Hugh Laurie Frequently Asked Questions

Some new Hugh quotes in this one from KRT News Service

Actor Hugh Laurie admits he's a faker. He always has been.

At first it was in school, where Laurie amassed good grades because he harbors a facility for exams, he says.

Then he conned the world with his acting. At least that's Laurie's humble assessment of his recent success as the irascible, anti-social Dr. House in Fox's hit series, ''House,'' which starts its season Sept. 13.

''I can fake scholarship reasonably well when presented with tricky exam questions,'' he shrugs on a hot, sunny day in the business center of a hotel here.

''I could talk knowledgeably about books I hadn't read … It's sort of a curse. At the time you think it's a blessing. But you look back and say, 'How did I gain from that? I didn't really gain anything like what I should've gained.' It can be a bit of a curse, that easy facility with exams and the process, people who can navigate the process.''

Full article: There's a doctor in the House, and Hugh Laurie plays him

Hugh will appear on The Tonight Show on September 7. Reese Witherspoon is the other guest, so this is NOT a repeat of his guest spot last spring.

Mark your calendars: NBC, Wed Sep 07, 11:35/10:35 PM c

Washington Post on the House Season 1 DVD:

Let's not be misunderstood: Laurie makes the show. Without his eminently watchable turn as a crippled, antisocial, possibly sociopathic, painkiller-addicted but quite brilliant doctor, this would be just another white

Check the Gallery main page for Blackadder the Third screencaps - because there's just not enough Blackadder on the Web.

More to follow.

Hugh has definitely arrived! The Aug. 21-27 issue of TV Guide features Hugh and House on a 6-page spread, plus the cover. The spread includes a 3-page article written by Hugh, on how he came to get the role of House. You can read the article on the Gallery page. If you didn't come here by way of the site homepage, check out the hi-res version of the TV Guide cover.

Check the online edition - there's an Emmy ad for Hugh/House right on the top of the front page.

While it lasts...

It's only a voice role, but Hugh's newest film opens in the U.S. on August 19. He plays Wing Commander Gutsy of the Royal Homing Pigeon Service in this WWII-set animated film.

Brief bit about Hugh's role: "The typical training period follows with a bellowing Sergeant (Jim Broadbent) and a hearty Wing Commander, Gutsy (Hugh Laurie), who drinks his bug juice shaken, not stirred, and entreats his men to view their task with a stiff upper beak." - Hollywood Reporter, April 5, 2005


Reviews

British actor HUGH LAURIE has taken up boxing in a bid to keep his ego at bay.

The HOUSE star, 42, admits he cuts an unlikely figure in the ring, but insists the humiliation of his inevitable defeat ensures his attitude stays in check.

He says, "Boxing is fascinating. It's good for the soul to be made to feel clumsy.

"I swank around during the week thinking I'm a big cheese, but you don't feel like that when you're in the ring with a chap who knows what he's doing. It's ritual humiliation.

"I'm going to be slugged about and probably killed, but I love it and have to do something to keep fit."
17/08/2005 13:39

From ContactMusic.com

From Broadcasting & Cable magazine, online edition:

Critics’ Emmy Picks
OK, we admit it: Curiosity (and impatience) got the best of us. The Emmy awards aren’t until next month, but we decided to poll the most informed group we know, TV critics, for their best guesses about the winners in the major categories. B&C’s Rob Biederman brings you the results.
By Rob Biederman -- Broadcasting & Cable, 8/8/2005

(snipped to good part)

Lead Actor in a Drama Series
Hugh Laurie, House (Fox) 51%
Ian McShane, Deadwood·(HBO) 32%
Hank Azaria, Huff (Showtime) 5%
Kiefer Sutherland, 24 (Fox) 5%
James Spader, Boston Legal (ABC) 5%
“Cranky, brilliant, pill-popping Dr. House is the best new character on TV in years.”
Joe Amarante, New Haven Register
“Voters love those Brits, especially when they can fake an American accent as well as Laurie does.”
Ken Tucker, New York Magazine

Full article

Fox is offering podcasts of House episodes (narration of plot summaries). Check this page. Currently,they list "Heavy" and "Poison."

For greater flexibilty and ease of reading, I've set up a forum for visitor feedback. Please visit Hugh Laurie FAQ Visitor Page. Thanks!

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/entertainment/12332626.htm

“House” (8 tonight, Fox 4). I killed a few hours this weekend watching episodes from the first season of “House,” some of them for the second or third time. (The DVD collection comes out later this month.)

As a result, I’ve decided that “House,” which had been my preseason favorite, was indeed the best new show on television in 2004-2005. Better than “Lost.” Better than “Rescue Me.”

