A Right Charlie

Following Robert Downey Jnrs award-winning performance in Chaplin might have undone a lesser man, but Eddie Izzard seems to have nailed the role in his new film The Cat's Meow. The film, which had its UK premiere at the London film festival last night (8 November 2001), is a 20s set murder mystery based on a true-life scandal of shipboard murder aboard the luxury yacht of newspaper bigwig Randolph Hearst. "In the end I did it by ignoring every visual record we have about Chaplin," Izzard told Empire Online of playing the legendary screen icon. "I must admit I was never into his comedy, I thought it was a bit weird that 80 years ago his comedy was found hysterically funny and I didn't find it funny at all. But after a while I got to understand him a bit more and it really is funny." Izzard's portrayal of Chaplin is something that earned more than a passing nod from his co-stars who were singularly impressed by his ability to bring the actor to life as a real person. "He's extraordinary," Joanna Lumley told us. "He doesn't do Chaplin - All of us were asked in the beginning not to try to impersonate ideas of the people we play, because that's a stupid way to go. It's extraordinary, he becomes a Chaplin we can know and believe, because we've never seen Chaplin, we've only seen him acting. We've seen the Little Tramp but we've never seen the real Chaplin and that's what Eddie shows us."