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A very English icon
Hugh Laurie rocketed to international stardom in the US TV series House – last year, the hospital drama attracted a record worldwide audience of 81.8 million. Gabrielle Donnelly talked to the actor, and discovered a modest, unassuming man who is torn by separation from his family in the UK
Hugh Laurie worries about his American accent. “It tends to slip,” he says with a dissatisfied frown. Then he quickly corrects himself. “Well, it doesn’t really slip, because a slip would be something I was unaware of, and I am very much aware that I am constantly making mistakes. We are very aware of accents, we British, aren’t we? We’re terrible snobs, and obsessed by language and what it reveals about people’s backgrounds, their class and education – a nation of Professor Higginses, really. I hear myself making mistakes on the set all the time, and it drives me mad when I cannot get a word right.”
We are meeting – amid trolleys and off-camera bangs and crashes – on the set of House, the hugely acclaimed American TV show in which he plays the brilliant but insufferable doctor of the same name.
He’s about the only one who does worry about the accent. During the five years since he took on the role of Dr Gregory House, misanthrope, painkiller-addict, and genius, Hugh has become so closely associated with the character that many American fans of the show have forgotten that he is British at all. The series hit the 2009 Guinness Book of Records last year as the World’s Most Popular TV Show, with an estimated 81.8 million viewers in 66 countries. It has won fistfuls of awards, and earlier this summer Sky TV snapped up the new, fifth series for prime-time viewing in Britain. It is a huge hit in France, with more than 10 million viewers. There, Laurie’s maverick anti-hero has been dubbed “the greatest seducer in the world” which, considering their president’s antics, is some accolade. And all for a fictional character who, if you were unfortunate enough to meet him, would be every bit as likely to take away your painkillers as to take your pulse.
“He’s certainly no angel,” Hugh agrees of his alter ego. “I think if he existed in real life, he would have been quite quickly punched by someone. But I think a reason that people seem to like him so much on television – apart from his entertainment value – is that all of us want to believe that, somewhere in the world, there is somebody out there who has got the answer.
“I think we’re all a bit baffled and bewildered by life. We can’t quite make sense of it, and are probably rather frightened by it a lot of the time. And to feel that there is someone who is smart enough and determined enough and ruthless enough to work out how things function and to reach the answer on how to deal with them... I think in a way that is a reassuring thing. I don’t know if those people actually exist, but it’s an attractive idea to have. Well, it is to me, anyway.”
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