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But I'm, I'm telling everyone to relax on it.
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I don't mind.
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He, uh, him, she, her, uh, or just call me Eddie if you've got a prominent or mate or mush.
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It was mush.
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You didn't mush.
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You don't have mush in your mouth.
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I don't have mush.
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Do we have mush in Australia?
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I've not had, I've not heard mush.
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Mush.
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Right.
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Right.
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All right, mush.
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I do much.
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Um, it's, uh, kind of a, you know, pre-war 50s, 60s.
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I mean, it's like the sort of thing that should be Australian because we like to abbreviate
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everything and we like to have words.
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It's, it sounds very Aussie mush or mushy.
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You probably be mushy, Danny.
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And Nell of ours would, uh, yeah.
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It's like mate.
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You've got mate.
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Yeah, we've got mate.
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Of course, mate.
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Yeah.
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The mates.
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And which is a bizarre thing is mate, you know, one's mate is what's, you've made for life, you know?
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Well, yes.
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Have I ever run into this problem in the States?
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I mean, when I, I lived in New York for 10 years and whenever I would talk about catching
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up with my mates, they assumed I was talking about people who I was procreating with.
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Did they actually say that?
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Or did they just, no, no, they would stare at me.
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And then I would say, do you know what, what I'm talking about?
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Yeah.
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It means dude, or something.
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If you unpack the word, it all gets crazy.
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It was the same with unpacking.
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Because everyone goes about programs, but I'm into adverbs.
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What about adverbs?
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What are my adverbs?
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My quickly.
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I think that's one of my quickly ran quickly.
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Yeah, that's good.
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Delightedly.
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Yeah.
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I think, yes.
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That'd be an adjective, wouldn't it?
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Yeah, it would be useful.
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If I never did grammar at school, but I think we should more concentrate on adverbs.
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Can I, can I?
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I sometimes like to do some quick first date questions with guests.
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They're just random questions, sort of raw shut.
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Just very quick off the top of your head.
16:46
Best ice cream flavor?
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Oh, the 99, which is vanilla.
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Excellent.
16:53
The best UK Prime Minister, who's not Churchill?
16:58
Well, that way, though.
17:01
What's the one thing that very rich people have in common that is good?
17:07
Rich people that have it's good.
17:08
Yeah.
17:12
Well, I would say, I went to boarding schools, which are rich things,
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because after Mum and I, so I happened.
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And because we had boys coming from every country in the world,
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racism was not endemic there, which is a wonderful thing.
17:28
Among the rich?
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Well, it's among those schools, which are private schools,
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therefore, they're funded, therefore, richer people.
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So they're coming in.
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And you're coming from Hong Kong, and you're coming from...
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Right.
17:40
...but they all had money, you see.
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So you couldn't...
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It was just, that was Kevin C. Sayon and Freddie and Stevie and Freddie DeWayne.
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And he's on fire.
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Everyone's on everywhere.
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We had no sense of hating someone for bringing somewhere else,
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because we were all displaced into this school.
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Right.
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And you're all wealthy enough to be able to shoot on the poor, really.
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It's quite interesting, isn't it?
18:03
Well, no.
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You wouldn't put it that way, because we were just kids.
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We didn't have any wealth.
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Of course, the parents had that.
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The parents had chosen that.
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The kids.
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You can't blame the kids on what school they're in.
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Of course.
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And we were just there.
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But you couldn't say, Freddie DeWayne, you're from France,
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and therefore, I've got to talk about wars of Napoleon.
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You know, this wasn't coming at the end.
18:23
You weren't ever going to need stuff in your brain.
18:24
No, but I suppose in my brain, very rich people,
18:27
cartoon monopoly men who wear top hats and have monocles
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and go around being very disdainful of people who aren't white.
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But don't send their kids to such a school.
18:36
Yes.
18:37
Well, I can't think any positive things are part of that.
18:39
This is the one positive pull that out.
18:41
All right.
18:42
If I give you a time machine to go anywhere in the past,
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and you can live for an entire year there,
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and you've got modern vaccinations, and you've got enough gold
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that you're not going to die of starvation,
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but you have to spend a whole year at some point in the past
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in your time machine.
18:57
When do you go to?
18:59
I'd go to the Vicksburg campaign in the American Civil War.
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There you go, that nonplusted.
19:07
That's good, but I don't even know what the campaign is.
19:10
It was the siege of Vicksburg,
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or the taking of Vicksburg was on the Mississippi,
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and it was General U.S.'s S-Grabbed,
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and he was determined and would never give up,
19:24
and he just fought on, and he tried about nine different ways
19:28
to take that city from the Confederates,
19:32
and so the eventually they could win.
19:35
They think it was more important than Gellysburg.
19:37
He broke the siege the day after Gellysburg
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that battle was won.
19:42
It's kind of a draw, Gellysburg,
19:44
but it was seen as a victory for the North,
19:47
but of the Union.
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He won the siege the day after,
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but that was, he's kind of amazing.
