Eddie Izzard interview: “I believe in humanity”

In the lead up to the EU Referendum, Eddie Izzard has been touring university campuses with his ‘Stand up for Europe’ set, encouraging young people to register to vote, and to vote to remain in the EU. I was fortunate enough to have five minutes with him after his show, and we spoke about why he is so passionate about Europe, and how his politics and art are connected.

I begin by asking him what he thought the most important reason for creatively minded students, and people, to vote remain on June 23. “It’s about humanity”, he tells me. “Above all, it’s about humanity. There’s the economy – if you’re creative, you need to be making things, you need the economy to be good so people will buy whatever you’re making or selling or performing, you want people to buy your tickets or your artworks. So we need a good economy – and we’ll go into a recession if we vote Brexit. All the world experts say that. And also we’re going to lose low-cost flights to Europe, we’re going to lose free roaming charges, and we’re going to lose free healthcare around Europe. If you, as an artist, want to be all around Europe, playing, developing and performing your stuff, whatever it is, you lose all of those positive things.”

We learn to come together, live together and work together, in some shape or form, that’s what we do as human beings

We move on to discuss his identity as a European artist. “In comedy terms” he says, “I’m now playing in English, German, French and Spanish, and Germans like Henning Wehn are now performing in English, there are French, Italians, Spaniards and Dutch are performing in English, too. I think this is really beautiful – and it’s never happened before, in the history of our time.” Ultimately, though, we come back to humanity. “We learn to come together, live together and work together, in some shape or form, that’s what we do as human beings. If we track the history of human beings, we were tribal, attacking one another, but gradually we said this doesn’t work and we realised we had to come together. And that’s what the EU was set up to do. To make peace happen. We had two and a half thousand years of war, from Alexander the Great to World War Two, and then we said “stop that”, and we did. I performed on the 72^nd anniversary of the D-Day landings last week in French, to commemorate those who died there, those who fought in those three languages of German, French and English, but ultimately we were there to celebrate 72 years of peace.”

I think Europe is really beautiful – and it’s never happened before, in the history of our time.

I interject; “I suppose it’s a celebration of unity, too?” He agrees. “With peace comes unity”, Eddie tells me, “but we don’t all have to be each other, we don’t have to be homogenised. If we look at the United Kingdom, the Scottish, Welsh, English and Northern Irish have all kept their national identities, but we can still come together to work as team GB. We work fantastically together. It’s the way for humanity to go – if we want to have a world where all seven billion people have a fair chance we have to do it continent by continent. We’re the first continent to ever try to do this. It’s hard to do, it’s a difficult thing, but we’ve got to be inside to drive it forward and to make it better. If not, we’re going to have people despairing in the world, and despair is the fuel of terrorism. Hope is the fuel of civilisation, so let’s keep driving forward, and keep putting hope into the world.”

Unsurprisingly, I asked for a photo. Surprisingly, he offered to make it a selfie! Image: Alexei Warshawski

“So”, I say. “As a creative, why do you feel that artists like yourself become politically active?” However, he tells me that he doesn’t think that they do so all that often. He believes that “people who are creative don’t become hugely active because you’ve got to get through a lot of people shouting at you and disliking you and you’ve got be able to argue almost every argument in the book. I think people become activists, but not necessarily political. So people will happily put their names forwards on letters and petitions – but it’s a little trickier when someone sits you down in a chair and tells you they’re going to ask you a whole bunch of questions about this issue.” At which point, I apologise for sitting him down in a chair and asking him a whole bunch of questions.

Despair is the fuel of terrorism, and hope is the fuel of civilisation. So let’s keep driving forward, and keep putting hope into the world.

“No that’s cool,” he casually replies, “because I’m going into politics. I’m planning to run to be a Member of Parliament in 2020.” He’s been public about this intention in the past, so I asked him how he felt his campaigning and activism would be affected by becoming an elected official. “It will be a slightly different thing”, he explains, “because there’s a believability in politicians, in that people think you should know and understand how everything works. So if you’re not a politician, people can sometimes accuse you that you don’t understand how politics works. However, when you’re outside of the political system, people understand that you have a fresh perspective on issues because you’re not ‘one of them’, you haven’t always been a grey politician. So you try to keep your own identity, and also be political. I’m trying to work out the best way for us all to move forwards. I believe in humanity. I don’t believe in God, but I believe in us.”

I think Napoleon would have thought ‘Wow, that’s crazy! A transvestite Brit who will tour France in French!’

At this point, Eddie’s press officer gives me a stern look, so I hastily press on. “Do you feel like your art, and your work, are separate from your politics? Or are they two related things?” He pauses for the first time since we began talking, before saying “I think that they could be separate, but I’ve made them link. You can be an artist and you can be completely apolitical, or you can be totally gut political. I thought that doing gigs in French would be good for me business-wise, I thought it would be good for me artistically, and I thought it would be great for me politically to say ‘look! I’m doing this! Surely this is moving us forward!’ If a British guy is doing gigs in French, and French guys are doing gigs in English as some of them are, that’s a beautiful thing. It’s 200 years since in the Battle of Waterloo, and I think Napoleon would have thought ‘Wow, that’s crazy! A transvestite Brit who will tour France in French!’”

I’m positive on Europe and positive on the world. I like us! I think most people are really groovy.

I slip in one final question, asking Eddie whether combining his art and politics have made him more European. He corrects me, saying that combining them has made him more political. “I was always positive on Europe”, he says. “I’m positive on Europe and positive on the world. I like us! I think most people are really groovy.”

And with that, we were done. Despite the limited time, it was clear to me how passionate Eddie was about Europe, art and humanity. I won’t be forgetting our meeting any time soon.