Suzy Eddie Izzard, also known professionally as Eddie Izzard, is a British stand-up comedian, actor and activist. Her comedic style takes the form of what appears to the audience as rambling whimsical monologues.
Izzard was born Edward John Izzard in Aden, Yemen on 7 February 1962 to English parents. Izzard identifies as genderfluid and prefers she/her pronouns but "doesn't mind" he/him. Izzard went by Eddie as a personal name until 2023, when she prepended it with Suzy, saying that she is happy to go by either name: "People can choose what they want. They can't make a mistake. They can't go wrong." She continues to use Eddie in professional contexts.
When Izzard was a year old, the family moved to Northern Ireland and settled in Bangor, where they lived until Izzard was five. The family then moved to Wales, where they lived in Skewen. Izzard studied drama at the University of Sheffield.
Izzard's stand-up comedy 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). She starred in the television series The Riches (2007–2008) and has appeared in numerous films, including Ocean's Twelve (2004), Ocean's Thirteen (2007), Valkyrie (2008), Absolutely Anything (2015) and Six Minutes to Midnight (2020). Izzard has also worked as a voice actor on films such as Five Children and It (2004), The Wild (2006), The Lego Batman Movie (2017) and the Netflix original series Green Eggs and Ham (2019). Among various accolades, she won two Primetime Emmys for Dress to Kill and was nominated for a Tony Award for her Broadway performance in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg.
In 2009, Izzard completed 43 marathons in 51 days for Sport Relief, despite having no 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. In addition to her native English, she has performed stand-up in Arabic, French, German, Russian and Spanish, and is an active supporter of Europeanism and the European Union.
A dedicated Labour Party activist, Izzard twice ran unsuccessfully for the party's National Executive Committee and then joined as the most successful initially non-elected person after Christine Shawcroft resigned in March 2018. In 2022 and 2023, Izzard attempted to become the party's prospective parliamentary candidate (for Sheffield Central and Brighton Pavilion respectively); she was not selected in the members' ballots.
