“To make the world work, you can’t have some of us doing fine and billions below the poverty line,” said Eddie Izzard, a comedian known for his challenging humor and gender-bending outfits. “This century, we’re going to have to make it work for all seven billion people, otherwise I don’t think the outlook is good for humanity.”
These sorts of proclamations are perhaps not what one might expect from a performer with a knack for cerebral jokes about historical popes and the Heimlich maneuver, or for playing Voldemort in The LEGO Batman Movie. But Izzard, who’s currently in the midst of a book/comedy tour that includes a stop in Seattle on June 20, is preparing for the unlikeliest costume change of his career, a change for which he’s been quietly laying plans since 2008. In the next few years, he says, he’s going to run for office.
