Hugh Laurie

• 1. Introduction

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  Hugh Laurie recorded the audition tape for his most famous role in the bathroom of a hotel in Namibia. It was the only room where the light was good enough. He was in Africa to film The Flight of the Phoenix, and a man named Jacob Vargas operated the camera.

  The tape went off to Hollywood. The man on it was playing an American doctor, and he was English. Before that moment, he had spent years in British comedy, and before that, in a boat on the river.

  How does an English comedian with a degree in anthropology end up as one of the best-known faces on American television? What does a rower, a sketch writer, a novelist and a blues singer have in common? And why would a performer with that much success tell a television host, in front of an audience, about severe depression? The answers start in Oxford, with a very Scottish household.

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• 2. A Rower's Son

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  Hugh Laurie was born on the 11th of June 1959 in the Blackbird Leys area of Oxford. He was the youngest of four children, with an older brother, Charles, and two older sisters, Susan and Janet. Their father, William George Ranald Mundell Laurie, was known as Ran. He worked as a physician, and at the 1948 London Games he won an Olympic gold medal in the coxless pairs in rowing.

  St Columba's Presbyterian Church in Oxford was where his Scottish-descended parents worshipped. Laurie says belief in God played little part at home, but a certain attitude to life did. His mother, Patricia, embodied it. He described her as "Presbyterian by character, by mood" and said, "I was frustration to her. She didn't like me."

  Pleasure was treated with suspicion in that house, and Laurie still feels the effect. In his words, "I find pleasure a difficult thing; I don't know what you do with it, I don't know where to put it." He does not believe in God. Even so, he imagines that any watching destiny would take away whatever a person took for granted.

  The Dragon School in Oxford had him from age seven to 13. He later judged himself harshly: "I was, in truth, a horrible child. Not much given to things of a 'bookey' nature, I spent a large part of my youth smoking Number Six and cheating in French vocabulary tests." After that came Eton College, which he called "the most private of private schools".

  Rowing was the family trade, and he took it seriously. In 1977 he was in the junior coxed pair that won the British national title. The same year he represented Britain's Youth Team at the Junior World Rowing Championships. In 1978 he enrolled at Selwyn College, Cambridge, "as a result of family tradition", because his father had studied there. He said he was "trying to follow in his father's footsteps".

  By 1980, Laurie and his partner J.S. Palmer were runners-up in the Silver Goblets coxless pairs for Eton Vikings rowing club. That year he earned a Blue in the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, which Cambridge lost by five feet. He trained up to eight hours a day and was on course to become an Olympic-standard rower. Alongside the boat club, he studied archaeology and anthropology, specialising in social anthropology, and graduated with third-class honours. He also joined the Hermes Club and the Hawks' Club, and later the Leander Club, one of the oldest rowing clubs in the world.

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• 3. Footlights and Fry

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  Glandular fever forced Laurie out of rowing, and he turned to the Cambridge Footlights. This university dramatic club has produced many well-known performers, including members of Monty Python. There he met Emma Thompson. They had a romantic relationship, and the two remain good friends. Thompson introduced him to Stephen Fry, who became his comedy partner.

  In 1980-81, his final year at university, Laurie was president of the Footlights, with Thompson as vice-president. Their annual revue was The Cellar Tapes, written mainly by Laurie and Fry. The cast also included Tony Slattery, Paul Shearer and Penny Dwyer. At the Edinburgh Fringe Festival it won the first Perrier Comedy Award, which Rowan Atkinson presented.

  A West End transfer followed, and a television version of the revue was broadcast in May 1982. Granada Television then chose Laurie, Fry and Thompson, along with Ben Elton, Robbie Coltrane and Siobhan Redmond, to write and perform a new sketch show. It was called Alfresco and ran for two series. The group later poked fun at themselves in the sitcom The Young Ones. In the episode "Bambi", Laurie, Fry, Thompson and Elton appear on University Challenge as representatives of "Footlights College, Oxbridge".

  Blackadder, written by Ben Elton and Richard Curtis, starred Rowan Atkinson and gave Laurie his first long-running comic roles. Between 1986 and 1989 he appeared in three series. He first turned up in the last two episodes of Blackadder II. In "Beer" he was Blackadder's drunken friend Simon Partridge, and in "Chains" he was the villainous Prince Ludwig the Indestructible. In Blackadder the Third he became Prince George. In Blackadder Goes Forth he played Lieutenant George.

  With Fry, Laurie made the BBC sketch series A Bit of Fry & Laurie. They also made Jeeves and Wooster, a television adaptation of P. G. Wodehouse's stories. Laurie played Bertie Wooster, the amiable twit who employs Jeeves. The pair joined charity stage events too, including Hysteria! 1, 2 & 3, Amnesty International's The Secret Policeman's Third Ball, and the Comic Relief television shows. They also hosted the variety show Fry and Laurie Host a Christmas Night with the Stars, and in 1992 they made the film Peter's Friends.

