Eddie Izzard: I once ran 90 kilometers in under 12 hours. That was a difficult day’| Eddie Izzard

When you first started performing the one-woman play Hamlet, how much effort did you put into delivering the play’s most famous lines, such as “To be or not to be”?

The first thing I found when I was rehearsing Hamlet was that I felt at home. “This is so extraordinary,” I thought, “I must be shaking in my boots!” I felt very comfortable and happy to be there. But the first time I performed “To Be or Not to Be” on stage, there He was Feeling – Aren’t the bells supposed to ring here? Aren’t there supposed to be klaxons?

I come to “be” a little differently each night, so hopefully the audience hasn’t seen it done this way before. I’ve been a street performer for years, so I know how to talk to an audience, which is what they did in Shakespeare’s time; They were performing to People, not them. Actors got into this fourth wall theme in the 19th century, and it didn’t exist in the Elizabethan era. The actors say: “Oh, da da da da” and look at the sky – while I will talk to the audience and bring them in. They’re part of my mind, they’re part of Hamlet’s brain.

What do you think is the most popular thing in popular culture?

I think George Lazenby did a good job as James Bond. Some people think he didn’t, but I think Her Majesty’s Secret Service program really works. Telly Savalas and Diana Rigg did a fantastic job, and the whole bloody thing is great. It was the first time I saw it with my brother on a school trip, and I loved it. I’ve loved Bond ever since. “It’s okay, she’s taking a break” – what a tragic ending. It’s a beautiful movie. It’s a shame Lazenby didn’t do more, but that was a good thing.

You’ve performed new spins on some of your best-loved stand-up routines on the remix tour. Have you been surprised by which of your routines stick in people’s minds?

When some took off, yeah, I could never tell what they would be. The Death Star canteen is the one that stayed the longest. On the remix tour, I spin it – just like Madonna did a remix of “Like A Virgin” and turned it into a German torch song and slowed the tempo right down, I could do my story about Darth Vader blowing up the planet Alderaan and deciding to go party in the Death Star cafeteria. There’s a woman behind the counter who keeps saying, “You need a tray.” And he says, “I don’t need a tray. Do you know who I am?” He plays status games with her and she just says, “Just bring a tray!”

Everyone knows this routine now. But as I said to the Monty Python team when they were performing live – I said to John Cleese, “Don’t worry if you get it wrong, because people like it because they’ve seen it right so many times.” So I deliberately made it go wrong – Daphne du Maurier now shows up in the Death Star canteen and is going to make a sequel to The Birds.

I think about the evil giraffe a lot.

The evil giraffe is fun. This is strange. The first time I moved as a giraffe, people loved it. The idea was, can you have an evil giraffe? What would that look like? Will they eat more leaves than they should? I like the idea of ​​a giraffe with a thin pencil moustache.

I have run over 100 marathons. Which was the most difficult?

The marathons I ran on the treadmill were extremely difficult. Don’t try it – there’s nothing to look at! But the hardest one, and people should know this if they’ve ever run a marathon, was when I was in Northern Ireland, where I lived as a kid. I fled where I was living in Bangor, near Belfast. On the western side of Belfast it gets very hilly, and it goes up and up. I thought if I made it to the top of the hill, I would be done. So I got up there and I could see how far I had come and I was in a pretty good place. Then I realized I had miscalculated, I had six more miles to go. Just when you think you’re done, six miles gets really exhausting.

There was also the double marathon I did in South Africa, where I ran 27 marathons in 27 days. I spent one day in the hospital, so I ran a double marathon on the last day to make up for it. I ended up covering 90km in less than 12 hours. That was a difficult day.

What are you secretly good at?

Sword fighting. In Hamlet, I’m in a sword fight against myself, so no one knows I can do it well. But I was a swordfighter at Covent Garden for a few years, so I know what I’m doing.

We’d ask you about the biggest fashion crimes people commit, but you’ve worn some amazing clothes at your own shows, do you still keep them?

Lots of them in stock. There were some wonderful pieces by Gaultier. There’s one I wore on stage in a specific article – it was orange and had good shoulders. On press night, a button fell and everyone heard it. I found it and someone threw in a box a sewing kit that they took from their hotel to the theater, which was very funny. So I decided to sew the button on in real time, while giving my presentation. I thought: “I’ve committed to this now, I have to make sure I do it.” This coat is still there and you can see where I sewed it.

What is the biggest disaster you have faced on stage?

Once the stage was flooded and all the lights were out, I only had one light on the podium on the stage. I said, “Let’s tell ghost stories!” And I tried to make up my own ghost stories while they were trying to fix the lights. That was a big mistake.

Another time, I was in South Africa and all the lights went out. I had them turn it off, took out my phone, turned on the phone light, and told another ghost story – apparently my way out of the disaster.

In Hannibal, there’s a scene where Hannibal Lecter (Mas Mikkelsen) makes your character, Abel Gideon, eat the snails that were feeding on his severed body parts. What did you actually eat in this scene?

They made me some mushrooms that looked like snails. It’s a wonderful sight! I decided to stab them with this long fork and in one shot the fork fell off the table onto the floor, which is the fork they used – I thought that was interesting. I loved that scene, where I was competing with Mads. It was a very scary show but its presentation wasn’t scary. We filmed it in Toronto, and at the time the mayor of Toronto was filmed doing cocaine. So we’d be on set saying, “Did you see that? Oh my God, that’s terrible. Anyway, when you cut up the body…” Everything we were doing was absolutely terrible!

What is your most embarrassing encounter with another celebrity?

You know, they were all very good! This is the opposite of reprehensible. I was at the opening of Ocean’s 13 in Los Angeles. I was only in Oceans 13 for a few scenes, but I went to the red carpet. I wasn’t talking to people, because you can’t barge your way in and say [grandly]”Yes, yes, let me tell you things!” When I’m just a small supporting role. So I was standing in the back when Brad Pitt came shooting. Brad was in a relationship at the time and didn’t want to be on the red carpet, so he moved very quickly and dropped down next to me. So we just hang out and talk. Someone came up and said, “There’s a group photo, Brad, you should do it.” He said, “You’re coming too!” He pulled me into the group photo. So that was nice.

Do you have an enemy?

No, but I will say that I wasn’t interested in Margaret Thatcher’s politics, and when her career stalled, my career really started to take off. I don’t think it was related but it seemed to go the same way. Her policy was not my policy. She wasn’t interested in people.