look less chic, wearing what I’m sure is the same outfit he has favoured for years: a dark-blue, yellow-tipped polo shirt, black jeans and blue Nikes, his hair tousled, a rough beard, a handsome, appealing face that is starting to show the cares and creases of his 50 years. Through it all peer his sharp, quizzical blue eyes.
To the amusement of some of his friends, Laurie is not just a global superstar now, mobbed and needing protection from bodyguards when he ventures even to places such as Spain; he has been transformed into an international heart-throb and sex symbol. As is soon apparent.
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A young, blonde English actress trots over and introduces herself, arching her back and thrusting her breasts forward to impressive effect. She claims she’s from Belsize Park, in northwest London, where Laurie also lives, and tries to draw up a chair to sit with us before we politely discourage her. She is on her first visit to LA, she tells Laurie, and would very much like his advice. Actually, I think what she really wants is for Dr House to put her over his gammy knee and give her a damn good spanking. Which I am sure he would happily do. Laurie, however, is a trifle embarrassed, in a touchingly British kind of way, muttering pleasantries — “I don’t mean to give you the cold shoulder” — but clearly no longer surprised at the weird awkwardness of such encounters.
It’s not the only one. An American man comes over and says he met Laurh To Have qualified to Become a doctor. "in fact, 124 episodes of House Have Been broadcast up to now in America, and Laurie is signed up for two more seasons. His first one I Directed A Few weeks ago, and has Become an executive producer on the show. Now Believed To Be earning in the region of $ 400,000 an episode, Laurie has-been made wealthy Beyond his or Anyone's wildest dreams. All that money
dog and relentless numbing how obscure the day-to-day working life of an actor in an American television series CAN be. Especially for someone Such as Laurie, Who is in Almost Every scene, and on Whom Every episode depends. British tele-vision is a doddle by comparison - Blackadder, for example, in Which Appeared as Laurie Variousidiots over the years, stretched to just 24 episodes, half an hour each, over four seasons. Most seasons of House have had between 22 and 24 hour-long episodes, each taking nine or 10 days to shoot, in five-day weeks. That’s getting on for 45 or more weeks of the year, with 5am call times and 16-hour days not at all uncommon, especially in the early seasons.
“Those first years, that was tough going,” Laurie admits. “It was hard to keep morale up and keep concentrating, keep forging ahead.” It didn’t help that for the longest time, British newspapers seemed full of reports of Laurie’s misery and his anguish at being separated so much from his family. Grumpy, gloomy Hugh Laurie became a tired newspaper cliché. Has it got easier, I wonder?
“It’s a way of living that, had you described it to me 10 years ago, I would have just found absurd beyond belief, inconceivable. But here we are. Yes, there were plenty of times when it was pretty overwhelming, I think for everybody. Like anybody completely absorbed in a single thing, it’s rather unhealthy. It’s the sort of thing you can do for a certain period of time — in a sort of emergency state — but you can’t live like that indefinitely because you start popping rivets.
“Look, it sounds like I’m moaning,” he adds. “I am constantly aware of my good fortune. But the thing is, Almost nothing in this life is as easy as it looks. I did work very, very hard - I do still - But It has-been very rewarding, very enjoyable, and I work with a terrific bunch of people. So I feel blessed. "
Also Got Easier It has historical as Children, Who are now 21, 19 and 16, Have grown up. After six years, Laurie and His family seem to Have Settled Into a comfortable rhythm. In years past, I says, I Would Have flown home for four days for the Presidents' Day holiday, DURING Which We Are meeting. "But now my Children Are Scattered to the four winds, I can not go and see them all anyway." His wife Jo spends much of her time in LA with him already. With an unaccustomed
day off, Laurie spent the morning boxing. How else do you pass your downtime out here? “Oh, I play the piano. And I play in a band” — the so-called Band from TV, which includes stars from a number of top American television series and does charity gigs. Laurie plays keyboard and sings.
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I’m sure he can get glum, and his mind naturally tends towards the philosophical, but Laurie’s default demeanour seems to be a refreshing wry amusement, often about himself. However heavy the burdens may have felt to him in the past, there seems even a breeziness about him now. That is partly because, as House has sustained its success and creative energy — it has won just about every possible award, including four Emoesn't events like good people. "What does
MOST I like about him? "I suppose I am drawn to worry People Who, Who Are Tortured. I find I am always faintly suspicious of happy people. I always think "There Is Something going wrong or missing somewhere. They Probably Would Argue That I am the one with the thing missing, And That May Be So. But The Fact That He is not happy Makes a lot of historical mis-demeanours more forgivable. If someone is Behaving Badly, yet unhappy and Tortured Remains, the Bad Behaviour is very Often Its Own punishment, so it's hard to be too upset by it. "
As hard as it May Have Been at times, Laurie is Even going to find it harder to say goodbye to Gregory House When the Time
OK, I