  In 2008, the Blackadder years came back to him on a Hollywood set. His former Blackadder producer, John Lloyd, travelled to the set of House to interview him for Blackadder Rides Again. Laurie recalled his time on the series. Two years later, in 2010, he and Fry returned to the stage together in a retrospective show titled Fry and Laurie Reunited.

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• 4. Before the Hospital

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  Letters from a Bomber Pilot, a 1985 Thames Television film, gave Laurie his first serious acting role. It was directed by David Hodgson and dramatised from the letters home of Pilot Officer J.R.A. "Bob" Hodgson. He flew with RAF Bomber Command and was killed in action in 1943.

  Music videos pulled him in next. Kate Bush's 1986 single "Experiment IV" had a video with Laurie in it. In 1992, he appeared in the video for Annie Lennox's "Walking on Broken Glass", dressed in British Regency costume beside John Malkovich.

  Emma Thompson adapted and starred in Sense and Sensibility in 1995, and Laurie appeared in it. In Disney's live-action 101 Dalmatians, released in 1996, he played Jasper, one of the bumbling criminals hired to kidnap the puppies. He then appeared in the Spice Girls' film Spice World in 1997, and in 1998 he made a brief guest appearance on Friends, in the episode "The One with Ross's Wedding". Ben Elton's adaptation of his own novel Inconceivable arrived in 2000 as Maybe Baby. Girl from Rio, Stuart Little and the 2004 version of The Flight of the Phoenix also appear on his list.

  Television and voice work filled the gaps. In 2001 he voiced a bar patron in the Family Guy episode "One If by Clam, Two If by Sea". He voiced Mr. Wolf in the cartoon Preston Pig, and he sat on the panel of the very first QI, with Fry as host.

  In 2002 he guest-starred in two episodes of the first series of the BBC One spy thriller Spooks. In 2003 he starred in ITV's comedy-drama fortysomething, and he also directed it. Fry appears in one of its episodes. Also in 2004, his long run as Dr. Gregory House began.

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• 5. The Diagnostician

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  Bryan Singer, an executive producer on House, did not know Laurie was British when he saw the audition tape. He pointed to Laurie as an example of the "compelling American actor" he had been looking for. That judgment launched a role that lasted from 2004 to 2012 on Fox, with Laurie as an acerbic physician specialising in diagnostic medicine.

  The accent became a habit. Laurie kept the American voice between takes on set and during script read-throughs. He dropped it only when he directed the episode "Lockdown", where he used his native accent. He directed one other episode, "The C-Word".

  Honours came fast. In 2005 he received an Emmy nomination for the role but did not win. Golden Globes followed in 2006 and 2007, along with Screen Actors Guild awards in 2007 and 2009. His pay climbed from a rumoured mid-range five-figure sum to $350,000 per episode. The 2011 Guinness World Records listed him as the most-watched leading man on television, and as one of the highest-paid actors in a television drama.

  The 2006 Emmys passed him over, apparently to the outrage of Fox executives. He still appeared in a scripted, pre-taped introduction in which he parodied House, rapidly diagnosing host Conan O'Brien. Later he presented an Emmy alongside Dame Helen Mirren, speaking in French. He was nominated in 2007, 2008, 2009-2010 and 2011.

  The show's schedule cost him one part. Laurie was first cast as Perry White, editor of the Daily Planet, in Singer's film Superman Returns. He had to withdraw because of his commitment to House.

  NBC's Saturday Night Live invited him to host in October 2006. In one sketch with Kenan Thompson, he appeared in drag as the wife of a man with a broken leg who accuses his doctor of being dishonest. When he hosted a second time, on the Christmas show, he closed his monologue with a medley of three-second Christmas songs.

  Film and animation kept him busy as well. In Street Kings he played Captain James Biggs, opposite Keanu Reeves and Forest Whitaker. In 2009 he voiced the eccentric Dr. Herbert Cockroach, PhD, in DreamWorks' Monsters vs. Aliens. That same year, a second Family Guy episode, "Business Guy", had him parody Gregory House. In 2010, The Simpsons cast him in "Treehouse of Horror XXI" as Roger, a castaway plotting a murder on a ship during Homer and Marge's second honeymoon.

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• 6. After House

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  RoboCop was the first big role to slip away once House ended in 2012. Media reports said Laurie was negotiating to play the villain in a remake. The talks collapsed and he passed. That year he starred in The Oranges, an independent feature with a limited release. The Star-Ledger of Newark thought he was "particularly good". Afterward he took a three-year break from film and television.

  In 2014 he was in negotiations to play Blackbeard in the series Crossbones. The part went to John Malkovich instead.

  Veep brought him back to television in 2015. He played Tom James, a role written specifically for him after showrunner Armando Iannucci heard that Laurie was a fan of the show. He stayed on as a recurring player until the final series in 2019. In the HBO sitcom he plays a senator, and the role earned him his 10th Emmy nomination in 2017. In 2015 he also played the villain David Nix in Brad Bird's film Tomorrowland.