19:55
I'd go there to watch that whole campaign.
19:57
Are you an American history buff?
20:00
I'm a history buff, and a military history buff, yes.
20:04
Tell me, in Psycho-People World War II,
20:07
and the American Civil War,
20:09
both of which were kind of good, bad wars.
20:13
A lot of wars are just messy,
20:15
one side against the other,
20:16
and you can't put the good one.
20:17
But obviously the allies side is a better side,
20:20
and I've got wonderful German friends,
20:22
and whatever, but Hitler kidnapped the country,
20:24
and that's an extreme right wrong.
20:26
And then the Confederates side,
20:28
which way they want to cut it,
20:30
they were fighting to keep slavery,
20:32
and that is the wrong side to be on.
20:34
Yes, and the clarity of that moral choice
20:36
is why everybody who wants to start a war
20:39
always invokes World War II.
20:42
You know what I mean?
20:43
George W. Bush going into Iraq will always say,
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we don't want to be Neville Chamberlain,
20:47
we want to be Churchill,
20:49
because it's the easy one.
20:50
You know, you can always call back to World War II
20:52
and go, well,
20:53
you wouldn't want to be the bad guys on that war.
20:56
No, absolutely.
20:57
No, I didn't know he did invoke Chamberlain,
20:59
or not invoke Chamberlain,
21:00
vote Churchill,
21:01
and not Chamberlain,
21:02
but...
21:03
Yes.
21:04
Yes.
21:05
You know, Chamberlain was in Churchill's cabinet
21:07
after Churchill became Prime Minister.
21:09
Did you know that?
21:11
No, it was interesting.
21:13
Yeah, he was...
21:14
he was very simple.
21:15
Him and Halifax,
21:16
basically Halifax,
21:17
was the Foreign Secretary of Chamberlain,
21:19
and so those two were dead against him
21:22
being there.
21:24
But once Churchill had become the Prime Minister,
21:26
he'd kept them both in the cabinet.
21:28
He'd do enemies first.
21:30
Yeah, they'd get...
21:31
Well, Gary Olman...
21:32
Gary Olman filmed some bits of the guy on the...
21:34
not true,
21:36
but that is absolutely true.
21:38
He had to keep them on the side.
21:40
Otherwise, he'd lose the whole of this everybody.
21:41
The whole of somebody really is to didn't like him.
21:44
That's why he'd been kept out of politics for 10 years,
21:46
or kept on the back then.
21:47
Amazing.
21:48
Interesting.
21:49
Last question,
21:50
I noticed that it will be your 60th next year.
21:53
I don't mean to sort of out your age,
21:55
but I was...
21:56
I was surprised.
21:57
Are you turning 60 next year?
21:59
I wasn't surprised.
22:00
I knew because of...
22:02
I got to build the dates up.
22:03
Because of chronology.
22:04
Yeah, but you see 60 is the new 20.
22:08
Right.
22:10
So, of course, you know,
22:11
and if you've just run 32 mountains in 31 days,
22:14
you're not really worried about 60s.
22:16
No.
22:17
I'm kind of...
22:18
I'm as modern as I can be as a trans person
22:20
running multiple mountains
22:22
and popping in French during a Spanish
22:24
and making my films there.
22:26
I don't think...
22:27
I'm not slouching.
22:28
No.
22:29
I'm just...
22:30
Do you fear aging?
22:31
Do you fear death?
22:32
No.
22:33
I think, you know,
22:35
I'm sure when it comes...
22:37
It's interesting.
22:38
I...
22:39
It doesn't seem to be...
22:42
I know that Churchill wanted to go in battle.
22:45
In fact, after...
22:46
After D-Day, he actually got himself onto the continent
22:49
to try and see if he could get actually sort of slightly bloated up.
22:52
Yeah, I think that was in his head,
22:53
because he was going in battle.
22:55
You know, basically, it's good if you can just go out bum.
22:58
But a long, lingering, slow thing doesn't seem very good at all.
23:02
Yeah.
23:03
Live long and drop dead.
23:06
Yeah, and I...
23:07
But my thing is I'm just going to keep pushing to the end.
23:09
So that's...
23:10
That's what I'm going to do.
23:12
So I'm never...
23:13
And always keep doing new things,
23:15
because I think, you know,
23:16
dementia and everything sets in when you...
23:17
You stop using the mind.
23:18
So I'm going to keep doing more languages.
23:20
I've got...
23:21
Spanish to get right up to speed in my stand-up
23:23
and then Arabic and then Russian
23:25
and Mandarin Chinese as well.
23:27
So if you're doing that,
23:29
hopefully you're pushing and pushing.
23:31
Keep doing mountains.
23:32
Keep doing parties.
23:33
Keep making films.
23:35
And that'll keep me active.
23:38
You're exhausting me just telling me about everything you're doing.
23:41
Eddie, it's great to talk to you.
23:42
And thanks for giving us your time.
23:44
Not at all. Good to talk to you.