Quotes from Hugh
On Jeeves and Wooster/P.G. Wodehouse
On House
On Stephen (and himself)
On parenthood
On his childhood
On the Boat Race
On acting
On humor
His friends and colleagues:
Mary Nicholson, his classmate as well as the daughter of his housemaster at Eton, remembered him ten years later as "...the funniest person that I have ever met, and the strongest character." (She also felt that he was "probably going to be extremely famous.") (Eton Voices, 1988) In a December 1992 GQ cover story by Suzie Mackenzie, Emma Thompson describes him at Cambridge as "very, very loveable" but also says, "The thing you have to realise about Hugh is that he was born prematurely disillusioned." In the same article, Stephen Fry calls him a "remarkable man," but goes on to complain that "he won't use his talents. He is a brilliant musician....He has a fantastic singing voice, which he'll never use, to my despair. And all because he's terrified of appearing cocky." And Ben Elton refers to his "extraordinary versatility," and says, "He could be, if he wanted, a serious actor. His range is enormous, he has great intelligence." But, "Hugh's problem is that he is afflicted with serious self-doubt. It's debilitating for him and for his friends as well....He's a whinger. And a thinker."
More recently, Hugh's House co-stars and colleagues had this to say:
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"I think he's hot. He's a sex bomb." - Lisa Edelstein (Dr. Cuddy)
"The irreverence of the character, and he is gorgeous." - SEla Ward on the appeal of House
Lynn Barber, writing in the Daily Telegraph, 5-4-96:
"The man who walks into the Langham Hotel is so handsome, tall, well built, tousle-haired, generally gorgeous, that I don't immediately recognize him as Hugh Laurie...he has a sex appeal that one simply never associates with Hugh Laurie. I read that Emma Thompson went out with him at Cambridge and thought, 'Why did she bother?' As soon as I saw him I thought, 'Why didn't she marry him?' "
"He is the sort of chap that older public school chaps go all misty-eyed over - decent, clean-limbed, straight bat, someone you could go into the jungle with....But then Laurie is not really the Boys' Own paragon he likes to portray....The real Laurie is probably closer to the uptight, anguished husband he played so well in the film Peter's Friends. But the real Hugh Laurie is not easy to find."
"I think the key to Hugh Laurie is suppressed competitiveness....He belongs to that olde English public school tradition wherein..wanting to win is rather poor form...reinforced by his upbringing with its emphasis on humility and self-effacement...competing at the highest levels of [a] sport while simultaneously maintaining an ideal of self-effacement....That, I think, accounts for the sort of baffle he puts up - the hesitancy, the self-disparagement, the constant claims to amateurism."
Suzie Mackenzie, in British GQ, December 1992:
"With his matinee idol good looks, his lanky elegance thrown across his 900cc Kawasaki Z1, he could pass, if he chose, for the archtypal ladykiller - glamorous, sexy and with a hint of what he calls menace, a moody turbulence that plays around the eyes. The idea plainly horrifies him."
"His conversation is peppered with Woosterisms, wide-eyed exclamations of 'Golly' and 'Gosh,' the innocent means by which he hopes to convince you that he is a simpleton....You would be much deceived. His mind is as sharp as a tack."
"His mind is pin-sharp. If he comes across as vague, baffled, uncertain and modest to a tiresome degree, it is only his way of putting the boot in before you or anyone else can." - Deborah Ross, Daily Mail, 12-7-96
"This is Laurie the public man: successful, funny, and actually much more handsome than he appears on screen. However, when we are reunited in a smart office at his publishers, he comes across quite differently. For one who has been so successful, Laurie is surprisingly short of confidence, and surprisingly frank about this. Far from being bored by compliments, he seems to need a flow of them, and even then he is unconvinced that he deserves them." - The Scotsman, May 10, 1996
"I had no idea he was going to come across all cool and Hell's-Angels-like. Nor did I realize he was a 6 ft. 2 former Cambridge oarsman, very well-built and surprisingly macho." - Bob Carlos Clarke, Nov. 8, 1997, speaking in the Daily Mirror about a photo session for the 1998 PowerGen calendar in aid of the British Red Cross
"Hugh Laurie was charming...he was effusively apologetic about being a couple of minutes late and could not have been a more interesting, thoughtful and funny interviewee." - June 1996