James Hugh Calum Laurie is an English actor, comedian, writer, and musician.
63 Facts About Hugh Laurie
2.
Hugh Laurie first gained recognition for his work as one half of the comedy double act Fry and Laurie with Stephen Fry.
3.
Hugh Laurie appeared in two series of the period comedy Blackadder alongside Rowan Atkinson.
4.
From 2004 to 2012, Laurie starred as Dr Gregory House on the Fox medical drama series House.
5.
Hugh Laurie received two Golden Globe Awards and many other accolades for the role, and was listed in the 2011 Guinness World Records as the most watched leading man on television and was one of the highest-paid actors in a television drama at the time, earning $409,000 per episode of House.
6.
Hugh Laurie has appeared in films, including Peter's Friends, Sense and Sensibility, 101 Dalmatians, The Borrowers, The Man in the Iron Mask, Stuart Little, Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows, Arthur Christmas in which he voiced Steven Claus, and The Personal History of David Copperfield.
7.
Hugh Laurie has won three Golden Globe Awards and two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and has been nominated for 10 Primetime Emmy Awards.
8.
Outside of acting, Hugh Laurie released the blues albums Let Them Talk and Didn't It Rain, both to favourable reviews, and authored the novel The Gun Seller.
9.
Hugh Laurie was appointed OBE in the 2007 New Year Honours and CBE in the 2018 New Year Honours, both for services to drama.
10.
Hugh Laurie was born on 11 June 1959, in the Blackbird Leys area of Oxford, the youngest of four children of Patricia and William George Ranald Mundell "Ran" Hugh Laurie, who was a physician and winner of an Olympic gold medal in the coxless pairs at the 1948 London Games.
11.
Hugh Laurie has an older brother, Charles Alexander Lyon Mundell Laurie, and two older sisters, Susan and Janet.
12.
Hugh Laurie had a strained relationship with his mother, whom he noted as "Presbyterian by character, by mood".
13.
Hugh Laurie arrived at Selwyn College, Cambridge, in 1978, which he says he attended "as a result of family tradition" since his father went there.
14.
Hugh Laurie notes that his father was a successful rower at Cambridge and that he was "trying to follow in [his] father's footsteps".
15.
Hugh Laurie studied archaeology and anthropology, specialising in social anthropology, and graduated with third-class honours in 1981.
16.
Hugh Laurie achieved a Blue while taking part in the 1980 Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race.
17.
Hugh Laurie is a member of the Leander Club, one of the oldest rowing clubs in the world, and was a member of the Hermes Club and Hawks' Club.
18.
Hugh Laurie introduced him to his future comedy partner, Stephen Fry.
19.
Fry and Hugh Laurie worked together on various projects throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
20.
Hugh Laurie starred in the Thames Television film Letters from a Bomber Pilot directed by David Hodgson.
21.
Hugh Laurie appeared in the music videos for the 1986 single "Experiment IV" by Kate Bush, and the 1992 Annie Lennox single "Walking on Broken Glass" in British Regency period costume alongside John Malkovich.
22.
Hugh Laurie appeared in the Spice Girls' film Spice World and had a brief guest-starring role on Friends in "The One with Ross's Wedding".
23.
Since 2002, Hugh Laurie has appeared in a range of British television dramas, guest-starring that year in two episodes of the first season of the spy thriller series Spooks on BBC One.
24.
Hugh Laurie voiced the character of Mr Wolf in the cartoon Preston Pig.
25.
Hugh Laurie was a panellist on the first episode of QI, alongside Fry as host.
26.
In 2004, Hugh Laurie guest-starred as a professor in charge of a space probe called Beagle, on The Lenny Henry Show.
27.
Between 2004 and 2012, Hugh Laurie starred as an acerbic physician specialising in diagnostic medicine, Dr Gregory House, in the Fox medical drama House.
28.
Hugh Laurie was in Namibia filming Flight of the Phoenix and recorded his audition tape for the show in the bathroom of the hotel, as it was the only place he could get enough light.
29.
Hugh Laurie adopted the accent between takes on the set of House, as well as during script read-throughs, although he used his native accent when directing the episode "Lockdown".
30.
Hugh Laurie served as director for the episode "The C-Word".
31.
Hugh Laurie was nominated for an Emmy Award for his role in House in 2005.
32.
Hugh Laurie was awarded a large increase in salary, from what was rumoured to be a mid-range five-figure sum to $350,000 per episode.
33.
