|
The Criminal The Criminal is
to be released on video on 14th May 2001 in the UK
|
|
Here Eddie is
interviewed by J Eddie Izzard has swapped frocks for fingerprints in his role as a forensic scientist in new movie The Criminal. Here 'action transvestite' Eddie talks to Jonathan Ross about nipples, big knickers and the European film industry. Eddie, can I ask you not to sing during the interview, but to listen to the questions and preferably respond. We're here on the set of your movie. There are a number of people on the movie, but I think it's really 'my story.' I say this about every film I've been in! Tell me about 'The Criminal.' I felt it was a thriller and then Julian (Simpson), the director mentioned film noir, but now it's slightly different. It's new wave film noir - film gris, perhaps. He'd describe it better, but the main character is having a bad day, basically. It's quite unusual to see you looking so dreary, you're normally quite a glamorous chap. Yeah, well I play someone who's a forensic scientist, so one has to look somewhat dreary, because forensics isn't that big or fast. It's not like, 'Hey let's get in our cars and drive to our next forensic sight! Where's my E-type Jag, I've got a forensic job to do!' You're more like Quincy... No - he's pathology, which is dead people. I'm forensic, I'm saying I think this guy's dead. As always I'm humbled by your knowledge. Well, I was going round saying I was a pathologist. And Julian said no, you're a forensic scientist, so those three months of background research as a pathologist were wasted. I was living on a farm in Abyssinia, dissecting things. One thinks making movies is glamorous, but here we are in Bethnal Green - no disrespect - but it's not the most glamorous spot in London, and it's freezing cold. Not the most glamorous, but then it has this kind of gritty realism that we do so well in Europe. And it's got that Long Good Friday kind of touch to it, man. How do you combat the chill? You just wear big knickers. And stand by a big heater and say 'can we get a heater somewhere,' and then eventually heaters come. And we've got one at the moment, it's very red. You should film it because it's an enormously red heater. You know how heaters glow quite hot, this one just like . . . I'm gonna ask you again because I want you to tell me about your thermals. How do you combat the cold, Eddie? I do it by wearing thermals. Tell me about the cast. I know you've got one or two people from Lock, Stock And Two Shooting Barrels Yes, except that's a different film. Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was a big hit, but two shooting barrels was a different film that didn't quite make the grade. I was there on the set. That was the working title. Yes. They were working through it. Steven Macintosh is the main character who was in Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, which was also shot here, as well as Velvet Goldmine and just about everything. And Bernard Hill's in it. We were just looking at nipples in a magazine. So it's not all drugs... No, it's not all drugs, there's a lot more nipples involved in it. You've been in a lot of films, The Secret Agent, The Avengers, and more. The Mystery Men which has just finished in LA, which was also shot in places where it was freezing. It was downtown LA, with big flyovers. So when directors think of a cold set, they think of you Actually there's a French actor in
this film called Ivan, who had a great line which I think I'm going to
steal. He said, 'I am a lover, I am not a killer.' He plays the killer.
'I'm a lover, I'm not a killer' and I think I need to go to casting
agents and say 'I'm a lover, I can really only do those roles.' Let's talk about your acting. When I was seven I said 'I'm going to be an actor'. And then I'd break into the film studios at 15. I'm a film nut. I know everything about films. Ask me something. Who directed Harold Lloyd's first feature? Oh, I don't know. Nor do I, that's why I need this information. You could have said anything. Jeff Bridges. Lloyd's Dad, long breeches. Tell me about The Secret Agent. Secret Agent, Russian Diplomat who spoke French as well, and my first scene ever, with Bob Hoskins, opening day, six page sequence, a huge sequence, with a Russian actor and everything, so very scary. What am I analysing? Was it a good performance? I thought it was fine, I had one good look where I would go to the mirror and I'd turn round like that, and I'd think - that's a film look, and I thought I've got to do a lot more of those. Because you've got to be. You can't big this out. You've gotta just exist. Steve McQueen used to take out dialogue scenes and just put in scenes where he was staring across with his blue eyes across a cafe. You're a big Steve McQueen fan, aren't you? Yeah, because I'm an action transvestite. I haven't seen Velvet Goldmine, what's your opinion of it? Well I loved