  The Night Manager began filming in spring 2015 as a BBC One miniseries. Laurie played the arms dealer Richard Onslow Roper, and he was an executive producer alongside Tom Hiddleston. It was his first role on British television in thirteen years. The part brought two Emmy nominations and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor - Series, Miniseries or Television Film.

  From 2016 to 2017, Laurie starred in two series of the Hulu thriller Chance. He played Dr Eldon Chance, a forensic neuropsychiatrist based in San Francisco. In 2018 he took a small role in Holmes & Watson, a film that critics panned.

  Iannucci brought him back in 2019 for The Personal History of David Copperfield, an adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel. The same year, Laurie was announced for Iannucci's HBO space comedy Avenue 5. The second series was released on the 10th of October 2022, with Laurie as Captain Ryan. In 2024 he played Eric Peterson in the third series of Tehran.

  More work was already lined up. He is slated to headline The Wanted Man for Apple TV+, as the crime lord Felix Carmichael. He was named the voice of Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter: The Full-Cast Audio Editions from Audible and Pottermore Publishing. The first audiobook was set for release on the 4th of November 2025. In December 2025, Deadline reported that he would play Neville in Dig, a new comedy from Amy Poehler and Mike Schur. Neville is a British archaeology professor, a field Laurie once studied at Cambridge.

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• 7. Blues and Piano

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  Piano lessons began when Laurie was six years old. He sings and plays piano, guitar, drums, harmonica and saxophone. He is also vocalist and keyboard player for Band From TV, a Los Angeles charity rock group. On Inside the Actors Studio in 2006, he performed one of his own comic songs, "Mystery", at the piano. For the film Maybe Baby he co-wrote and performed a humorous blues number, "Sperm Test in the Morning".

  House let him play too. On screen, his character handled a Gibson Flying V, a Les Paul, a piano and a Hammond B-3 organ. When Meat Loaf appeared in the House episode "Simple Explanation", it led to a friendship on record. Laurie played piano as a special guest on "If I Can't Have You", from Meat Loaf's 2010 album Hang Cool Teddy Bear.

  On the 26th of July 2010, it was announced that Laurie had signed with Warner Bros. Records to make a blues album. Let Them Talk came out in France on the 18th of April 2011 and in Germany on the 29th of April. Guests included Tom Jones, Irma Thomas and Dr. John. The album reached number two in the UK and earned a Gold certification there. In France it was certified double platinum.

  Live performance followed quickly. On the 1st of May 2011, Laurie and a jazz quintet closed the Cheltenham Jazz Festival to great acclaim. ITV's series Perspectives devoted its the 15th of May 2011 episode to him, as he explained his love for New Orleans music and played songs from the album in the city. PBS Great Performances broadcast Let Them Talk on the 30th of September 2011, also about New Orleans jazz.

  His second album, Didn't It Rain, was released in the UK on the 6th of May 2013 and reached number three there. That year he also played with his band on the RMS Queen Mary. The concert was filmed and later released on DVD and Blu-ray as Live on the Queen Mary.

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• 8. Private Life and Honours

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  The Gun Seller, published in 1996, was Laurie's first novel. It was an intricate thriller laced with the humour of Wodehouse, and it became a best-seller. The link was no accident. In a 1999 article in The Daily Telegraph, he explained that reading Wodehouse novels had "saved his life".

  On Inside the Actors Studio in 2006, Laurie told host James Lipton about his struggles with severe clinical depression. He said he first realised something was wrong while driving in a charity demolition derby. Watching two cars collide and explode left him bored, not excited or frightened. As he joked, "boredom is not an appropriate response to exploding cars".

  On the 16th of June 1989, Laurie married the theatre administrator Jo Green in the Camden area of London. They have three children. Stephen Fry was best man at the wedding and is godfather to the children. Their elder son played baby William in the A Bit of Fry & Laurie sketch "Special Squad". Their daughter played five-year-old Vivian Bearing in the film Wit.

  Laurie's mother died in 1989 from motor neurone disease, at the age of 73. He says she endured it for two years, suffering "painful, plodding paralysis". His father looked after her, and Laurie has called him "the sweetest man in the whole world".

  Two motorbikes sit in his garages, one at his London home and one at his Los Angeles home. The American one is a Triumph Bonneville, which he calls his "feeble attempt to fly the British flag". He supports Arsenal F.C. In 2013 he appeared on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs for the second time. His eight picks included Joe Cocker, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Randy Newman, Professor Longhair, Son House, Nina Simone, the Lester Young-Buddy Rich Trio and Van Morrison. His first visit, in 1996, had featured Muddy Waters, Max Bruch, the Rolling Stones, Frank Sinatra with Count Basie, Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Van Morrison and Dr. John.

  He has won three Golden Globe Awards and two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and has been nominated for 10 Primetime Emmy Awards. He was appointed OBE for services to drama in the 2007 New Year Honours, and promoted to CBE in the 2018 New Year Honours. In 2012 his old college, Selwyn College, Cambridge, made him an Honorary Fellow. A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame followed in 2016. In July 2018, the Royal Academy of Music named him an Honorary Member.

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