The reason is clear every time Hugh Laurie shows his scruffy mug. Take the episode that airs tonight, about a senator (played by Joe Morton) suddenly afflicted with seizures. If this were just another “CSI” knockoff, where the mystery is the star (and that’s what the show was in its planning stages, I learned from the DVD featurette), you would simply follow the storyline through the various predictably unpredictable turns and commercial breaks until you found the deadly virus, presumably located on the candlestick that Colonel Mustard was brandishing in the kitchen.

That wouldn’t be much of a show. That would be “Medical Investigation,” which was actually the name of a TV series last season.

How fortunate we are, then, that a British comedic actor put on a high-pitched American accent and tried out for the role of Dr. Gregory House, the tortured, sardonic, brilliant infectious diseases specialist. On the show he may induce chaos with his constant barrage of inappropriate remarks (tonight listen for “I was rooting for a really cool tumor” and “If he gets better, I’m right; if he dies, you’re right”), but House, as breathed into life by Laurie, is in fact the organizing force.

And it’s not just all those medical zingers House has at his disposal. A stare here, a pregnant pause there — the guy carries as many scenes with his mute button on. In short, the show is nothing without him.

Tonight isn’t even one of the season’s finest hours; Morton can overact with the best of them, and I never did like the ongoing storyline with Chi McBride as the hospital’s despotic board chairman. I still thought it was better than any hour of any “CSI” I saw last season

scotsman.com

Another Brit making friends on the other side of the pond is Hugh Laurie. Who'd have thought it? Also long established in the national treasure category, Laurie has done the opposite of Gervais by ditching his trademark style and replacing it with something else entirely.

There we were thinking he was destined to play the upper-class buffoon for the rest of his days when all of a sudden he's utterly convincing as a cynical New Jersey doctor.

House isn't like other hospital dramas. It belongs to the mystery genre rather than the medical, replacing whodunit with "whatdunit and how many hours do we have to fix it and save the patient's life?"

As House, Laurie is the obsessive doc, anti-social, with a bad leg and possibly addicted to painkillers. When all else are ready to give up and turn off the ventilator, he's gone back to the textbook to try and find a better diagnosis. This week's episode involved a jazz musician who'd given up on life, his body gradually being taken over by paralysis.

Just like House, we knew there'd been a misdiagnosis somewhere along the line.

But this time the patient had signed a "do not resuscitate" order, so House had to break the law and have his day in court before getting his own way. His team of young doctors were split over whether to break the law with him or abandon him, but when you have one-liners like House, no-one can stand in your way. Accused of being a loner, House replies: "There's no 'I' in team, but there is a 'me' if you jumble it up."

The snappy soundbites keep things ticking over, but this isn't the place to come if you like your hospital drama in the ER mould, with a life to be saved every five minutes and graphic medical procedures unfolding onscreen. It comes to the boil very slowly, and you can almost hear House's brain ticking. He's one of those characters who would be unbearable in real life but for the purposes of television, he's all you could ask for. Arrogant, tenacious and destined to rub people up the wrong way. And then you have to pinch yourself when you suddenly remember that it really is Laurie onscreen. Proof that not all British comedy stars end up treading water.

Article/interview from the press tour - many Hugh quotes:
Irascibility Reaps Ratings, Detroit Free Press, 8/2/05

Snippet from report on Fox's summer party:

"Veteran British actor Hugh Laurie ("House") stood for an hour through a barrage of questions, answering with wit and character. Of his iconoclastic hero House, Laurie says that the doctor he plays may not be a people person, but he's a hero nonetheless.

"House has sacrificed love, friendship and his own personal comfort to get at the truth, to solve mysteries concerning the diseases of others," Laurie says. "In British TV, we don't do heroes, and this is a nice change." -- From Inside Bay Area, 8/2/05

Snippet of interview with Hugh and Sela Ward:

HOUSE CALL: Beautiful Sela Ward (Once and Again), who joined the cast of House late last season as the ex-Mrs. House, was asked about her instant chemistry with Emmy-nominated series lead Hugh Laurie.

The two actors really convey the closeness of their characters. How do they conjure up that "palatable past history?'' the critic from New York asked.

Ward had the answer. "We sleep together.'' Pause. "Is that wrong?''

The critic from New York could not leave it at that. "Does that work better for one of you than the other?''

"Easy now,'' Laurie said.

He went on to credit a "very sound, true script'' for that "palatable past history'' thing. "We are professionals,'' he continued, suddenly getting very English. -- From Edmonton Sun, 8/1/05

Watch an interview with Hugh on the Extra website:

Click the Video button at top left.

USA Today:
Hot 'House" Stars Relish Roles

Orlando Sentinel:

There is a doctor in the 'House'

David Shore's quote: "I think it's the blue eyes."

USA Today:
Hot 'House" Stars Relish Roles

Orlando Sentinel:

There is a doctor in the 'House'

David Shore's quote: "I think it's the blue eyes."