it, it's not totally successful, it's (director) Todd Haynes' problem, Todd drives it where he wants, but he knew exactly what he wanted to do. It was a shooting script when we got it and not a big mainstream Die Hard-type movie, but it's a beautiful film and I really enjoyed doing the role. And people seemed to be quite pleased with what I've done. People said very positive things back to me. But to your face it's very hard to be honest... Well no, I've tried to check that because I've found the thing is, if people really hated you but get on with you so don't want to say it to your face, they just say I didn't see it. And no one can really check that. I really didn't see it. I know, but that's the easy way to deal with it. But the thing I'm trying to say is not that I was actually that great, but I think I was fine, I held the dramatic role together, but I think people were expecting me to be a gaggy kind of guy, and they were kind of surprised by that so they gave me extra points. I would have liked to have more layers and be able to push more. Was the movie what Todd hoped it would be? Yeah. He said he wanted something that would stick around and confuse people and create different waves. Obviously it confused them: people loved it, people hated it. The Avengers got some terrible reviews but I find it curiously satisfying. Yeah, it's not as bad as everyone made out. It was lined up to be shot down. Warners really wanted to land it and so thought, 'Oh we're not sure what the reaction's going to be, we don't think it's going to be what we want it to be, so we won't show it to anyone.' And it just pissed all the reviewers off and all the critics were people who would have loved the Emma Peel, the Diana Rigg, Patrick McNee, specifically that chemistry of those pairings, because they love that. It was very true to the offbeat perspective that the series had. The really strange idea of giant teddy bears fighting on top of scaffolding. I was Orange Teddybear. I thought Teddy Orange was the best of the teddies. Well I really did a lot of teddy research. I... You just did your gag over my gag! I heard Ralph (Fiennnes) and Uma (Thurman) did not get on at all. I didn't get a whiff of that. You can never quite tell what's going down, but I didn't see that. I think there's always a certain amount of edge on set. I didn't get on with anyone, but no one cared. I was specifically going there to not get on with people, to create a stir. The Criminal is almost finished. Is it going to be a big commercial success? I hope so. I think it's in the British thriller type thing. It isn't a huge budget, and I'm not Brad Pitt and neither are you. So we're not coming in at that level, but it's one of those ones where people are gonna go, 'Oh!' And it'll have legs, and run away. Do you feel in the shadow of Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels? No, we're in the slipstream, baby. Not the shadow, and in the slipstream you actually go faster with a film in front of you, and you can get right up behind it and overtake. Like migrating geese. They fly in formation and the draught from the ones in front keeps the ones behind going. London films and British actors used to be a novelty. Do you see a big change there? Yeah, I think there is. What happens is that Europe needs to have a European film industry. We should have people with the balls to do it. We should be able to do it here in Europe. We don't need the sunshine of LA, we've got the sunshine of South of Europe, and what we do need is pan-European television stations, so that one person can go on and just do an interview to the whole of Europe and then we'll say 'Hey, that film's out tomorrow, let's go and see it in Europe.' We've got 500 million people here. Even though there's a war going on and the whole of Eastern Europe has gone crazy, apart from that, I think it's something that's got to happen tomorrow. Five hundred million is a fair bunch of people - it's more than America's got. I think you're a very good actor I don't think I have any specific talent for anything, except for I'm completely open to letting in anything. I really want to learn. I will just go up to it. And film I've been after, since I was a wee kid watching The Prisoner. When a film script comes via your agent what do you look for? I read the script and I thought 'Yes.' My agent also reads my scripts. She's sort of got into my head and picks out the ones she thinks I like. I'm a very slow reader, and I just can't get through tons of scripts. This one just appealed to me as my character's a bit of a shithead. As much of a shithead as I wanted to be and I like playing shitheads. And Julian's the director, first time director and he's a kid. He's a baby! But he's got it all going on. I saw him briefly downstairs. He's what - 12, 13? Thirteen. I think it's the way of the future. He's having a nap right now. He's having an Orangina.
