Eddie Izzard, co-writer and star of Six Minutes Until Midnight: NPR

Eddie Izzard, an innovative comedian who has been much admired, was in a museum in the British resort town of Buckshell-on-Sea, where she spent much of the time as a child, when historians showed her an old badge from the Augusta Victoria Girls’ School. In the thirties. There was a Union Jack on top – and a Nazi swastika.

Inculcate an idea turned into a movie. Six minutes to midnightStarring Izzard, Dam Judi Dench, Jim Broadbent, and Carla Goree. Izzard says that Bexhill-on-Sea has an aristocratic history and at one point there was an astonishing number of schools – including Augusta Victoria School.

“The German girls came to learn English and get to know the British aristocracy,” she says. “It was a Nazi-leaning school with a Nazi swastika in its slogan, as you mentioned, in addition to the Union Jack. They were trying to make friends, and Hitler was trying to make friends with the English because some of the English were to the Nazis, and his idea was that they would be part of the super-Aryan race. And they are moving – perhaps under his authority – to a kind of future that was a Nazi scientist. This is what we based on in our exciting movie. ” Izzard adds that the exciting parts of the story are an artistic license, “but the story of the school being there is quite real.”

Interview highlights

About playing half German, half English teacher Thomas Miller

I think it’s interesting, the idea that he’s half British, half German, you know – Germans don’t trust him, he’s half British. The British do not trust him, he is half German. He’s the kind of actor out of the modern crowd out there, who just wants the world to work and not fall into this Armageddon that he’s about to get into. He comes to school. He is a teacher. But then you find that things are not exactly what they seem.

About the challenges of being a standup comedian writing a screenplay

It’s completely different. And my time, I’m not even writing. I’m sort of developing it out of ideas and kind of attacking it, sort of jazz up, until I got a piece that works. Based on the structure of the story, the characters, and how they interact, I knew that I had to overcome this and develop a capacity for it. I also needed to work with other writers, and working with my other collaborators pushed her there. With the principal being an English woman sympathetic to Nazism, the idea was why not address Judi Dench? And Judy kind of wants to play roles that you weren’t expecting to play. So she was ready to do it. And so we got to this position.

On how the Nazis reacted to the gendered portrayal of a British comedian

I hope Hitler runs in a trench right above Hitler’s bunker, because whatever he represents, I am totally against him. Absolutely against the far right that we thought had gone away in 1945. But of course, those ideas remained stuck and these people fell silent. Then the future generations, you know in your country, my country, the far right still exists and they have this simple thing, why not use lying as a tool of politics? Right-wing politicians use it all the time, and they seem to be back in fashion. So … that was scary in the 1930s, and as we head towards 2030, I try to encourage people to move on. I am fluid between the sexes. I run marathons, do gigs, in different languages, and my nationality.

On performance in other languages

Not all languages, but specifically French, German and Spanish. And I want to add Arabic, because I was born in an Arab country, and Russian, I want to add these too. I feel that you will only reach French if you perform in French. The Germans for history, two world wars when we were on the other side, and the Russians thank them for … the Russian people. It was not Stalin, it was Zhukov, General Zhukov and the Russian people who helped us. Without them, we would not have won the Second World War.

At a time when a number of right-wing politicians around the world say separate, nationalist, quit, let’s go back to the time when everyone hates each other, who you want to hate, well, invent something to satiate the hate. . I’m saying now, the rest of us say, no, make more links, and even stronger links than before. Go to other people in different countries and say, What do you do? Can we learn from you Can you learn from us? How do I put my money in place of my mouth? Well, I’ll give shows in these languages, and prove that humor is really human, not patriotic.

This story was edited for Broadcasting by Barry Hardimon, produced by Samantha Balaban, and adapted for the web by Petra Meyer.