Hugh Laurie was not nominated for the 2006 Emmys, apparently to the outrage of Fox executives, but he still appeared in a scripted, pre-taped intro, where he parodied his House character by rapidly diagnosing host Conan O'Brien and then proceeded to grope him as the latter asked him for help to get to the Emmys on time.
34.
Hugh Laurie was initially cast as Perry White, the editor of the Daily Planet, in Singer's film Superman Returns but had to bow out of the project because of his commitment to House.
35.
In July 2006, Hugh Laurie appeared on Inside the Actors Studio, where he performed one of his own comic songs, "Mystery", accompanying himself on the piano.
36.
Hugh Laurie hosted NBC's Saturday Night Live, in which he appeared in drag in a sketch about a man with a broken leg who accuses his doctor of being dishonest.
37.
Hugh Laurie hosted Saturday Night Live for the second time on the Christmas show in which he sang a medley of three-second Christmas songs to close his monologue.
38.
In 2009, Hugh Laurie returned to guest star in another Family Guy episode, "Business Guy", parodying Gregory House.
39.
In 2010, Hugh Laurie guest starred in The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror XXI" as Roger, a castaway who is planning a murder scheme on a ship during Homer and Marge's second honeymoon.
40.
On 13 June 2012, the media announced that Hugh Laurie was in negotiations to play the villain in RoboCop, a remake of the original RoboCop film.
41.
In 2012, Hugh Laurie starred in an independent feature called The Oranges that had a limited release.
42.
Hugh Laurie was in negotiations to be cast in the role of Blackbeard for the 2014 series Crossbones.
43.
Hugh Laurie continued to recur on the show until the final season in 2019.
44.
Hugh Laurie played Richard Onslow Roper in the BBC 1 mini-series The Night Manager.
45.
Hugh Laurie starred as Dr Eldon Chance, a San Francisco-based forensic neuropsychiatrist in the Hulu thriller series Chance which lasted for two seasons from 2016 to 2017.
46.
In 2019 Hugh Laurie appeared in Veep creator Armando Iannucci's film The Personal History of David Copperfield, an adaptation of the novel David Copperfield by Charles Dickens.
47.
Season 2 of Avenue 5 was released on 10 October 2022, with Hugh Laurie reprising his role as Captain Ryan.
48.
Hugh Laurie is a vocalist and keyboard player for the Los Angeles charity rock group Band From TV.
49.
Additionally, following Meat Loaf's appearance in the House episode "Simple Explanation", Hugh Laurie played piano as a special guest on the song "If I Can't Have You" from Meat Loaf's 2010 album Hang Cool Teddy Bear.
50.
On House, Hugh Laurie played several classic rock 'n roll instruments including Gibson Flying V and Les Paul guitars.
51.
Hugh Laurie's character has a Hammond B-3 organ in his home and on one episode performed the introduction to Procol Harum's classic "Whiter Shade of Pale".
52.
On 26 July 2010, it was announced that Hugh Laurie would be releasing a blues album after signing a contract with Warner Bros.
53.
Hugh Laurie followed that up as the subject of the 15 May 2011 episode of ITV's series Perspectives, explaining his love for the music of New Orleans and playing music, from his album Let Them Talk, at studios and live venues in the city itself.
54.
Hugh Laurie was the subject of PBS Great Performances Let them Talk, about New Orleans jazz, first broadcast on 30 September 2011.
55.
Hugh Laurie has since been working on the screenplay for a film version.
56.
Hugh Laurie married theatre administrator Jo Green on 16 June 1989 in the Camden area of London.
57.
Hugh Laurie told host James Lipton that he first concluded he had a problem whilst driving in a charity demolition derby, during which he realised that seeing two cars collide and explode made him feel bored rather than excited or frightened; he quipped that "boredom is not an appropriate response to exploding cars".
58.
Hugh Laurie is an avid motorcycle enthusiast and has two motorbikes, one at his London home and one at his Los Angeles home.
59.
Hugh Laurie's bike in the US is a Triumph Bonneville, his self-proclaimed "feeble attempt to fly the British flag".
60.
Hugh Laurie has won three Golden Globe Awards and two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and has been nominated for 10 Primetime Emmy Awards.
61.
In March 2012, Hugh Laurie was made an Honorary Fellow of his alma mater Selwyn College, Cambridge.
62.
On 23 May 2007, Hugh Laurie was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to drama in the 2007 New Year Honours.
63.
Hugh Laurie was promoted to Commander of the same Order for his services to drama in the 2018 New Year Honours.