|
|
The
Criminal Philip French Sunday January 14, 2001 Julian Simpson's The Criminal adheres to a more
recent mythic model, calling his victim-hero 'J' (Steven Mackintosh),
the way Franz Kafka named the protagonist of The Trial 'K'. His J is a
sad, down-at-heel London musician who gets sucked into an insane,
subterranean intrigue involving Scotland Yard and a secret freelance
intelligence agency that functions only through a website. Minute by
minute this paranoid thriller grabs you, with sharp contributions from
Bernard Hill, Holly Aird and Eddie Izzard. But it never makes sense,
socially or politically, the way its 1970s American models - The
Parallax View, All the President's Men - do. However, it's a
professionally turned movie, worthy of commercial distribution. The
Criminal Peter Bradshaw Friday January 12, 2001 At just 23, Julian Simpson has made a formidably
promising feature debut with this convoluted thriller, which he has
written and directed, taking its cue from Prime Suspect and The Usual
Suspects. Steven Mackintosh is on characteristically intense
and unsmiling form as J, an unemployed musician who finds himself in a
bar one night chatting up the beautiful and mysterious Sarah (Natasha
Little). When Sarah's body is found in his flat, J obviously finds
himself in the frame and he goes on the run from bloated, malign copper
Bernard Hill. Between them, Simpson and his producer-editor Mark
Aarons have come up with some very creepy and effective scenes, and
there's some nicely underplayed support from Eddie Izzard as the
pathologist. It all gets a bit too tangled and absurd by the final reel,
however, and I couldn't help feeling that the sinister and enigmatic
Shackleton organisation - supposedly the key to everything - had become
a script-alibi for plot lines that otherwise wouldn't tie up. But this
is undeniably a strong beginning from Simpson. No,
but seriously Having conquered the stage with his stand-up shows,
cross-dressing comic Eddie Izzard is now seeking big-screen success, and
a mastery of European languages Steve Rose Saturday January 6, 2001 When you're a famous stand-up comic renowned for
spontaneous wit and generous make-up, the prospects for being taken
seriously as a film actor are slim from the outset. Having registered in
the American market, winning two Emmys last year for his Dress To Kill
video, and even performed successfully in French, it's a surprise that
Eddie Izzard bothered. But the 38-year-old former street performer is
due to crop up on the big screen a great deal over the coming year,
starting with his role as a forensic scientist in British conspiracy
thriller The Criminal. Your acting career in
general seems to be going very well these days. I've still got a lot to learn, especially
technique, I'm taking lessons. Then again I couldn't do stand-up when
started out, not to save my life, so that doesn't put me off. But I've
wanted to be an actor since I was seven. So it was part of the plan I
guess. Have you found it hard to
be taken seriously? Well I totally expected that. That's why I chose
never to do sitcom on TV. When stand-up was taking off I decided to stay
off TV for the prime reason that I didn't want to get too well known,
which has made it easier to do something else now. In Britain a lot of
people still don't really know who I am. It's like, "Oh yeah, he's
that guy on some chat show, I don't know what he does, he puts on
lipstick doesn't he?" I think America's like that as well - so not
that many people associate me with stand-up here either. Your look in The Criminal
seems a long way from your stage image. Yeah, that's how my dad looked when he was 30. I'm
nicking his look. Did you enjoy playing
against your established persona? I don't really see it like that because offstage,
comedians are really solemn bastards anyway. They develop comedy as a
social tool at school, then you go professional and you do it all the
time on stage, and you become less and less funny off stage, so you
become a solemn bastard. My natural "me" is sort of fairly
serious. So playing a solemn bastard on film is sort of a change, it's
easier. Were you attracted by the
conspiracy-thriller elements? Oh yeah. I love film thrillers and it was fun to
get in there and play a lie - hopefully I've got away with it. I'm sort
of fascinated by real-life conspiracies, but I don't get totally into
them because it just takes too much time. There are people who seem to
spend their whole life locked around what's going on with UFOs in Area
51, or whatever. It's just an area! There's more to life! What are you doing next? You've still got Shadow Of The Vampire to come out
here, about the making of Nosferatu. I play the big-assed guy who's a
bad actor. And I'm in Berlin at the moment shooting a film called The
Cat's Meow directed by Peter Bogdanovich. I'm playing Charlie Chaplin.
It's based on the story of William Randolph Hearst shooting someone on
his boat trip. Supposedly it had something to do with Chaplin dallying
with Marion Davies, who was Hearst's mistress. No one really knows what
happened. What does all this acting
mean for your comedy career? Nothing at all really. I'm stopping touring for two
or three years and so I've got an open period if great roles come in. I
want Kevin Spacey's cast-offs - after several other actors have turned
them down. I could do stand-up till I drop though. I'm learning German
so I can do gigs in Berlin. So how is it going? Er, mein is sehr gut, er. Just say, "he spoke
very good German", will you? |
onathan Ross for BBC Film 99
