Eddie Izzard

Suzy Eddie Izzard, born Edward John Izzard on 7 February 1962 in Aden — then part of the Aden Colony and now Yemen — is a British stand-up comedian, actor, and activist. Izzard's parents were Dorothy Ella Izzard, a midwife and nurse, and Harold John Michael Izzard, an accountant employed by British Petroleum in Aden at the time of her birth. The family surname is of French Huguenot origin. Izzard has an older brother, Mark, born two years before her. When Izzard was one year old, the family relocated to Bangor in Northern Ireland, and later moved to Skewen in Wales. Her mother died of cancer when Izzard was six. Following her mother's death, Izzard attended St John's School in Newton, St Bede's Prep School in Eastbourne, and Eastbourne College. She subsequently studied drama at the University of Sheffield. Izzard has said she knew she was transgender at the age of four and knew she wanted to be an actor at the age of seven.

Izzard began developing her comedic voice while at university alongside her friend Rob Ballard, and the two performed street comedy in London's Covent Garden district. After the partnership ended, Izzard spent much of the early 1980s as a street performer across Europe and the United States, crediting solo escape acts — and the audience interaction they required — as the foundation of her comedic style. She gave her first stage comedy appearance at the Comedy Store in London in 1987, and by the early 1990s had begun earning wider recognition through improvisation, in part at her own club, Raging Bull, in Soho. A breakthrough moment came in 1991 when she performed her "raised by wolves" routine on the televised Hysteria 3 AIDS benefit. Her stand-up tours have included Live at the Ambassadors (1993), Definite Article (1996), Glorious (1997), Dress to Kill (1998), Circle (2000), Stripped (2009), Force Majeure (2013), and Wunderbar (2022). For the comedy special Dress to Kill, Izzard won two Primetime Emmy Awards: Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program and Outstanding Writing for a Variety or Music Program. Beyond English, Izzard has performed stand-up in French, Arabic, German, Russian, and Spanish.

Izzard's stage acting career began in 1994 with her West End drama debut in the world premiere of David Mamet's The Cryptogram at London's Comedy Theatre, alongside Lindsay Duncan. That same year she took a starring role in David Beaird's black comedy 900 Oneonta, and in 1995 she portrayed the title character in Christopher Marlowe's Edward II. In 1999, she played comedian Lenny Bruce in a production of Julian Barry's play Lenny. In 2001, Izzard replaced Clive Owen in Peter Nichols' 1967 play A Day in the Death of Joe Egg at the Comedy Theatre, opposite Victoria Hamilton.

Izzard's Broadway career spans 2003 to 2009. In 2003, she and Hamilton reprised their roles in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg for the Roundabout Theatre Company's Broadway production, marking both performers' Broadway debuts. The revival received four Tony Award nominations, including Best Revival of a Play, Best Leading Actor for Izzard, Best Leading Actress for Hamilton, and Best Direction for Laurence Boswell. Izzard received the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play for that performance. In June 2010, she joined the Broadway cast of David Mamet's Race, replacing James Spader in the role of Jack Lawson.

Izzard's film work began with The Secret Agent in 1996 and has encompassed a range of roles, including Roman Nagel in Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007), General Erich Fellgiebel in Valkyrie (2008), Charlie Chaplin in The Cat's Meow, Gustav von Wangenheim in Shadow of the Vampire, and Robert Watson-Watt in the BBC drama Castles in the Sky. Additional film credits include Mr Kite in Across the Universe, Lussurioso in Revengers Tragedy, and appearances in Absolutely Anything (2015) and Six Minutes to Midnight (2020). Her voice work includes the titular character in Five Children and It (2004), Nigel in The Wild (2006), Reepicheep in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, and roles in The Lego Batman Movie (2017) and the Netflix series Green Eggs and Ham (2019). On television, Izzard starred in The Riches from 2007 to 2008, appeared as Dr. Hatteras in Showtime's United States of Tara, played Dr. Abel Gideon in six episodes of Hannibal between 2013 and 2015, appeared in the 2009 BBC miniseries The Day of the Triffids, and had a role in The Lost Symbol in 2021.

Outside of performance, Izzard completed 43 marathons in 51 days for Sport Relief in 2009, despite having no prior history of long-distance running. In 2016, she ran 27 marathons in 27 days in South Africa in honour of Nelson Mandela, raising £1.35 million. As a Labour Party activist, Izzard twice ran unsuccessfully for the party's National Executive Committee and joined the committee after Christine Shawcroft resigned in March 2018. In 2022 and 2023, she sought to become the party's prospective parliamentary candidate for Sheffield Central and Brighton Pavilion respectively, but was not selected in either members' ballot. Izzard is also an active supporter of Europeanism and the European Union.